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In Game Seven of the 2014 World Series, Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants entered the contest in the fifth inning with his team leading the Kansas City Royals, 3–2. Bumgarner, working on two days’ rest after a complete-game shutout victory over the Royals in game five, proceeded to pitch five scoreless innings to […]
Montreal Expos’ manager Gene Mauch and New York Mets’ manager Gil Hodges post prior to the first game in franchise history, Shea Stadium, April 8, 1969. The Expos won, 11-10. (Courtesy of the McCord Museum, Montreal) Gerry Snyder, Charles Bronfman, and John McHale. Three of the biggest names in Montreal Expos history. Without Snyder’s […]
Every batter has unique psychological approaches, swing mechanics, habits and characteristics. Even so, one thing about hitting is true for every hitter: Every time he walks up to the plate, he has only one tool to work with. In 1920 and 1927, Babe Ruth hit more home runs than every other team in the American […]
Although not now as legendary as Fred Merkle’s base-running blunder or Fred Snodgrass’s muffed fly ball, Heinie Zimmerman’s failed pursuit of Eddie Collins in the final game of the 1917 World Series was quite notorious in its time. Most present-day descriptions of the play originate from the account given by Frank Graham in his team […]
Described by Edward Burns of the Chicago Tribune as “one of the most important meetings in baseball history”1 and “one of the most harmonious sessions”2 by New York Times sportswriter John Drebinger, the 1952 Baseball Winter Meetings took place in Phoenix from December 1 to 7. “Never before, perhaps,” wrote The Sporting News, “has the […]
This article was originally published in “Above the Fruited Plain,” the 2003 SABR convention journal. Since opening in April of 1995, Denver’s Coors Field has received accolades for its architectural design and downtown location. The ball park echoes the scale and materials of adjacent brick warehouses and replicates the urban accessibility found in early […]
While Charlie Chaplin went into the boxing ring in City Lights (1931), the Marx Brothers played football in Horse Feathers (1932), Curly Howard wrestled his opponent to the mat in Grips, Grunts and Groans (1937), and W.C. Fields almost played golf in The Golf Specialist (1930), the true sport of the great movie comedians is […]
Adrian C. Anson, who rose to national prominence as captain of the Chicago White Stockings, was the first of what is now a long list of baseball players who succumbed to the lure of the footlights. Anson made his theatrical debut in 1895 in a production called A Runaway Colt. Arguably the most famous baseball […]
When a group of major-league baseball all-stars traveled to Japan in November 1979 for a series of games, it represented a shift, of sorts. Since the end of World War II, most baseball tours of Japan had been by single teams. A US all-star team had not played in Japan since the Eddie Lopat All-Stars […]
History students who want to learn about uneasy détente during the 1960s could study the tense Cold War between the US and other democratic nations on one side, and the USSR and other “Iron Curtain” Communist nations on the other. Or they could just look at the smiles-out-front, scowls-in-private relationship between the Los Angeles Dodgers […]
“Television is not only just what the doctor ordered for Negro performers; television subtly has supplied ten-league boots to the Negro in his fight to win what the Constitution of this country guarantees as his birthright.” — Ed Sullivan1 Jackie Robinson appears on The Ed Sullivan Show on May 20, 1962. (Courtesy of Ed […]
Cover of the May 1927 issue of Yakyukai depicting O’Neal Pullen and Shinji Hamazaki (Rob Fitts Collection) Kazuo Sayama, baseball historian, author, and member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame (enshrined in 2021), states with great passion and conviction that had it not been for the tours of the Negro Leagues’ all-star Philadelphia […]
Luis Olmo played for Guayama against Enid in 1940. By 1943, he and Enid shortstop Red Barkley were teammates on the Brooklyn Dodgers. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Library) The town of Enid, Oklahoma, had minor-league baseball in the early twentieth century, with such teams as the 1922 Enid Harvesters in the Class […]
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 […]
Keio University with the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox on December 7, 1913. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division) INTRODUCTION On January 27, 1913, John McGraw of the National League champion New York Giants and Charles Comiskey, owner of the American League Chicago White Sox, announced their plans for a world […]
[He] could watch a player plow a field and tell whether there was baseball in his bones. — said of baseball coach Frank Anderson at Oglethorpe University On May 11, 1963, the loyal alumni of Oglethorpe University gathered at historic Hermance Stadium on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, for a joyful occasion. They dedicated […]
You can whiffle all you want about Reggie Jackson’s 18 post-season home runs. Big deal – it took him 77 games and 281 at-bats to reach that mark. More impressive is Mantle’s 18 in 65 games and 230 at-bats – all hit in the World Series. I am even more impressed by the Babe’s 15 […]
Pitching in relief in the final innings of a 12-2 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics on August 10, 1927, sore-armed Boston right hander “Ted” Wingfield notched the final strikeout of his major league career and the only strikeout he recorded in 74½ innings of pitching that season. Wingfield’s one strikeout in 74½ innings, or .12 […]
“I received three letters that morning, one at a time. First one said I’d be shot if I sat in the dugout. Second one said I’d be shot if I went on the field and the third one said I’d be shot if I took the mound.” — Dave Hoskins1 1952 Globe Printing baseball […]
Chattanooga Lookouts first baseman Jess Levan was the last man to be banned from professional baseball for trying to fix games. The uproar surrounding Levan’s banishment in 1959 revealed evidence linking other players to wide spread gambling in Southern ballparks. The Southern Association scandal was either, as The Sporting News dismissed it, “relatively insignificant;’1 or […]
Babe Ruth is handed a 10-gallon Stetson hat by Dallas Mayor Jimmie Stetson (right) upon his arrival at Love Field on July 8, 1947. A joyous Claire Ruth (left) looks on. (Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library) Babe Ruth’s plane landed at Love Field in Dallas on the afternoon of Tuesday, July […]
Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey talk happily after a contract signing meeting in the offices of the Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field on January 25, 1950. (SABR/The Rucker Archive) In 1947, concerned about the firestorm that could erupt once he went public with his plan to break baseball’s color barrier by hiring Jackie Robinson, […]
Hard as it may be to believe, the Brooklyn Dodgers have been the Los Angeles Dodgers for half a century—and have now played more seasons in Chavez Ravine than in Ebbets Field. By August 5, 1957, the storied history of the Brooklyn Dodgers was fast approaching its final days. But as the Dodgers, who were […]