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“Has anybody else told you about Dobie Moore? Well, I’ll tell you something about him. That Moore was one of the best shortstops that will ever live! That fella could stand up to the plate and hit right-handed, he could hit line drives out there just as far as you want to see.” — Casey […]

Ticket purchase receipt to Game Five of the 2004 World Series — had it been played at Yankee Stadium. (Photo by Jeb Stewart)   Even for a confident Yankees fan (are there any other kind?), the 2003 offseason began with troubling signs. True, Brian Cashman found a way to obtain Alex Rodriguez, who had seemed […]

On Larry Tye’s 2009 biography of Paige and Timothy M. Gay’s 2010 book on the barnstorming tours of Paige, Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller.

When Negro National League officials agreed to close operations for 1932 due to the hard realities of the Great Depression, the usually minor Negro Southern League and the newly created East-West Colored League became black baseball’s “major leagues.” Low attendance figures, disillusionment with the National League collapse, doubts about the ability of the leagues to […]

From youth “select” baseball to the major leagues, the percentage of players who are African American has reached a historic low. As low as the percentage on 2020 MLB teams’ 30-man rosters had ebbed (7.5 percent1), it is even lower among college players and youth players.2 Scholars and pundits have offered reasons for, and solutions […]

Jackie Robinson speaks to a reporter during the August 28, 1963, Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.   “I know that you realize that in the tasks that lie ahead all freedom-loving Americans will want to share in achieving a society in which no man is penalized or favored solely because of his race, color, […]

Introduction The offseason after the 1913 championship season was one of turmoil. It saw the players taking formal steps to improve their working conditions, the ouster of a league president, and the opening salvos of a new war with an “outlaw” major league. American League Because of the impending world tour, set to depart on […]

On July 25, 1966, Casey Stengel and Ted Williams were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Although most observers likely assumed that Casey would steal the show, as he usually did, it was Williams who provided the audience with the indelible memory. He spoke fewer than 500 words, taking just three […]

The Yankees arrive in Japan on October 20, 1955. (Rob Fitts Collection)   On Thursday, October 20, 1955, the New York Yankees and their entourage landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to begin a three-week, 16-game goodwill tour of Japan. There, they were mobbed by kimono-clad young women bearing bouquets, an eager press corps, and a […]

Robert “Bob” Addy’s Canadian baseball success story begs a really big question. Why are we only hearing about him now? In the last 10 years, thanks to researcher Peter Morris, Addy’s Canadian roots have been highlighted, but this knowledge has taken its sweet time spreading to all corners of the baseball world.1 Now additional details […]

In general, the baseball Winter Meetings can be viewed as a watershed event, marking both the end of one season and the beginning of the next. Even before the 2007 Winter Meetings got under way in Nashville, however, the offseason had been launched with a major new initiative. Major-league general managers held their annual meetings […]

When Animal, sometimes known as Brad Lesley, decided to go to Japan in 1986, he was apprehensive. “I don’t speak the language. I don’t know the food,” he thought. “Thank God baseball is baseball.” After two months, he concluded, “The food is great, the people are wonderful. It’s the baseball that’s ass backwards!” Many writers […]

Baseball is at one and the same time an idyllic game for children and a gravely serious business for adults. A sport that can be played on a pastoral commons requires, in the world of commerce, space to which some can be admitted and from which others can be excluded—in short, what lawyers call real […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]