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The Asahi in Osaka, Japan, during their 1925 tour. From left, back row: Kichitaro Okagaki, Nobukichi Ishikawa, Jay Nishida, Morio Sera, Harry Hashimoto, Jimmy Araki, Earl Tanbara, Mr. Takeshita, Fred Koba, and two Japanese officials. Front row: Tom Sakamoto, Sai Towata, Jimmie Yoshida, Jiggs Yamada, Frank Ito, Russell Hinaga, Ed Higashi. (Kanemoto Collection, Kifune Family […]

An industrial lot on the eastern edge of downtown Greenville, Texas, covered with heavy equipment, gives no sign of its grand history, except for one feature: a brick and concrete arch still stands with the welded metal inscription “Majors Stadium,” coated with a layer of primer paint, across the top. It takes an excellent imagination […]

Doug Harvey. (Courtesy La Patrie du Dimanche, December 3, 1959.)   Professional baseball in Ottawa was sporadic in the early to mid-twentieth century. From 1912 to 1915, the Ottawa Senators played in the Class-C (later Class-B) Canadian League and finished first in three of the four seasons. The Senators resurfaced in the Class-B Eastern Canada […]

From the beginning of professional baseball in the nineteenth century and continuing through the first decades of the twentieth, Georgia was a popular site for major-league spring training. Between 1871 and 1953, more than 20 major-league baseball franchises from 14 cities held their spring training in the state (see table 1).[fn]In order to prepare these […]

The Eastern Championship Association (ECA) was formed in 1881 by baseball clubs from New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. Two teams from Philadelphia were among its members, including the first one with the nickname Phillies. The Association had an unsettled existence — reflecting the institutional instability that afflicted organized baseball in the final quarter of […]

Prince Edward Island native and H&D League alumnus Vern Handrahan with the Kansas City Athletics in 1966. (Prince Edward Island Sports Hall of Fame)   The Halifax and District (H&D) Baseball League was a postwar offspring of the Second World War when Nova Scotia, and Halifax in particular, served as a major debarkation point for […]

The Ball It all started with a baseball. My wife Marilee’s otherwise wonderful family are not big baseball fans. With the exception of my father-in-law Robert Belliveau’s golf club and ball design expertise (he was an innovative design engineer with Spalding), sports are not typically the topic of conversation at family gatherings. Marilee’s late grandmother […]

Just how bad were the early Texas Rangers teams? Put it this way: When reporter Mike Shropshire wrote a book about covering the Rangers from 1973 to ’75, he called it Seasons In Hell, and when that book was published, two decades later, the Rangers still hadn’t made the playoffs. Counting the ’60s, the decade […]

Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame for the past 10 years, wrote an entertaining article, “The Joy of Foul Balls,” in issue #25 of The National Pastime. At a recent SABR board meeting, Norman Macht read a couple of paragraphs aloud and the room convulsed with laughter for a […]

Ray Scarborough holds the first modern assigned win in baseball history, April 18, 1950.   A recurring question among SABR members in recent years involves the first modern win: when was the first win awarded to a starting pitcher incorporating a league-mandated rule requiring the five-inning minimum standard? On the SABR-L email list, historian David […]

2000 AAABA Champion Maryland Orioles with General Manager Walter Youse (center) and Manager Dean Albany (standing far left second row). (GREG PAUL)   Emergence of Summer College Baseball For more than a century, summertime baseball has been a significant part of the lives of young Marylanders. Over the decades, this has evolved from pickup games […]

On November 11, 1918, minor-league owners from 40 teams, representing seven leagues, were preparing for a somber discussion about whether baseball would even be played in the 1919 season1 when word came down that the World War had ended. The “war to end all wars” had caused an existential crisis throughout the baseball world. The […]

Introduction and Context Professional baseball was mired in conflict throughout 1901. The American League abandoned the National Agreement of 1892 and announced its intention to compete on equal terms with the National League. The National League faced not only an external threat from the self-proclaimed new major league, but internal disunity revolving around organization and […]

Babe Ruth, right, battled fiercely with Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert and manager Miller Huggins over the years. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   He filled the ballpark with fans who craved to see him hit the long ball. His home runs forever changed the game from scientific baseball to power hitting, and he helped […]

Roy Mack affixes his signature to an agreement selling the Athletics to the Philadelphia syndicate on October 17, 1954—a commitment Roy would betray just a day later in a backroom deal with Arnold Johnson. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Bill Renna was playing winter ball for the 1953–54 San Juan Senators, managed by […]

The stolen base is an exciting play which has many supporters in the ranks of managers as well as fans. However, the true effect of base stealing activity, including the negative components of caught stealing and pickoffs, has not received detailed analysis. There are three main reasons for the lack of detailed study. First, the […]

The San Francisco Giants – a party of more than 60, including players, management, and staff, plus embedded sportswriters – boarded their chartered Japan Airlines jet at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on the damp gray morning of Tuesday, March 31, 1970. Among the players, the prevailing mood was one of relief that their two-week ordeal in […]

Baseball is one of the few sports not dictated by a time clock, but its beautiful symmetry is what makes it unique: the ultimate game of equal opportunity. Countless contests in history have extended into extra innings. In some cases, overtime matchups have turned into drawn-out affairs leaving only the most ardent fans waiting for […]

Jackie Robinson playing in a spring training game vs. Havana Cubans. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   Separated by fewer than three miles, the Hotel Los Angeles near la Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and the Hotel Nacional in the city’s Vedado district were worlds apart. Sitting on a bluff overlooking El Malecón, Havana’s famed coastal roadway, the Nacional […]

This article was honored as a 2021 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award winner.   More than a decade has passed since American City Business Journals (ACBJ), a subsidiary of Advance Media, the company that bought the Sporting News in 2006, moved the publication’s editorial office from St. Louis to Charlotte, North Carolina, and closed The Sporting […]

The renovation of Yankee Stadium created Monument Park as a permanent home to monuments to Lou Gehrig, Miller Huggins, and Babe Ruth, as well as plaques to general manager Ed Barrow and others that previously sat in fair territory. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)   Here’s a thought exercise: Get a piece of paper and a […]

In a scene from the Marx Brothers’ “Animal Crackers”, Chico and Harpo attempt to switch a priceless painting with a copy. After the usual mayhem, the duo turns to exit, stage left. When they open the French doors, there’s a caterwauling of thunder, with lightning and sheets of rain. The pair close the doors, head […]

When you ask a Miami Marlins fan today, “Who is Mr. Marlin?” without hesitation you will get the response, “Jeff Conine,” who starred with the team for eight seasons. However, old-timers, who harken back to the days when minor league baseball ruled Miami, will give you a different answer: Woody Smith, a sure-handed third baseman […]

Sandy Koufax made the National League All-Star team each year from 1961 to 1966. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Who can truly be compared to the great Sandy Koufax? This article offers a historical comparison between Koufax and other “short-term-peak” pitchers. Ron Guidry and Johan Santana will be the comparisons, with concluding thoughts on a current pitcher, […]