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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 […]
Back in the early seventies, Ottawa had a baseball club (amateur) which was a real credit to the city. This club was Ottawa’s first real effort to play the game. … that pioneer team played real classy ball, which would compare favorably with any of the amateur baseball played today. — Ottawa Citizen, December 12, […]
I wish that someone had told me when I was 15 years old that Willie Stargell was starting a five-year tear that would transform him from a good home run hitter to one of baseball’s superstars. If they had, I would have taken more mental snapshots of the man who was not yet “Pops.” While […]
Speaking before a banquet of baseball aficionados in Philadelphia at the turn of the century, editor Francis Richter of Sporting Life extolled the “steady progress” baseball had made as business and sport since the inception of the National League. “Every patron of the sport,” he began, “knows that baseball is a fixed and stable-business which […]
Once upon a time, A.J. Liebling, consummate Manhattanite and writer for The New Yorker, dubbed Chicago America’s Second City.1 But in relation to New York-centric baseball movies, this AAA-league rating is extremely generous. Across the decades, baseball films with Chicago references have been relatively scarce. For every on-screen image of Wrigley Field, there are scores […]
Whenever a Negro Leagues veteran is asked about James “Red” Moore, the response is almost automatically: “He could pick it!” Then the player adds anything else that he has to say. Such is the reputation that the Atlanta-born former baseball star earned during his career in the Negro Leagues. Described by Atlanta Daily World sports […]
Selecting an all-time baseball team is an extremely precarious pastime, fraught with difficulties and likely to induce mental anguish. Therefore, we shall forego the best in favor of the jest. We could be Poles apart in naming our all-time Ski team, but our squad prefers fastballs to snowballs and running bases to […]
It has now been 86 years since John Gladstone “Jack” Graney first saw daylight in St. Thomas, Ontario, where he is still referred to as the finest baseball player in the city’s history. There he was known as “Glad” Graney, and during his days in the Big Leagues, whenever he heard a fan shout, “Hey, […]
The late Ed Linn, coauthor of Veeck—As in Wreck, later wrote in The Great Rivalry (1991), “I don’t care what anybody says, there is no rivalry on the face of the earth that can compare with the Yankees and Red Sox.”1 Linn, who died in 2000, might have been able to justify that statement more […]
This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989). Good afternoon, students. I am Professor Hailey, and this is Industrial Organization 162, “Baseball as a Business Enterprise” — which is better known around campus, I understand, as “Bats, Balls, and the Bottom Line.” In 1914 a New York court […]
Read a note from the editor of the BRJ.Are we all on a quest to glean meaning from life around us? Well, maybe not all people are, but I am, and I strongly suspect that many SABR members funnel that urge into their study of baseball. It doesn’t matter what creed you ascribe to — […]
There is beauty in finding that beneath a complex system, one so large and entrenched that it seems to operate under its own power, there is a history that is quite human. The work of a person, perhaps a small band of people, fueled by energy and sweat equity, and perhaps a dollop of obsessiveness, […]
65 players have had 80 or more extra-base hits in a season. Lou Gehrig did it ten times and Babe Ruth nine. Only once since 1941 have four achieved the feat in the same year. Every fan has an idea of which players qualify as sluggers and which do not. Any definition of slugger […]
This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Vol. 1 (1986). Who reads baseball juveniles? It’s pretty sure the kids still do; those series books in the shelves at Braswell Memorial Library here in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, look pretty well-thumbed to me. I’m hoping that adults do, too, or that […]
On February 15, 1928, the University of California baseball squad took on a local semi-pro team by the name of the Ambrose Tailors in an early-season exhibition game. Such a contest normally would have generated little interest from the baseball-viewing public, who tended to wait for intercollegiate play before turning out to support the Bears. […]
Not fireworks. Not a chance to win a boat. Not even sunny evenings in the valley watching an improving ball team go on a hot streak. Not even a home-run basher nicknamed Muscles coming to town.1 None of those could bring folks out to Blakely Field to welcome and watch the Miners of Welch, West […]
This article was originally published in the 1984 SABR convention journal (Providence, Rhode Island). The semi-pro baseball season of 1875 at Adelaide Park was so successful that Gen. Dennis and his associates placed a much faster team on the field in 1876, one that would hold its own with any independent team in New […]
As the 1875 baseball season approached, William Hulbert, the president of the Chicago White Stockings, was livid. Chicago’s entry in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) had attempted, prior to the end of the 1874 season, to sign their star shortstop, Davy Force, for the next year. Such a move violated the […]
Roger Kahn coined the phrase “The Era” to represent New York City baseball from 1947 through 1957.1 During this era the Yankees won nine AL pennants and seven World Series, the Dodgers won six NL pennants and one world championship, and the Giants won two NL pennants and one World Series. While this success certainly […]
Baseball, more than any other sport, has had a central role in American life and regularly finds itself in court. As a result there are now more than 10,000 published judicial decisions regarding baseball.1 While many writers have examined these decisions from a national or holistic perspective, this article will discuss many of those cases […]
In 1971, Satchel Paige became the first Negro Leagues player to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was the same year the Pirates fielded the first all-black lineup in major-league history on their way to a World Series title. Since 1971, over 30 Negro Leagues players and executives have been elected to […]
We always remember the exploits of our favorite sports stars. Their accomplishments are relived and dissected by casual fans and historians alike. The same holds true for those who reach a certain level of notoriety, that one great (or infamous) season, series, or moment that defines a career. For most players history is not so […]
“I don’t give a damn about O’Malley.” Hank Greenberg was furious. The 6-foot-4 Hall of Famer towered over Commissioner Ford Frick, who had just told him what he did not want to hear: Before Greenberg could put an American League expansion team in Los Angeles, he would have to pay tribute to Dodgers owner Walter […]