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What was the best-hitting team in modern (i.e,. post-1900) baseball history? There are many ways to answer that question. If you were to rank offense the way newspapers used to, by batting average, the 1930 Giants and their .319 batting average would top the list. That same year, the Phillies collected the most hits in […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Winter 1987 (Vol. 6, No. 1).   Jiminy Christmas! By the great heavenly stars! Was Rickey Henderson born to steal bases? You bet your sweet ephemeris he was. Henderson was born Christmas Day 1958, a good day to be born if you want to grow […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

For a batter or pitcher, the best—or worst—of the “Three True Outcomes” is a home run or a strikeout.1 The rates of the both home runs and strikeouts have increased substantially over the years. To illustrate, let’s compare 1949 and 2019. In the National League in 1949, 42,711 at bats resulted in 935 homers and […]

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 […]

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? […]

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; […]

QUESTION: Who holds the all-time MLB record for most runs scored by an individual player during a single season? ANSWER: Billy Hamilton of the 1894 Philadelphia Phillies. There is no disagreement on who holds this record, but there is on the number of runs “Sliding Billy” scored in his record-setting campaign. According to MLB.com (the […]

When you ask a Miami Marlins fan today, “Who is Mr. Marlin?” without hesitation you will get the response, “Jeff Conine,” who starred with the team for eight seasons. However, old-timers, who harken back to the days when minor league baseball ruled Miami, will give you a different answer: Woody Smith, a sure-handed third baseman […]

In 2022, the Lords of Baseball decreed that the full infield shift, which had become commonplace in baseball, would be banned. Since the 2023 season, all four infielders must be within the outer boundary of the dirt, with two on each side of second base and no switching sides. After a violation, the wronged team […]

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 […]

Among the many statistical analyses of baseball that have been published during the last four decades, the single most important in my opinion is The Hidden Game of Baseball (1984) by Pete Palmer and John Thorn. Their research, based on a large-scale regression analysis of baseball statistics, led to the development of summary measures for […]

If any team might symbolize the tumultuous years of major-league baseball during World War II, the St. Louis Browns would be a prime candidate.  During the war the quality of play at the major-league level deteriorated as players were drafted into the service.  They were replaced by untested youngsters, passed-over minor leaguers, resurrected veterans, or […]

On December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the United States declared war. It was only 39 days after the September 28 doubleheader in Philadelphia when Ted Williams went 6-for-8 and elevated his batting average from .3996 to .406, the last time a major-league batter has hit .400. Baseball contined, and […]

“There was always the wind.” — Dennis Tojo Bambauer, orphaned internee living in the Manzanar Children’s Village   EFT Storytellers on Manzanar Baseball Field. Left to right: Kerry Yo Nakagawa, Nisei Baseball Research Project; Pete Mitsui, founder of San Fernando Aces; Jeff Arnett, former director of education at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (Courtesy […]

  Ross Barnes was the first principal leadoff batter (PLB) for the Chicago National League club. A PLB is defined as the player who is a team’s game-starting leadoff batter for the most games in a given season, and Barnes was at the top of the lineup for all 66 games Chicago played in the […]