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“STAND UP STRAIGHT!” the old gentleman barked at me. He was a former dance instructor, and cared about visitors’ postures. The man stood bent over, suffering from osteoarthritis, but every once in a while flashed a fleshy smile. At 88, his head was still covered with hair, mostly white. Back when his hair was black, […]

Kansas City Ball Park Tour: 18 miles Start at SW Blvd. & Summit (Athletic Field), go northeast on SW Blvd., past Broadway (Pastime Park) to Main, north on Main to Truman Road, east on Tuman Road to McGee, north on McGee, Past 14th (Exercise Field) to 6th Street, east on 6th, past Oak (freeway is […]

A bronze plaque erected by the City of Bisbee in May 1994 proclaims Warren Ballpark in that southeast Atizona municipality as the oldest baseball stadium in Arizona. But Bisbee’s boast may be too modest. This classic structure, which was constructed in 1909, may in fact be the oldest ballpark in the United States now being […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 31 (2002).   John McGraw was one of the most successful baseball managers ever, leading the New York Giants to ten pennants in his 30 years with the club. His arrival in mid-1902 marked the turning point in the fortunes of the Giants, a […]

Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   In the immediate aftermath of World War II, minor-league baseball enjoyed unprecedented popularity. The year 1949 marked its peak with the minors boasting 59 leagues and 448 teams.1 Nowhere was this renaissance more evident than in North Carolina. Baseball has long been popular in North Carolina—only Texas has […]

Until the Dodgers and Giants come to their senses and return home to New York, Casey Stengel remains the only figure in history to have worn the uniform of these four New York City teams: the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets. The coincidence of this was no small thing to Casey, who died in 1975, […]

Someone was missing from the 1874 National Association convention, and his absence underscored one of the major weaknesses of the three-year-old organization. The absentee was the president of the NA, Robert Ferguson, who during his two years in office had taken little interest in the management of the association, treating his appointment as more ceremonial […]

William Shuttleworth and Harry Sweetman of the Maple Leaf Baseball Club of Hamilton, 1860. (Toronto Globe, August 15, 1903)   After quietly resting in the backroom of Canadian sports history for over a century, William Shuttleworth is now fully recognized for his role in establishing the country’s first formal team, the Young Canadians (later Maple […]

Is Henry Aaron a greater player than Willie Mays? Was Joe DiMaggio better than Ted Williams? Those were just two of the tough decisions members of the Society for American Baseball Research were asked to make in a survey of the greatest baseball players born in the different states. Aaron and Mays were matched because […]

Jackie Robinson lifts a pennant to commemorate his being traded from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the New York Giants on December 14, 1956, at his home in Brooklyn. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   In October 1956, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the New York Yankees in the World Series for the sixth time in Jackie Robinson’s 10 years […]

This article was originally published in “Baseball in the Buckeye State,” the 2004 SABR convention journal.   The evolution of baseball’s playing and scoring rules was a slow and turbulent process beginning in the nineteenth century. Apart from the early establishment of such basics as four bases and their 90-foot separations, there was plenty of […]

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination, and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet […]

A day after the New York Yankees lost the 1921 World Series to their landlords, the New York Giants, the squad gathered at the Polo Grounds to divide $87,756.67, the losers’ share of the postseason proceeds. During the meeting, each player also received a letter signed by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis reiterating Article IV, Section […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Vol. 1 (1986). A person’s first impression of baseball literature usually comes from library books, usually from the juvenile fiction section. Judging from what I see as a librarian, there are no more series of baseball books being published today for 8- to 12-year-olds. […]

Joe DiMaggio. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Perhaps the Pacific Coast League never had a chance. For decades, the PCL was baseball to fans along the Pacific Coast, the closest thing to the major leagues recognized in the East and Midwest. The league thrived before the age of air travel, but as modernization shrank the country, the PCL […]

Author’s note: The following compilation of illustrated baseball books has been necessarily limited by my own research interests. I am predominantly a 19th century researcher, though my involvement carries into the early 1900s. My library contains volumes which reflect this bias, and consequently the following short list is strongest in pictorial coverage from 1930 back. […]

It’s the top of the 10th inning, and there is one out in this hotly contested All-Star Game. A runner is on third by way of the triple, another on first via the intentional walk, but now the pitcher has this batter on the ropes with a 2–2 count. The crowd is evenly split between […]

In Eight Men Out, author Eliot Asinof wrote about the 1919 Chicago White Sox: “Many players of less status got almost twice as much on other teams. … (Charles Comiskey’s) ballplayers were the best and were paid as poorly as the worst.” This passage sums up the entire foundation of Asinof’s thesis: Low salaries and […]

Ty Cobb is usually thought of as the very embodiment of the Deadball Era hitter; the “Punch and Judy” counterpoint to the post-1920 Ruthian power game.1 This common misconception is underscored in a number of ways. First, it is supported by the types of players who have surpassed Cobb’s career records. Lou Brock bested his […]

The role of umpires in establishing public acceptance of organized baseball in its early years has been given little attention. This is especially true of umpires in the minor leagues. If mention is made at all, it usually concerns some colorful personality with a foghorn voice or a flair for poetry rather than an acknowledgement […]

Vinland baseball team circa 1920. (Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas)   Before sport became an integral aspect of Americana, early iterations of games catering to the working class were quite violent. In the eighteenth century, prizefighting, cockfights, and bear baiting, accompanied by drinking and gambling, were common recreational activities. Pious Americans in Protestant […]