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Jackie Robinson slides to home plate in an attempt to avoid the tag during a game between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field on May 13, 1956. Catcher is Ray Katt. Batter is Clem Labine. It was one of the times he didn’t make it. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME […]

Introduction and Context Now fully invested in the Great War taking place in Europe, the United States was burdened by a shift in its political and economic conditions that demanded a sharp focus on a mobilization of the nation’s armed forces.  On the home front, Americans were implored to sacrifice for the good of the […]

On September 26, 1962, Dave McNally took the mound for the first time as a Baltimore Orioles starter in game one of a doubleheader at Memorial Stadium. The lefty, who spent most of the year pitching for the Elmira Pioneers, hurled the first of his 33 career shutouts. McNally’s two-hit, three-walk effort produced the first […]

This is a study of the relationship between major league player ethnicity and both overall participation and fielding position — from 1947, Jackie Robinson’s debut year, to 2018.1 I use the term “ethnicity” as an umbrella term encompassing the concept of “race” because the presence of Hispanics as a separate grouping invalidates a simple racial […]

Author’s note: I met Joe Wood in the early 1980s after I called and said I’d like to interview him. His daughter invited me over. Joe and I spent a lot of time together, often watching Red Sox games on television and comparing players from different eras. All this was before a taped interview, which […]

IN 1954, the Washington Senators were an abominable team They finished the season ensconced in sixth place in the American League, with a 66—88 record. The previous year, they were a fifth-place ballclub, completing the campaign at 76—76. In 1952, they also ended up in fifth place, with a 78—76 mark. In mid-decade, Ernest Barcella, […]

The players on the train carrying the St. Louis Cardinals back to Union Station should have been vibrant and fun-loving as it rolled through the Land of Lincoln on October 2, 1949. The Redbirds had thumped the Chicago Cubs, 13-5, at Wrigley Field in the season finale that afternoon. Thanks to a thrilling pennant race, […]

Babe Ruth strikes a batting pose at Fenway Park in the early 1930s. (Leslie Jones photo, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)   Even among Jazz Age giants like Al Jolson and Jack Dempsey, it was Babe Ruth who was the King of Swing. “I swing as hard as I can, and I try to […]

Lou Gehrig Played First and Last Games of Consecutive Streak at Yankee Stadium In the July 12, 1999, edition of Sports Illustrated, the magazine listed some memorable dates in the history of Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The item for May 1, 1939, read,”Lou Gehrig played his 2,130th consecutive game—the last of his major league career.” […]

Perhaps the most revered number and jersey in baseball history belongs to Jackie Robinson, who wore number 42 throughout his 10-year career with the Dodgers. As John Odell has said, “Robinson wore number 42 throughout his major league career; for baseball fans and American historians, the number … is … associated with no other player, […]

This article was originally published in “The SABR Book on Umpires and Umpiring” (SABR, 2017), edited by Larry R. Gerlach and Bill Nowlin.   Umpires “Bullet” Rogan, Robert Boone, and Hurley McNair, Ruppert Stadium, May 2, 1940. (NOIR-TECH RESEARCH)   “What about our Negro baseball umpires? They are cussed, discussed, made the subject of all […]

In Philadelphia, Mundell’s Solar Tips moved back and forth among the various levels of baseball during the 1880s and 1890s. Their history is illustrative of the more open and entrepreneurial baseball world that ended long ago. John Mundell Jr. founded the Solar Tips baseball team in 1879. The first players were workers in the factory […]

Ty Cobb is still remembered as one of the greatest players in the game’s history. He’s perhaps the only player from more than one hundred years ago whose name is still recognized by even casual fans. However, he bears the burden of having played in an era when statistics weren’t compiled or analyzed at anywhere […]

Since the National League started in 1876, there have been only 28 seasons in which a batter finished with a batting average of .400 or higher. Wanting to see how different players had achieved the rare feat of batting .400, I used many different sources to compile different “splits” about each and every .400 season. […]

Any way you look at it, the 1970s was a decade of upheaval and change everywhere in the country, but particularly in New York City. The “police action” of Vietnam ended and an era of urban decay began. The personal computer arrived, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center became the world’s tallest buildings, […]

    Baseball rules were amended in 1891 to allow for substitute batters for other than emergency conditions. That was 86 years ago; yet, from a recordkeeping standpoint, there are still many gaps regarding the performance of pinch hitters on a seasonal and a career basis. What pinch hitter had the most doubles, triples, or […]

Your team clings to a lead in the late innings and is trying to get out of a first-and-third, one-out jam. Your pitcher gives up a long fly to right-center, and both runners take off. But your fleet center fielder seemingly saves the day. She sprints, leaps, extends, dives, and snags the drive inches off […]

Red Lucas had three strong points as a National League player in the 1920s and 1930s. He had excellent control as a pitcher, the best for any hurler in his era; he completed most of the games he started, having the best record in the NL since 1920; and he was a very good hitter, […]

My father used to say, “Son, you were talkin’ when you should have been listenin’ … “ When I looked inside the large, heavy cardboard suitcase from the 1930s and saw that it was crammed with undated newspaper clippings, my old man’s wis­dom slammed home like a fastball in the ribs. In 1994, I was asked […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the April 2018 edition of the SABR Deadball Era Committee newsletter. One of the great and enduring achievements of the latter part of the Deadball Era was, in fact, literary: the 1916 publication of “You Know Me Al” by Ring Lardner. The book, which could today be […]

The 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates are generally remembered for losing in the World Series to the New York Yankees’ Murderers’ Row, a juggernaut highlighted by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at their offensive peak. Although the Yankees did sweep the Pirates in four straight games, two of them — Games One and Four — were decided […]

Once a very sparsely settled farming community, Holyoke, Massachusetts’s geographic location on the banks of the Connecticut River was ideal for development, utilizing its ample source of hydroelectric power.1 A group of four wealthy executives from Boston, about 90 miles to the east, believed the South Hadley Falls of the river was large and powerful […]

The average time required to play a major-league baseball game continues to hover just under three hours; the average game in 2009 took two hours and 55.4 minutes. However, games taking longer than that average are becoming more common—especially in the postseason, when the average grows to 3:36.6. In 2009, only one of the 30 […]

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for Our Hero. After a dozen years in the majors with some success, he was coming off a subpar year and had just been traded for three minor leaguers, who would remain so. Little did he know that along with his manager, he would change the way baseball was played. He […]