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Vin Scully served as Dodgers broadcaster from 1950 through 2016. (SABR-Rucker Archive) For 55 of his 67 years as a broadcaster for the Dodgers, Vin Scully went to work at the same place: Dodger Stadium. In 2001 the area from which he broadcast became the Vin Scully Press Box. In 2016, his final season, […]
Editor’s note: Justice Samuel Alito delivered this speech as the Supreme Court Historical Society’s 2008 Annual Lecture. It was published originally in the “Journal of Supreme Court History 34,” no. 2 (July 2009): 183–95, and republished in SABR’s law-themed Fall 2009 issue of the Baseball Research Journal. The Justice expresses his gratitude to James Hunter, […]
In order to bring the Astrodome to fruition, given the project’s incredible size and scope, Roy Hofheinz consulted with many of the leading architectural and engineering minds of his era. He was particularly concerned with making his original vision of a modern-day Roman Colosseum a reality. The processes associated with the design and eventual construction […]
The dictionary defines the word “Elysian” as “something blissful; delightful,”1 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 in the country in sending players to […]
Hall of Fame second baseman Johnny Evers, left, and manager George Stallings helped lead the 1914 Boston Braves to their first World Series championship. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) This year marks a century since the historic run of the 1914 Boston “Miracle” Braves. They were dead last in the National League on July 4, 15 […]
Ford Frick, president of the National League in 1947, is not the first person who comes to mind concerning Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball, though he deserves more consideration than he has been given. While no other individual rivals the role played by Branch Rickey in breaking the game’s color barrier, other than […]
In September 2020, I had the good fortune of speaking with Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s daughter, over the course of two interviews in which we discussed representations of her father. The conversation is frank, detailed, and gives a keen insight into just how involved the Robinson family has been in telling their patriarch’s tale. Sharon also […]
Publicity photo issued by Philco. Connie Mack (center) and Boake Carter (right) are shown conducting the interview. Note the television camera and how primitive it is by today’s standards. Baseball’s relationship with the media can be traced back to the earliest days of the game. It started with newspapers in the nineteenth century, broadened […]
“The greatest pitcher I have ever seen,” whispered John McGraw as he shoved his way through a jostling home bound crowd after watching “Cannonball” Jackman strike out eighteen batters in nine innings. That whisper spread from ear to ear and finally developed into a roar, for certainly the famed former New York Giants pilot should […]
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 […]
After Hideki Matsui hit a home run against the Yomiuri Giants on March 28, nearly every major sports newspaper in Japan put his image on the front page. (Nippon Sports, March 29, 2004) “The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming!” wrote Marty Kuehnert in the Japan Times. “If you haven’t heard, you’re not […]
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 […]
Who are the best fielders of all time, at each position? How can we compare a Bill Dickey with a Bill Freehan, a Bobby Doerr with a Bobby Grich, an Amos Strunk with an Amos Otis? With these age-old riddles in mind, I closeted myself in a room with The Baseball Encyclopedia, a pocket calculator, […]
There are two main objectives for the hitter. The first is to not make an out and the second is to hit for distance. Long-ball hitting is normally measured by slugging average. Not making an out can be expressed in terms of on base average (OBA), where: OBA = Hits + Walks […]
The “Astros Better Halves” prepare to play their husbands under the Dome in the 1970s. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOUSTON ASTROS) Although the earliest of American baseball clubs in the mid-1800s were organized as exclusively male social organizations, spectators were soon drawn to their games, and plenty of women were among them. The Knickerbocker Base […]
When General William D. Eckert was elected to the office of baseball commissioner in 1965, Larry Fox of the New York World-Telegram is reported to have been one of the first to utter the phrase, “They’ve named the Unknown Soldier.” But Eckert, a retired three-star Air Force general, was not the first military man elected to […]
Several authors have given readers a glimpse of Sandy Koufax’s life and career. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) Beneath the orderly reporting of baseball accomplishments that Sandy Koufax compiled in nine-inning ballgames over 162-game seasons and several World Series is a much less well-structured human narrative about the man. Terms such as “the […]
Chadwick Boseman portrays Jackie Robinson in the Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment motion picture 42. (Courtesy of Alamy) The New York City skyline gleams in the background. A gravelly but urgent voice begins talking as the music swells to the climactic line delivered by the legendary Harrison Ford before it drops to the epic Jay-Z anthem […]
Whitey Witt batted .301 as a Yankee, from 1922-1925. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) It was long before the days when the elegant voice of Bob Sheppard introduced the starting lineup at Yankee Stadium. However, if there was a public-address announcer at the Bronx ballpark on the day it opened on April 18, […]
Stars of Soul of the Game, Mykelti Williamson (l.), Blair Underwood (c.), and Delroy Lindo (r.) at an event honoring the film at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. (Courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum) Soul of the Game premiered on April 20, 1996, on the Home Box Office (HBO) cable network. The docudrama […]
George Herman Ruth is probably the most well known of all American baseball players. He may also have been the best. There has never been another player who had such an effect on the sport. He revolutionized it from a pitcher’s game to a hitter’s game, and it has remained that way ever since. Ruth […]
It could be argued that the most famous sentence ever written by a Canadian author is W.P. Kinsella’s, “If you build it, he will come.” That ghostly utterance may only be matched by Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson’s equally phantomic line about Pierre Trudeau: “he haunts us still.” Being interested in both political and baseball […]
Al Kermisch, who joined SABR in 1971, was a baseball researcher for over 60 years. His paper, “Walter Johnson: King of the 1-0 Hurlers,” appeared in the first SABR Baseball Research Journal in 1972, and in 1975 he debuted “From a Researcher’s Notebook”: seven small stories covering 4½ pages. This became a regular feature and […]
SABR Salute: Emil Rothe Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical […]