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The results support many homilies about the benefits that a pitcher enjoys by staying ahead of the hitter – and also show that batters hit 36 points higher with runners aboard than with the sacks empty.   One of baseball’s greatest attributes is that it is, at the same time, both an individual game and […]

As the story goes, in 1899 Barney Dreyfuss purchased the Pittsburgh National League club, arranged a trade with the team he previously owned, the Louisville Colonels, and spirited away all of Louisville’s best players, including Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, and Rube Waddell. This established the Pirates as one of the dominant National League teams for […]

This article was selected as the winner of the 2017 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award. So, turn the key with me and enter Room 509 of the [Hotel Carlos], the most famous place in Chicago that you barely knew existed. — (Kankakee, Illinois) Daily Journal and (Ottawa, Illinois) Daily Times, April 10, 2010 1 The 1932 […]

Jim Spencer had 36 major-league home runs at Yankee Stadium during his 15-year career, the first coming on August 6, 1969. However, his first Yankee Stadium homer came on August 12, 1963, in a tune-up game for the annual Hearst Sandlot Classic. Spencer was on the United States All-Stars, who defeated the Eastern Pennsylvania All-Stars, […]

If it weren’t for eBay, I never would have written this article. While browsing around the mega auction site I discovered a 1995 Baseball Research Journal for sale. I entered a last-minute bid (yes, I’m one of those guys) and won the auction with a $5 bid. One article in the 1995 BRJ was titled “Streaks” by Neal Moran. Moran […]

Pitcher Dick “Turk” Farrell was selected in 1962 to represent the expansion Houston Colt .45s franchise at both All-Star Games. In the expansion draft to fill the rosters of the new clubs in New York and Houston, the Mets elected to go with veterans, while Houston built on youth. Under manager Harry Craft and general […]

Here is the appendix for Pete Palmer’s article “Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing by Catchers” in the Spring 2014 Baseball Research Journal.

“I’d love to be the man going into Washington. I’ve always felt that city is one of the top two or three franchises in the nation.” – Frank Lane, general manager, Cleveland Indians1   October 26, 1960, started a new era of Washington Senators baseball. It began auspiciously enough. Senators’ president Calvin Griffith was relocating his […]

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 […]

  Roberto Clemente with the ball and bat used to hit #3,000. (Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)   The Great One. When looking at players’ performances both on and off the field over the past several decades, few have surpassed the work of The Great One, Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente. The first Latino […]

Jackie Robinson, left, and heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson wave to supporters in 1963 at LaGuardia Airport in New York City as they leave for Alabama to work with the Civil Rights Movement. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   “Justice too long delayed is justice denied” was the phrase used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his […]

“Now it’s even. It’s neck and neck. We’ll start from here and see who’s boss.” — Reggie Jackson1 There have been two players in Chicago White Sox history that led the American League in home runs. Only two over the first 123 seasons of baseball on the south side of Chicago. The second of those […]

There is no question that, when a hitter takes stock of his prize possessions, the eyes have it. In the early twentieth century, the great ones such as Cobb, Hornsby, and Lajoie refrained from reading newspapers or books. They even stayed away from movie houses, believing they were protecting their vision. One time shortly after […]

Wesley Branch Rickey — even the name is wonderfully quirky and unique. And the man himself lived up to the matchlessness of his name. He was another Lincoln; he was Simon Legree; he was a saint and he was a grievous, unrepentant sinner; he was one of baseball’s best executives and innovators, or he was […]

“Do you feel they’ll make the big-league grade?” This question (referring to Black ballplayers) was posed to Bob Feller in October 1946. As reported in The Sporting News on October 30, 1946, Feller said without hesitation, “I have seen none who combine the qualities of a big-league ballplayer – not even Jackie Robinson.”1 Induction Day […]

  1935 Paducah Red Birds B.B. Hook, Jr. is the child in the very front. Front row (L–R): Joe Grace, Floyd Perryman, Venable Satterfield, and Louis Perryman. Middle row (L–R): Lowell Green, Mel Ivy, E.R. Jones (more behind the row than in it), Robert Brown, Benny Sanders, and an unnamed child listed as “mascot.” Back […]

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 […]

Several years ago when the Texas Rangers explored the idea of moving their spring training headquarters from Port Charlotte, Florida, one option they briefly considered was building a spring training complex in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Of course, for the move to be feasible, at least three other teams would have to be […]

Many Baseball Hall of Fame inductees are associated with the American League Philadelphia Athletics and Philadelphia Phillies by way of career accomplishments, or by wearing the team ball cap on their Hall of Fame plaque. Many others in the Hall have connections to the city of Philadelphia and the city’s baseball teams since the 1860s. […]

The excitement was electric, as crowds filled Yankee Stadium to capacity on October 10, 1923. For the third consecutive year, the Fall Classic was an all-New York affair, pitting the dominant National League Giants against the upstart Yankees, representing the American League. The latter fittingly christened their magnificent new ballyard in the Bronx by going […]

After a 90-loss, ninth-place season in 1966, the Boston Red Sox entered spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, with a new manager and a new outlook.Spring training 1967 was quite different from spring training 1966 for the Boston Red Sox. We can remember 1966 as the year when Earl Wilson was turned away from the […]

In the first written rules of baseball, in 1845, the New York Knickerbockers created the bound rule. (New York Public Library)   One can say that organized baseball began with the creation of the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) in 1858, although participating clubs had first met informally at a New York convention […]

In Eight Men Out, author Eliot Asinof wrote about the 1919 Chicago White Sox: “Many players of less status got almost twice as much on other teams. … (Charles Comiskey’s) ballplayers were the best and were paid as poorly as the worst.” This passage sums up the entire foundation of Asinof’s thesis: Low salaries and […]

Oscar Charleston is shown here in the uniform of the Santa Clara Leopardos, circa 1923. The 1923-24 Leopardos, for whom Charleston played, were considered the best Cuban team in history—a team so dominant that halfway through the season the league simply declared them champions and then reorganized. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   April […]