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Background The 1971 baseball Winter Meetings took place in Phoenix, Arizona, from Saturday, November 27, through Friday, December 3. As was the custom, the National Association meetings took up the first few days, while the major-league meetings got going on Wednesday. Rule 5 Draft In the annual major-league draft, the big-league clubs claimed 13 players […]

Is Henry Aaron a greater player than Willie Mays? Was Joe DiMaggio better than Ted Williams? Those were just two of the tough decisions members of the Society for American Baseball Research were asked to make in a survey of the greatest baseball players born in the different states. Aaron and Mays were matched because […]

On the afternoon of Sunday, October 15, 1972, Jackie Robinson stood on the field of Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium in the brilliant afternoon sunshine. Game Two of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the Cincinnati Reds was to be played that day, and in a pregame ceremony, Robinson was being recognized on the 25th […]

After the passing of nearly 40 years, as is the case since World War II, we are inclined to recall events differently than the way they really happened. Now, there’s nothing wrong with fantasizing a little or adding color to actual events, but the amount of distortion and misleading material that has been published in […]

In February 2001, more than a dozen members of the Society for American Baseball Research joined the first Cubaball Tours visit to enjoy a week of baseball in Cuba. Most tour participants felt the weeklong tour was one of the best travel experiences they’d ever enjoyed. The group, led by Kit Krieger and Peter Bjarkman, […]

The old ball was perched on a low, dusty shelf in a not very distinguished antique shop in Philadelphia; I spotted the ball only by chance just as I was about to leave the store. Even though I was an impoverished college sophomore who had no business spending $40 on a used baseball, I figured […]

The center of the baseball world had been New York City, but after the Civil War came a time of tremendous growth in the game. The National Association of Base Ball Players had been formed in 1858 and the number of member teams skyrocketed from 80 in 1860 to 202 in 1866, and more than […]

Very little has been written about Deadball Era umpires who established the foundations of the modern umpiring profession — the implementation of umpire signals, the two-umpire system, and more support from league authorities for umpires. And yet this group of men who umpired during the Deadball Era established the traditions, rules, and procedures by which […]

Observing the similarity between two celebrated dynasties — the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s — is hardly original, and hardly new. But the comparisons between the two teams are worth exploring in some detail. They were a ballclub well-known then and well-remembered today not just for their victories […]

Entering the postseason, the 1975 Cincinnati Reds were widely considered to be baseball’s best team — but there was still the matter of winning the World Series. The Reds had lost the 1972 World Series and the 1973 NLCS to teams considered their inferior by most observers, and neither Sparky Anderson nor his veteran stars […]

The full track during the early years of Yankee Stadium was a precursor to the “warning track” that is now a ballpark standard. (Library of Congress, Bain Collection)   Yankee Stadium was built for baseball, but it turned out to be an exceedingly versatile structure. Football was played there. Championship boxing, concerts, religious revivals. Popes […]

In the baseball fantasy Field of Dreams, the spirits of various diamond greats come to play ball on a field rising magically out of Midwestern corn stalks. “Ty Cobb wanted to play,” chuckles Shoeless Joe Jackson. “But no one could stand the son-of-a-bitch when we were alive, so we told him to stick it.” In […]

Who is the greatest catcher to have ever played in the major leagues? Some might say it is Yogi Berra or Johnny Bench or Roy Campanella. The answer depends on what one uses as a measure of greatness. There have been numerous measures used or proposed 1 and numerous lists 2 ranking the great backstops. […]

  Jimmie Foxx had 11 RBI flyouts in 1932, but only one in 1935. Would these achievements have changed the record books if today’s sac fly rule were in place? (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   The official rules currently governing sacrifice flies in Major League Baseball have not always been in use, and […]

Myth, legend and controversy mix together with history and fact in baseball’s churning cauldron of the past. Abner Doubleday’s invention of baseball is a myth. Babe Ruth’s calling his shot in the 1932 World Series is legendary (and probably a myth). The 1969 Mets World Series win is a fact, however improbable and however much […]

Pete Rose’s move from left field to third base in early May 1975 often receives credit as a pivotal moment in the success of the 1975 Reds — and with good reason. That’s when the team began to win consistently, surging to the National League West Division title. Pete Rose roamed around the diamond during […]

In 1892, Frank Grant played for the Gorhams and then the Cuban Giants on his way to a Hall of Fame career. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   During a playoff game in October 1905, Leland Giants pitcher Walter Ball rushed onto the diamond at Chicago’s West Side Park and threw a punch “with […]

Granted, numerous screen biopics have charted the lives of ballplayers from Hall of Famers to major leaguers with unusual, marketable life stories.1 One legend – Lou Gehrig – has been portrayed twice, in 1942’s The Pride of the Yankees and A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story, a 1977 made-for-television movie. Another – […]

Nolan Ryan celebrates his 7th no-hitter on May 1, 1991. (MLB.COM)   A pitcher usually needs good command and quality stuff to toss a no-hitter.1 Stellar fielding and a dollop of good luck doesn’t hurt, either. A bad-hop single or a flare off the end of the bat that falls for a hit is all […]

Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley brought his team out west in 1958. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   To Walter O’Malley, Dodger Stadium was never just a building, or a place to sell tickets. It was “a monument to the O’Malleys.”1 As such, he took an almost obsessive interest in its design and construction, from innovations in precast concrete to […]

Like the 1987 world champion Minnesota Twins, the 1909 St. Paul Gophers featured a home-grown first baseman, a hard-nosed leader nicknamed “Rat,” and an outstanding center fielder from Chicago. Unlike the Twins, the Gophers were cruelly prevented from playing major league baseball because of the prevailing apartheid of the time. In the face of almost […]

What if? This is one of the most often asked questions of historians. What if the Mayflower had not sailed? What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated? What if the Watergate break-in had never been discovered? Baseball fans play out the same scenarios. What if Shoeless Joe Jackson had not been banned from baseball? […]

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 […]

Despite the picturesque setting of Honolulu, baseball’s owners were a largely dispirited lot as they headed into the 1982 winter meetings. They were a year and a half removed from a brutal strike in which they had failed to achieve their main objective of direct player compensation for free agents; many teams were losing money; […]