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This article was selected as the winner of the 2017 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award. So, turn the key with me and enter Room 509 of the [Hotel Carlos], the most famous place in Chicago that you barely knew existed. — (Kankakee, Illinois) Daily Journal and (Ottawa, Illinois) Daily Times, April 10, 2010 1 The 1932 […]

During a five-week span in 1932, minor-league legend Buzz Arlett accomplished the Herculean feat of twice blasting four home runs in a game. That season, he wore the uniform of the International League Baltimore Orioles and led the loop with 54 round-trippers. It happened in the year immediately following his one and only bittersweet trip […]

Elmer Dean, center, the older brother of St. Louis Cardinals stars Dizzy and Paul Dean shows his new House of David teammates how he grips a curveball on May 5, 1935. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   The brothers Jay Hanna (“Dizzy,” also known as Jerome Herman) Dean and Paul Dee (“Daffy”) Dean are […]

This article was originally published in “From McGillicuddy to McGwire,” the 2000 SABR convention journal.   It was 1947, and Branch Rickey had two spring training problems, both of his own making. Bud Holman had one, but it loomed large for him. It took Rickey and Holman a while to find each other, but they […]

President John F. Kennedy delivered the ceremonial first pitch in Washington’s Griffith Stadium on April 10, 1961, to inaugurate baseball’s new era. The debut of the new Washington Senators against the Chicago White Sox was the first game in the 10-team American League, marking the majors’ first expansion since 1901. The creation of the two […]

Introduction In the months following the first year of play in the Federal League, the two established major leagues showed different approaches to this new rival. While a desire for peace persisted throughout the winter months, it was tempered by fervent desires for one entity to be a clear loser in any compromise. Though the […]

After the 1970 season, two brothers, Eldon and Harlan Mills, unveiled a new approach to baseball statistics: Player Win Averages. Eldon was a retired Air Force colonel and an expert in computer programming and data processing, while Harlan was a professor and mathematics consultant to IBM. What they did was develop a model for calculating […]

He was known as “The Tall Tactician” and was baseball’s grand old gentleman for more than a generation. Statuesque, stately, and slim, he clutched a rolled-up scorecard as he sat or stood ramrod straight in the dugout, attired in a business suit rather than a uniform, a derby or bowler in place of a baseball […]

Claims pop up with frequency that this team or that invented the pitching rotation. These find life in our modern media and attract proponents. Thanks to David Smith, Tom Ruane, and scores of volunteer researchers, we have Retrosheet, and there are methods to determine rotation patterns and fact-check such comments as one spoken by New […]

Cover of the Arizona Diamondbacks expansion draft program on November 18, 1998. (Photo courtesy of Joel Zolondek)   In the first two decades since major-league baseball granted an expansion bid to Arizona Baseball, Inc., the Arizona Diamondbacks franchise has been characterized by the stability of its leadership. The franchise has had two managing general partners, […]

William Shuttleworth and Harry Sweetman of the Maple Leaf Baseball Club of Hamilton, 1860. (Toronto Globe, August 15, 1903)   After quietly resting in the backroom of Canadian sports history for over a century, William Shuttleworth is now fully recognized for his role in establishing the country’s first formal team, the Young Canadians (later Maple […]

The Phillies and their fans hated New York Giants manager John McGraw. This fact must be clearly understood if readers are to truly appreciate the story that follows. Nicknamed “Muggsy” and “Little Napoleon,” John McGraw was an easy man to detest. Sportswriter Grantland Rice observed, “There were many who hated John McGraw and to many […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Over the decades, major-league baseball has produced a host of memorable teams, but only one infamous one — the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Almost a century after the fact, the exact […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 24, 2004.   Black America at the end of the 1920s was a very different place than it had been just a few years earlier. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban centers of the North, which had […]

Early days with the Montreal Royals. March 6, 1946. (Courtesy of Rachel Robinson and the Estate of Jackie Robinson)   On Tuesday, October 23, 1945, 15 of Montreal’s sportswriters and broadcasters were invited to a press conference at the home of the Montreal Royals, Delorimier Stadium, and were promised “a major announcement.” The Triple-A International […]

The National League and the American Association entered their respective winter meetings — hereafter called the annual meetings1 — buoyed by the growing popularity and profits of the past 1886 season.2 The owners recognized that to further expand the popularity of baseball and, with the consequent rise in attendance, increase their profits, they had to […]

I still think relief pitchers are slighted or faintly patronized in most fans’ and writers’ consideration. Ask somebody to pick an all-time or all-decade lineup for his favorite team or for one of the leagues and the chances are the list will not include a late inning fireman. — Roger Angell1 Much has changed since […]

Editor’s note: This article, originally published in  “Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings, 1958-2016” (SABR, 2017), was honored as a 2018 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award winner.   Negro League baseball magnates meet at the Hotel Teresa on June 20, 1946, in New York City. The owners had all attended the Joe Louis boxing bout the night […]

Baseball contracts seem to be headed increasingly in the same direction; teams are trying to lock up their younger (particularly homegrown) stars to long-term deals before they hit the free agent market, which would drive up the price for a player. The Reds did it with Joey Votto (10 years, $225 million), and Ryan Braun […]

Seattle Pilots spring training program from 1970. The franchise began spring training as the Pilots but officially became the Milwaukee Brewers on April 1 (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)   “Dewey was in a dream world. He had no money. I swear to God, the whole franchise was being run on a Visa card.” The […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1918, it was their fifth triumph in the fifteen years of the modern classic. The club had the best player in […]

Anyone unfortunate enough to attend a seminar or professional meeting is likely familiar with the game “Two Truths and a Lie.” The premise of the game is that in a roomful of more or less strangers, each person will make three statements about himself or herself, and that only two of those statements will be […]

A fictional tale about a personal rivalry between a Minneapolis player and a St. Paul player in the late 19th century.

The 1964 Phillies enjoyed a six-and-a-half game lead in the National League with 12 games left in the season, proceeded to lose 10 in a row, and surrendered the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. The closing two weeks of the 1964 regular season inflicted psychic baseball wounds which began to heal after the Phillies’ […]