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Editor’s note: This article is a fictional press release from our special issue of The National Pastime looking ahead to the future of baseball in the 21st century.  COMMISSIONER ANNOUNCES NEW ALIGNMENT AND ADDRESSES MLB 2041 SEASON INITIATIVES (NEW YORK, New York)—Major League Baseball Commissioner Roberta Clemente “R.C.” Goldstein announced today the changes for the […]

Some History Baseball is a superstitious sport. Players skip over foul lines on the way to the dugout, refuse to change their socks during a hitting streak, and avoid talking to a pitcher while he is hurling a no-hitter. Some superstitions have as their subject not only an individual player but an entire team. For […]

It may be the most famous baseball painting of all time. Created by Norman Rockwell, it goes by many different names, including The Three Umpires, Game Called Because of Rain, Tough Call, and Bottom of the Sixth. It depicts a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. […]

In 1967, Carl Yastrezemski wasn’t just the sparkplug for the Boston Red Sox with his hitting and his fielding. He also posted some stats that no one matched for 45 years, winning the last Triple Crown in Major League Baseball until Miguel Cabrera in 2012. “And if I have my choice between a pennant and […]

In 1513, explorer Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida, according to fable in search of the Fountain of Youth. Ever since, Florida’s menu of sun, fun, beaches, and citrus has symbolized renewal and regeneration, an “enchanted reality,” per state historian Gary Mormino, ripe for second chances amidst a constantly shifting dreamscape.1 Since the early […]

He was forever young on his baseball card—6-foot-2, with a square jaw, and a passing resemblance to Mickey Mantle. He was 24, and I was in the third grade. It was the summer of 1963. I never minded that he set a record for strikeouts in a single season that year, which is how many […]

When eternal Dodgers hero Johnny Podres threw the first pitch to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Eddie Kasko on April 10, 1962, it marked the official opening of Dodger Stadium as the new home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 Less recognized and certainly less celebrated was how it represented the definitive end of what has come to […]

Many of us who read Richard D. Cramer’s article “Average Batting Skill Through Major League History” in BRJ 1980 (pp. 167-72) regard it as one of the most important, impressive, and fascinating articles which SABR has ever published. Its implications — which are not spelled out by Mr. Cramer — are so amazing that they […]

In 1959, ace Pittsburgh Pirates fireman Roy Face set a major-league record by winning 18 games in relief against one loss. His .947 winning average also established the record for pitchers with at least 15 decisions. Face’s incredible numbers far exceeded those of the Pirates, who went 78–76 and finished fourth, nine games behind the […]

Who invented baseball? This question has held a niche in the American consciousness since the 1880s. The most widely known answer is that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. The casual observer who knows one thing about baseball’s origin knows the Doubleday story. The next answer is that Alexander Cartwright invented […]

Babe Ruth with Japanese students wearing Koshien jerseys. (Courtesy of Yoko Suzuki.)   The American ambassador to Japan stretched out his long legs and put the final touches on the speech to welcome the All American baseball team to the Land of the Rising Sun. Although the ambassador, Joseph Grew, was probably pleased with it, […]

A note from the editor of the Fall 2014 BRJ.

1930 University of Chicago team in Japan. (Rob Fitts Collection)   On the fourth day of spring in the 20th year of the Imperial Heisei era, just as the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom, another chapter in one of the most significant stories in US-Japan sports history was about to be written. It was […]

Back in the mid-1990s, I published Great Baseball Films (Citadel Press), which charts the manner in which the sport has been depicted onscreen from the late 1890s to early 1990s. Twenty years ago as today, even the most obscure films with obvious baseball themes were readily accessible to researchers. However, seeking out films in which […]

Havana served for many years as something of a playground for the idle wealthy of the United States, as often as not those of New York, particularly during the Prohibition years (1920-1933), when alcohol was banned in by an amendment to the US Constitution. It was a major tourist mecca and attracted a large number […]

“If there’s a greater day in the history of Tampa Bay, I don’t know what it is,” proclaimed Tampa Bay Devil Rays principal owner Vince Naimoli on March 20, 1995, the day the American League awarded a franchise to the group he headed.1 After many years of city leaders striving to bring a team to […]

This article was selected as a winner of the 2016 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   This well-known Chicago Tribune photo of Black Sox defendants, attorneys, jurors, and supporters shows them celebrating the not guilty verdicts on the steps of the Cook County Courthouse on August 2, 1921. A number of the celebrants have numbers inscribed […]

Introduction In September 2005 the confirmation hearings of John Roberts as the nominee for chief justice of the United States included an unexpected but telling nod to the national pastime when Roberts observed, “Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; […]

Very little has been written about Deadball Era umpires who established the foundations of the modern umpiring profession — the implementation of umpire signals, the two-umpire system, and more support from league authorities for umpires. And yet this group of men who umpired during the Deadball Era established the traditions, rules, and procedures by which […]

Jim Bouton (right) and John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s Official Historian, sharing the stage at SABR’s 47th annual convention in New York City in 2017. (Photo: Jacob Pomrenke)   In the fall of 1976, CBS Television premiered the television series Ball Four, based upon the 1970 book by former major-league pitcher Jim Bouton, a best-seller […]

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 […]

Mickey Mantle is carried off on a stretcher after injuring his knee during the 1951 World Series at Yankee Stadium. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   A batter takes a fastball to the ribs. An outfielder crashes into the wall trying to make a circus catch. A baserunner steps on the side of first […]

On the afternoon of Sunday, June 20, 1965, New York Mets announcer Ralph Kiner described for listeners on WHN Radio in New York one of the more awesome sights in major-league baseball in the mid-1960s: “Sandy Koufax, one of the top left-handers in the history of baseball …”1 Baseball Hall of Fame writer Roger Angell […]

Nelson Rockefeller stands with Jackie Robinson, who served as a special assistant on community affairs for the New York Governor in the 1960s.   Between 1960 and 1968, Jackie Robinson was widely regarded as the most famous Black Republican in the country. Following his announced retirement from baseball in January 1957, and in remarkably short […]