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In the early 1960s, Seattle’s city fathers were confident their city was an attractive and growing market. Its cultural amenities in sports, however, were limited. Power-boat racing and University of Washington football were the major sports in town. The city had hosted professional baseball since 1903, but the teams were all in the minor leagues. […]

Speculating on ultimately unanswerable questions remains one of most fascinating aspects for those of us who study baseball history. For example, how might many of the all-time records differ if Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, and all of the other great Negro League stars had been eligible to play in white Organized Ball? How […]

Dick Hall’s trade to the Baltimore Orioles — with Dick Williams — on April 12, 1961, for Jerry Walker and Chuck Essegian, was influenced by Charles Finley’s resolve not to trade with the Yankees, a team he despised. Finley once pointed a school bus in the direction of New York and burned it to symbolize […]

Mickey Mantle is carried off on a stretcher after injuring his knee during the 1951 World Series at Yankee Stadium. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   A batter takes a fastball to the ribs. An outfielder crashes into the wall trying to make a circus catch. A baserunner steps on the side of first […]

Instead of using shovels, Judge Roy Hofheinz and other officials fire six-shooters at the ceremonial ground-breaking. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS)   “Houston Astrodome or Bust” —Tagline for Bad News Bears in Breaking Training   The Astrodome was born in spectacle, a very Texan sort of spectacle, tied to the state’s historical heritage and […]

Advertisement for August 19, 1963 exhibition game featuring the New York Yankees against the International League All-Stars at Buffalo ’s War Memorial Stadium. (Buffalo Courier-Express, August 19, 1963)   Fans in Montreal and Toronto watched major-league baseball teams years before the Expos or Blue Jays came to town. Same thing with Milwaukee and the Braves […]

Introduction and Context In 1973, when 24 teams existed in major-league baseball, the sport conducted its annual Winter Meetings in Houston, Texas, from December 3 to December 7. Several issues or topics dominated these meetings. A relatively complex managerial situation, featuring Ralph Houk, who had been the manager of the New York Yankees, and Dick […]

The 1959 Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant despite a league-average offense. Under manager Al Lopez, the “Go-Go” Sox combined speed, fielding, and—especially—pitching to shatter the New York Yankees’ four-year run of AL championships. The 1959 pitching staff was anchored by starters Early Wynn (age 39), Billy Pierce (32), and Dick Donovan (31). […]

In Baseball Research Journal 33 Fred Worth presented an intriguing article titled “Interesting Statistical Combinations,” analyzing combinations like high batting average and low walks or lots of losses but a low ERA. He concluded the article, “Obviously there are many more comparisons that could be considered.” I took this as a challenge and investigated a number […]

In the summer of 1948, two of the nation’s premier major-league pitching prospects were Georgia boys—Willard Nixon of Lindale and Hugh Radcliffe of Thomaston. Both were multisport stars with a special talent for baseball. Both were big, strong, righthanded pitchers who had dominated opposing batters wherever they had pitched. Both attracted the attention of almost […]

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 […]

Can there be a star quality team without any All­ Stars? Can a team compiled entirely of All-Stars be mediocre? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes, at least theoretically. Kirk Gibson won an MVP Award but was never named to a single All-Star roster during bis entire career. John Denny won the […]

Topps commemorated Ryan Zimmerman’s 11th career walk-off with a collectible card in 2018. (THE TOPPS COMPANY)   “The pressure is on him, man. It’s not on me. I’m supposed to get out.” — Ryan Zimmerman1 Baseball games are filled with moments of great theater. What do we expect before the curtain rises? Perhaps a great […]

“The unionization of professional athletes has been the most important labor relations development in professional sports since their inception.”1 Journalist Studs Terkel called Marvin Miller “the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis,” long-time president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.2 Actually, he may have sold Miller […]

In recent years, statistics have been developed to facilitate comparisons of player performances across seasons and across generations. One such statistic, OPS+, places a players’ OPS (on-base plus slugging) into the context of the league’s OPS, adjusted by a park factor. An .800 OPS in a pitcher’s year such as 1968 results in a higher […]

Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published in the SABR Deadball Era Research Committee’s February 2015 newsletter. This article expands upon a well-received presentation at SABR 44 in 2014 in Houston. Supporting documentation and other aspects of the research upon which this article is founded has been posted on the SABR website […]

Some professional baseball teams did not include dates on regular season tickets before 1974. Therefore, many stubs exist as a tangible part of sports history, but remain unidentified and have lost their historical significance. This study attempts to identify pre-1974 regular season grandstand and bleacher tickets issued by the New York Yankees. Numerous unique details […]

Ed Barrow (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The Toronto franchise of the International League was one of the strongest and had one of the longest tenures—from 1895 (when the league was called the Eastern League) until 1967. Ed Barrow had a lengthy, esteemed career as a baseball executive that ultimately landed him in the National Baseball Hall […]