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On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president, ushering in an era of political comity and refreshed vision. Not to be outdone, the major-league owners were busily ushering in their own visionary plans, culminating in the historic Winter Meetings of 1960. On December 7, the final day of the meetings at the Park […]

The World Series is the capstone of each baseball season. It ties up the annual package that was the pennant races, crowning an ultimate champion and providing fans with memories and associations that continue to live: the Called Shot, Al Gionfriddo, Bill Mazeroski. The special events of the World Series have a parallel in the […]

The dictionary defines the word “Elysian” as “something blissful; delightful,”[fn]Webster’s College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 2001).[/fn] and for ballplayers, such a place has existed for 140 years in the city of New York. Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City and if considered as a separate entity would rank fourth […]

Albert Spalding lived an extraordinary life as one of baseball’s most important figures. This article focuses on his San Diego years, during which he helped develop San Diego into the city it is today, as well as key connections in his early life that set up his grand finale. The Rockford Files Rockford, Illinois, is […]

Carl Daniel Erskine, born and raised in Anderson, Indiana, but famed for his twelve seasons as a stellar right hander for the Brooklyn Dodgers in baseball’s postwar era, proved not only to be talented pitcher but also an exceptional teammate and person. One of the Dodgers of 1952-53 portrayed in Roger Kahn’s 1971 baseball classic, […]

The end of the 1951 National League pennant race is legendary and well known even to casual baseball fans. The final game of the playoff series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants is arguably the most famous baseball game ever played. In fact its significance goes even further, as it has been the […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Deadball Era Committee’s November 2016 newsletter. Click here to read more newsletters from the Deadball Era Committee. Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg are among the Deadball Era Committee’s most accomplished members. Baseball historians and authors, they have not only garnered recognition in their own rights, but collaborated […]

“Although he never hit more than 47 home runs in a season…” was a common refrain in the eulogies that marked Henry Aaron’s passing on January 22, 2021. Intended as a nod to Aaron’s workmanlike virtue, the suggestion that his peak fell short of the more spectacular feats of other sluggers set up the inevitable […]

Wow! Look at all those bright colors. The baseball field at the Astrodome suddenly resembled a Tequila Sunrise. Yellow, red, and orange floated over jade green Astroturf as the players took their positions. Perplexed fanatics couldn’t take their eyes off the gaudy new 1975 uniforms on the backs of their Houston Astros. Thankfully, the back […]

The late Ed Linn, coauthor of Veeck—As in Wreck, later wrote in The Great Rivalry (1991), “I don’t care what anybody says, there is no rivalry on the face of the earth that can compare with the Yankees and Red Sox.”1 Linn, who died in 2000, might have been able to justify that statement more […]

With the rapid spread in popularity of baseball across North America after the Civil War, St. Thomas, Ontario, was among the many burgeoning communities to use the game as a prominent civic community and promotional enterprise. The seat of Elgin County grew slowly until the arrival of the Canadian Southern and the Great Western railroads […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume III (1988).   If you spent most of your formative years in Nebraska, as I did, the major leagues were like a fairy tale. In the late 40’s and early 50’s the closest major league park was in St. Louis. Harry Caray’s voice […]

Sixteen months ago, we were stuck in our homes wondering if, or under what circumstances, baseball would return. To some degree, as I began this essay in April 2021, things had not changed. There were encouraging signs during the summer of 2020. Once, as I was walking my dog, Buddy, we happened on a batting […]

Introduction and Context Once again the American and National Leagues met in New York City, December 7 to 9, 1925. The stormy drama that engulfed the winter meeting proceedings in 1924 gave way to clear skies this winter, and it was expected to be business as usual based on last year’s understood agreements. Hence the […]

Roomie – that’s Monte Irvin. He and I room together when the ball club’s on the road. Many’s the time I’ve hollered for him to get me out of what I’m in. Like the time we were posing for the team picture and a guy came up to me and said “Willie, I’m Jumble from […]

Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance — the defensive heart of the 1906–10 Chicago Cubs dynasty. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Once upon a time, the Chicago Cubs dominated the world. They were the best team in baseball not just for the one incredible year of 1906, but for five years, winning […]

At SABR’s 2006 convention one speaker analyzed the commissioners of baseball and rated Judge Landis the best of all. In the question-and-answer session that followed, a member of the audience challenged the speaker: “How can you stand here in the year 2006 and praise Landis, who was so instrumental in keeping blacks out of Major […]

Nearly all accounts of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies’ epic collapse, which would etch itself deep in the city’s historical psyche, focus on the Phillies’ 10-game losing streak that started on September 21, when they had a 6½-game lead with only 12 games remaining, and ended with them having lost eight games in the standings in […]

Have you ever wondered why Willie McCovey and ten other Padres were identified on their 1974 Topps cards as “Washington National League”? The history of the American League in Washington was not among the more glamorous chapters in baseball. In 71 seasons, two franchises called the Senators combined for only three American League pennants and […]

Baseball is thankfully free of artificial boundaries of time which confine other sports. This freedom helps to shape the unique magical charm that is an evening at the ballpark. Fans never know whether it will be a two-hour squeaker or whether they may be enchanted until past sunrise by the first-ever wild 12-hour 46-inning slugfest. […]

Advertising billed The Great American Pastime as a comedy that would “keep us all in stitches.”   Following the Second World War, the baseball genre film enjoyed considerable popularity with Hollywood filmmakers hoping to recapture the commercial success of The Pride of the Yankees (1942). As that film re-told Lou Gehrig’s life story, many of […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (McFarland & Co., Fall 2008). Premise By the late 1930s, and particularly during the years of US involvement in World War II, segregation in sport and society was a topic of increasing public interest. Nationalism had at least […]

Jimmy Piersall’s death on June 3, 2017, provided an occasion to recall his rookie season of 1952 that he began playing a new position—shortstop—for the Boston Red Sox, continued with AA Birmingham, and ended in a mental hospital. His is the inspiring story of a young man overcoming a serious health problem to craft a […]

The first game played by the Toronto-based professional baseball team that ultimately became the Maple Leafs took place on April 29, 1895, and marked the beginning of a proud franchise that would play in the International League (and its predecessor) continually for 72 years. TORONTO OF THE 1890S During the nineteenth century, Toronto went from […]