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Cy Young was around but there wasn’t any award presented in his name. There were valuable players, slick fielders, top rookies and managerial masterminds but there were no awards to be presented in tribute. All of which is unfortunate because a year’s listing of award winners provides a ready reference to the top performers for […]

Histories of the Philadelphia Phillies portray the club’s admission to the National League (NL) as a straightforward and swift process. Early in 1883, League president Abraham G. Mills informed former star player and old friend Alfred J. Reach that the Worcester franchise was moving to Philadelphia. Mills asked Reach — now a successful business entrepreneur […]

  Adrian “Cap” Anson was one of a handful of players whom William Hulbert pilfered from eastern clubs before the 1876 season.1 In a storied White Stockings career, Anson managed the team for 19 years, capturing five titles, becoming the first member of the 3,000 hit club, being elected to the Hall of Fame in […]

A playoff souvenir from the Ottawa Nationals. (City of Ottawa Archives, MG-946-1-1)   The Second World War ended, sparking a boom in affiliated minor-league baseball across Canada and the United States. In 1945, there were 12 leagues with 86 teams. The 1946 season began with 43 leagues and 316 teams. On December 9, 1945, a […]

New York Giants owner Andrew Freedman fired 13 managers between 1895 and 1902. He wasn’t the first to second-guess the actions of a manager, though he did help establish a time-honored tradition. In the years since, more than a few reputations and careers have suffered the ill-effects of the practice. Fans, owners, and journalists rightly […]

Mets Music When the New York Mets debuted in 1962, so did a song. More than a sonic icon, “Meet the Mets” is a member of the pantheon of Mets hallmarks occupied by Shea Stadium, Mr. Met, and the mantra “Ya Gotta Believe!” As any devotee of the blue and orange will tell you, “Meet […]

Rogers Hornsby’s will to excellence and his combativeness on the field won him a loyal following in the stands. Sportswriters, too, admired Hornsby because he answered questions in the same straightforward manner he took on a Walter Johnson fastball. However, his irascibility didn’t endear him with major league owners and front-office men. When one adds […]

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax at the Jewish American Heritage Month reception at the White House. Next to Koufax are his wife Jane Clarke Koufax and entertainer Theodore Bikel. May 27, 2010. (Photograph by White House photographer Alex Wong.)   On May 27, 2010, President Barack […]

Most baseball fans, and nonfans for that matter, would consider Beaneaters to be among the most interesting major-league team nicknames with longevity (i.e., multiyear usage as opposed to short-term fad). In 1883 the Boston NL team became unofficially recognized by various sportswriters as the Beaneaters, though like most major-league teams they were generally referred to […]

On September 21, 1954, the Atlanta Crackers, champions of the Double A Southern Association, and the Houston Buffaloes, champions of the Double A Texas League, squared off in Atlanta’s venerable Ponce de Leon Park in the first game of the 32nd annual Dixie Series, the South’s version of the World Series.1 Houston finished the regular […]

Spring in Ottawa Taunts. It teases and tantalizes, offering its charms in unexpected bursts, only to pull back its promise with cruel wintry blasts that test endurance and resilience. In January, spring is merely a concept, but as the days come off the calendar, there is cause for hope, perhaps distant, but hope, nonetheless. There […]

This essay is intended as an exploratory survey of baseball players of the 1880s, what they did in the offseason, and how — or if — they planned for their future economic security. The purpose is to examine how the individuals of this era responded to the economic opportunities offered by their baseball careers and […]

For about two weeks in July 1886, crowds gathered around a window on the Pryor Street side of the Kimball House in downtown Atlanta. The attraction was a set of cigarette-advertising cards that purported to represent what the Atlanta Constitution called “nine handsome female baseball players in attitudes common in that popular game.”1 According to […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 30 (2001).   As famed radio news commentator Paul Harvey might expound, “And now for the rest of the story.” What story? The one detailing the how and the who of the long-overlooked run batted in that, 69 years after Hack Wilson accomplished the […]

Clutch hitting is back in fashion in the baseball research com­munity. For years many of us looked in vain for the existence of some persistent clutch-hitting ability and, failing to find it, came to the conclusion that such an ability must not exist. The pioneer of this approach was Dick Cramer, who wrote an article on […]

For 21 years Theodore Amar Lyons pitched for the Chicago White Sox, endearing himself as no other player to South Side fans. He was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1955. Yet for all of his honors, two major aspects of Lyons’ career have never been properly assessed: the superiority of his own record […]

The 1994 players’ strike deprived baseball fans of many simple pleasures. Among the casualties were postseason play, Matt Williams’s assault on the single-season home-run record, and Tony Gwynn’s pursuit of the hallowed .400 batting average — a feat not achieved since Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941. The Padres entered the season, their 26th in […]

“Death to Flying Things” is one of the all-time great baseball nicknames, routinely included in lists of such things. Indeed, it serves double duty, attributed to two players: Robert Ferguson and John Chapman. Ferguson joined the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn in 1866 and played for various clubs through 1884. He managed clubs into 1887 and […]

Lobby card for “Kill the Umpire” (1950) starring William Bendix. (Author’s collection)   Most baseball fans would agree that the best umpire is the invisible umpire. Sure, the umps on the field ensure that the rules of the game are followed. They call balls and strikes. They determine if the fielder who dives for the […]

Editor’s note: This article describes an early version of SABR’s The Baseball Index database as it existed at the turn of the twenty-first century. To search the current database of The Baseball Index online, visit baseballindex.org.   Nearly all baseball research is drawn in some way from the printed word. Whether you’re researching a player […]

Bill Thomas. (Minor League Stars, SABR, 1978)   This is the story of two of the greatest pitchers in the history of the minor leagues. One was a lean righthander, 6 feet tall, 175 pounds, who pitched from 1926 to 1952 for 24 different teams in 24 seasons, but he never pitched in the major […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Twelve managers have won more games than Bill McKechnie. None has won more respect. Deacon Bill McKechnie was the first to lead three different teams to the World Series and the […]

“But then Clyde Sukeforth is an unusual fellow. He is a medium-sized, lithe-limbed chap with the expression of eternal youth in his sharp but regular features. He hails from up in the state of Maine and leads a rugged outdoor life the year round.” — Tommy Holmes1   Clyde Sukeforth shrugged off his importance to […]