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Discerning Beaneaters fans had a choice on Friday, May 19, 1893. Should they skip that afternoon’s game with the Brooklyn Bridegrooms because of the threatening weather or risk getting wet to see their heroes take on Ed Stein, the young season’s hottest pitcher? A 27-game winner the prior year, Stein, after dropping his first start, […]

“Of all the skills wrapped up in the complex game of big league baseball, none is practiced with more ingenuity and less publicity than the fine art of diamond larceny.” – Martin Abramson1 A wiring system sending signals to an in-ground junction box and a vibrating device or maybe a telescopic sight from a World […]

Edward Morgan Lewis was the first player in Boston Red Sox franchise history born outside of North America.1 Ted Lewis was born on Christmas Day 1872 in what was then the market town of Machynlleth, Wales, population slightly over 2,000, set in the lower Dyfi Valley about 10 miles from the coast. It’s also known […]

In September 1922, the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro Southern League played a nine-game “Dixie Series” with the Dallas Black Giants of the Texas Colored League to determine the Negro champion of the South. It was patterned after the white Dixie Series, which pitted the pennant winners of the Southern Association and Texas League. […]

Imagine a sudden official statement that George Washington was not, in fact, elected the first President of the United States. For followers of Puerto Rican baseball, such was the magnitude of the announcement that José “El Gacho” Torres, not Hiram Bithorn, was the first man born on the island to play in baseball’s “major leagues.” […]

When you examine the life of Abner Doubleday you eventually have to come to the point expressed by classic detective Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Okay, so here are two facts about General Abner Doubleday’s life. First, his military career was lengthy and he “was the highest ranking officer in the […]

Del Pratt was arguably the second-best second baseman of the second decade of the 20th century. And his argumentative nature led The New York Times’ John Kieran to call him “the greatest clubhouse lawyer baseball ever knew.” Pratt was born into a well-off family on January 10, 1888, in Walhalla, South Carolina, near the Georgia-North […]

While the North’s Civil War victory and the 13th Amendment ended slavery in 1865, ensuring political and civil rights for blacks remained an unsettled question. During the war, a new generation of black leaders emerged to succeed old abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Among them was Octavius Catto, a Renaissance man who […]

Twenty-five-year-old rookie Bert Brenner took the hill in the first game of a September 21, 1912, scheduled doubleheader (game 2 was rained out) in New York. The Cleveland Naps had purchased his contract from Racine and wanted to see what the youngster could do. Using mostly his fastball and working the corners, especially the inside […]

Art Shires arrived on the major league scene in 1928 with much fanfare, almost all of it of his own making.  The Italy, Texas native nicknamed himself “Art The Great,” once boasted that, next to Babe Ruth, he was the biggest drawing card in the American League, and frequently stopped passersby on the sidewalk to […]

Lefty Glover was one of the players who followed the Elite Giants when they relocated from Washington to Baltimore in 1938. Though he pitched for the Elites for over seven seasons, until recently Glover’s background and even his real name were clouded in mystery. However, the discovery of his death certificate in 2020 uncovered his […]

The mere mention of Edgar “Blue” Washington evokes thought and a curious smile, as he is undoubtedly one of the rarest of all Negro League treasures. During the early part of the twentieth century, Edgar flaunted his athleticism as a gallant young prizefighter in open-air boxing arenas in Southern California and on weekend afternoons could […]

Of all those who proudly wore the uniform of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, Monte Irvin was one of the last surviving players. He went on to a Hall of Fame career as a pioneering African American player in the major leagues. Montford Merrill Irvin was born in Haleburg, Alabama, on February […]

“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]

One of the most known and respected umpires of amateur baseball in Minnesota—as of this writing, in 2017—Larry Gallagher made it to the major leagues in 1979, working seven games when the regular umpires were on strike. He continues on the diamonds, making the calls for high-school, college, American Legion, and town teams, with a […]

Alonzo Perry had a successful Negro League career primarily as a pitcher but also as a first baseman and outfielder, and even pitched in the last Negro League World Series. Although he had two brief stints in the minor leagues, he became a baseball star in Latin America while playing in the Dominican Republic and […]

The Brattleboro, Vermont, newspaper read, “The death of Dr. O’Connor removes a capable physician…a man whose warm personality made friends of all his acquaintances, a husband who manifested a strong affection for his wife.”1 Dr. F. H. O’Connor had played briefly in the major leagues, making the comments reminiscent of Minnesota doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, […]

A onetime budding prospect in the Milwaukee Braves’ organization, Al Spangler drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn for his speed and pesky hitting throughout much of his early career. Seemingly in spite of the table-setting success of an Ashburn-like talent, Spangler often found himself on teams in search of a power-hitting slugger, […]

Dave Magadan was an artist with the bat. He lacked power. He lacked speed. He wasn’t known for his glove at either first or third base. But his deft spray hitting and patience at the plate — .390 lifetime on-base percentage — kept him in the majors from September 1986 through 2001. This skill also […]

Red Barber described how Graham McNamee helped break the ground for him and other great baseball voices, starting in the early 1920s. “There was no lamp of experience for the pioneer broadcasters. They had no past by which to judge the future. This is what made McNamee and the others so great. Nobody had ever […]

It took a special type of athlete to play for Chicago American Giants manger Rube Foster. He liked to engage in small ball and built his teams around speed and bunting. He wanted only smart competitors on his team. Foster was known to say, “If you haven’t got intelligence enough to fit into this play, […]

Note: This article was originally published at The National Pastime Museum on May 27, 2013, and is reprinted here by permission. By Jacob Pomrenke When Ban Johnson founded the American League in 1901, he strove to publicly distance his league from the rowdyism and lawlessness that had characterized the National League’s first quarter-century. The 1877 […]

Editor’s note: This article was presented at the SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium on September 28, 2019, in Chicago. It also appears in the SABR Business of Baseball Committee Newsletter, “Outside the Lines,” in Fall 2019. The story of the infamous Chicago Black Sox is well known, but less well understood. Groundbreaking research over […]

This article appears in SABR’s “The Base Ball Palace of the World: Comiskey Park” (2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.   Comiskey Park opened during the summer of 1910,1 and the Chicago White Sox broke in their new home with a 2-0 loss to the St. Louis Browns. After hosting decades of American League baseball […]