Search Results

Introduction and Context The 1987 winter meetings were held at the Loew’s Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, in the middle of the “collusion era.”1 Collusion is a complex tale and, as such, only a brief summary is presented here. Peter Ueberroth became commissioner of baseball in 1984, after concluding his successful management of the 1984 […]

On August 29, 1966, the Beatles played what would be their final live concert ever at Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. The event provided much enjoyment for the concertgoers as the band, still wearing matching suits and their mop-top hairstyles, played a setlist of hits and other music they had recorded over […]

While the winter chill still held Chicago in its grip, longtime White Sox fan and season ticket holder Dan Ferone informed Chicago White Sox management that he had decided to cancel his season tickets. Soon afterward, Mike Veeck, promotions director of the Chicago White Sox and son of club owner Bill Veeck, wrote to Ferone […]

The Japanese Base Ball Association in 1911. (COURTESY OF ROB FITTS)   Since the mid-nineteenth century, baseball has helped immigrants assimilate into American society. By following their local team or taking the diamond, foreigners improve their English, become part of the cultural fabric, and learn American values. Between the mid-1890s and 1910, over 100,000 Japanese […]

On September 6, 1954, more than seven years after Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond at Ebbets Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Carlos Paula trotted out to left field at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. He was the first black to appear in a regular sea­ son lineup of the Washington Senators. This event, while […]

Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement on which Jews fast, seek forgiveness from God and other people, and rehearse their deaths1 — occupies an iconic space in the annals of baseball and American Jewry. Jewish-American fans regularly contemplate and debate whether Jewish players will and should play on the holy day.2 Yom Kippur in […]

John Tortes Meyers (left) of the New York Giants and Charles Albert Bender of the Philadelphia Athletics (right) pose before the first game of the 1911 World Series, deemed the “Indian versus Indian” series by sports writers. Like other Native American players of the era they were given the nickname “Chief.” (Bain Collection, Library of […]

Mickey Mantle was turned into a switch hitter when he was “barely old enough to walk.” He remains the only switch-hitter in the history of the game to earn Triple Crown honors. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Mickey Mantle posted a .353 batting average, slammed 52 homers, and drove in 130 runs in […]

Adam Ford and his wife, the former Jane Cruttenden, ca 1872. Seated center is Jane’s father Lauriston Cruttenden, one of the early settlers of St. Marys. Ford’s marriage into the respected and influential family provided an immediate boost to both his social standing and his political aspirations. (St. Marys Museum and R. Lorne Eedy Archives, […]

Venezuela might have become a soccer-focused country, like the rest of South America, if not for three pivotal historical events: 1) Venezuelan dictator Juan Vicente Gómez and his son, Gonzalo, developed a profound love for baseball. They sponsored teams and paid the players’ salaries, even when baseball was supposed to be an amateur sport. Their […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 30 (2001).   As famed radio news commentator Paul Harvey might expound, “And now for the rest of the story.” What story? The one detailing the how and the who of the long-overlooked run batted in that, 69 years after Hack Wilson accomplished the […]

Some sportswriters in the 1960s worried that Willie Mays was actually hurting the Giants. One magazine headline asked, “Is Willie really worth $105,000?” (SABR-Rucker Archive)   If we didn’t have proof, we probably wouldn’t believe it. If there hadn’t been hundreds of magazines published in the 1960s about baseball, a large percentage of them containing articles […]

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 […]

In February 2021, SABR member Rich Campbell observed that the San Francisco Giants might utilize a lineup during the 2021 baseball season where all of the players on the field were over 30 years old. This observation prompted Ben Lindbergh, the cohost of Effectively Wild (the FanGraphs podcast), to explore the over-30 lineup question in […]

As the major-league ownership gathered in Chicago, Illinois from December 8 through 10, 1931, the Great Depression was a silent partner to the discussions. Unemployment rose dramatically in 1931, topping out at 16 percent and showing no signs of relenting. Attendance dropped at almost every ballpark during the 1931 season, and overall attendance for the […]

Gary Ward with the Big 8 conference championship trophy in 1995, the 15th of 16 consecutive league championships. (Oklahoma State Athletics)   Founded in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1890, Oklahoma A&M College (OAMC) became Oklahoma State University (OSU) in 1957. The school fielded its first baseball team in 1909 and from then through the 1977 season, […]

The San Francisco Giants – a party of more than 60, including players, management, and staff, plus embedded sportswriters – boarded their chartered Japan Airlines jet at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on the damp gray morning of Tuesday, March 31, 1970. Among the players, the prevailing mood was one of relief that their two-week ordeal in […]

Jackie Robinson, right, shakes hands with manager Leo Durocher of the Brooklyn Dodgers at spring training in Havana, Cuba in March 1947. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   In reviewing the career of Jackie Robinson in hindsight, one advantage is that everything seems as if it was a certainty. Robinson was one of the great players in the […]

October 16, 1958 Robert Hyland, General Manager, KMOX Radio In my opinion, there is no more effective way of strengthening mutual understanding among nations than through the people to people approach, and I am convinced that international sports engagements are playing a very important role in building international friendship and good will. For that reason, […]

Jackie Robinson lifts a pennant to commemorate his being traded from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the New York Giants on December 14, 1956, at his home in Brooklyn. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   In October 1956, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the New York Yankees in the World Series for the sixth time in Jackie Robinson’s 10 years […]

Baker Bowl it was a wonderful place! More action probably took place on those Philadelphia grounds than at any other athletic facility in our country. For half a century the place was packed with action. There was major league baseball, championship boxing and wrestling, and professional football — say nothing of such extra-curricular activities as […]

Rube Waddell. Walter Johnson. Lefty Grove. Bob Feller. Sandy Koufax. Sam McDowell. Nolan Ryan. Doc Gooden. Roger Clemens. Pedro Martinez. Randy Johnson. (There are others, of course.) Their names are synonymous with “overpowering strikeout pitcher.” Even as time marches on, their names are not forgotten because each has been a standard against which subsequent generations […]

A few days after Shohei Ohtani made his major league debut on March 29, 2018, Jay Jaffe wrote, “Ohtani is doing things that haven’t been done at the major league level in nearly a century. … and not since 1919 has a player served as both a starting pitcher and a position player with any […]