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With the 1908 American League championship on the line at South Side Park in Chicago, Tigers manager Hughie Jennings handed the ball to Bill Donovan (17-7). Donovan, sometimes called Smiling Bill, had every reason to smile after the game. His two-hit shutout of the surprisingly error-prone White Sox gave Detroit a 7-0 victory, and their […]

There are times when our humanity transcends decades-long sports rivalries because something, or someone, bigger than all of us is present. In the City by the Bay, the afternoon of October 2, 2016, was one of those times. The San Francisco Giants were hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers at AT&T Park on the last day […]

“World Series, Game Seven.” Words to stir the blood of any baseball player or fan. The whole baseball world (and maybe even the whole world) watches game seven. The 2014 postseason featured a compelling Game Seven between two unlikely teams, the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants. Neither team was a division winner; […]

At a time when a pint of Kentucky bourbon cost $1.251 and a round-trip train ticket between Chicago and Niagara Falls, the honeymoon capital of the world, cost $8,2 the stars of the Negro Leagues played one of the most dramatic ballgames ever. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in Chicago, 30,000 fans gathered to watch […]

When the Arizona Diamondbacks visited the Tampa Bay Rays for a three-game series in June 2010, they were in fifth place in National League West Division, the same place where they had finished a season earlier. A.J. Hinch had been appointed manager in May 2009, but the Diamondbacks’ fortunes had not improved under the 36-year-old […]

It is often said in sports that records are meant to be broken. Yet it is also true there are some achievements in baseball that may never be topped, such as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, Johnny Vander Meer’s back-to-back no-hitters, or Cy Young’s 511 victories. Joining this elite company is certainly Hack Wilson’s 191 […]

The 1911 Boston Red Sox were nothing to write home about. They finished tied for fourth place with the Chicago White Sox, both 24 games behind the pennant-winning Philadelphia Athletics. Any Red Sox fan who happened to be in Detroit’s Bennett Park, though, on this Saturday afternoon might have written back to Boston about this […]

The 1935 East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago, the third consecutive year of the Negro League version of the midsummer classic, ended on a Mule Suttles three-run homer to drive in Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson. Pittsburgh Courier writer Chester L. Washington, in recounting the contest, made special note of a critical […]

When it comes to the Black baseball experience in Pittsburgh’s history, most people will think it starts with the Homestead Grays, incorporates the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and ends after Jackie Robinson and integration. This truncated and incomplete history is the narrative that makes its rounds in discussions and articles about Pittsburgh’s Black baseball history. What most […]

“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]

Sammy Hughes’ name will almost certainly appear on any list of the top players of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 1940s. Hughes didn’t draw the attention of some of the bigger personalities of the day like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, but it is generally agreed that he was one of the most […]

From his debut in the majors to his fifth and final game spanned a mere 11 days in April 1947, despite his getting two hits in that last game. But Frank Strickland Shofner played nine years in the minor leagues. Though both were Texans, Strick Shofner was no known relation to pitcher Milt “Pinky” Shoffner, […]

A diminutive lefty who was one of baseball’s biggest stars of the rollicking 1890s, Wee Willie Keeler continued to “hit ’em where they ain’t” through the first decade of the Deadball Era. The tiny (5-feet-4½-inches, 140 pounds) right fielder’s career covered 19 big-league campaigns, and in 13 of them – every year from 1894 to 1906 […]

Jud Wilson was one of the greatest hitters in the history of Negro League baseball, known for his fierce hitting style as well as his explosive temper and his penchant for brawling with both players and umpires. He stood only 5-feet-8 inches tall but weighed a solid 195 pounds, with broad shoulders, a small waist […]

Patriarch of a three-generation big-league family, hard-hitting Negro Leaguer Sam Hairston played, coached, and scouted in pro baseball for over half a century. As a scout, Sam brought in at least five men who played for the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared briefly in 1951. Two of Sam’s three sons signed pro contracts […]

A lineup regular for the 1909 world champion Pittsburgh Pirates, long-forgotten first baseman Bill Abstein retains one unhappy distinction. Of all the unfortunates branded a World Series goat, Abstein is likely the only one who played for the winning side. That our subject played poorly in that year’s seven-game Series against the Detroit Tigers is […]

“Turkey Stearnes — that cat could play and hit. He could’ve made it.” — Thomas “Monk” Favors1 Over the years, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s research department routinely requested retired baseball players to submit a form whose details painted a picture of the player’s birth, family, and early years, and a sketch of his playing […]

On December 12, 2018, at the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Museum President Bob Kendrick, with historian Jay Caldwell, announced the Negro League Centennial Team. The team was a key part of the Museum’s celebration in 2020 of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues. The team of 30 […]

“Nobody’s a better second baseman than Dick.” – Satchel Paige, 19411 “Dick Seay was my idol. He and I used to talk a lot because I had a lot of confidence in him. I used to ask ’bout pointers playing second base, and he and I were very good friends. He really was a nice […]

It is often the fate of those who are the second to complete a remarkable feat to be relegated to the dust bin of history. Any school child can tell you that Ferdinand Magellan was the first explorer to circumnavigate the world. But can you name the second? Most Americans know that Alan Shepard was […]

In 1981 the Smithsonian Institution hosted an exhibition called “Black Baseball: Life in the Negro Leagues.” A fair-sized crowd attended the exhibit when it opened on April 24 and Negro League stalwarts Buck O’Neil, Monte Irvin, Buck Leonard, and Judy Johnson were also on hand. According to the Washington Post’s report about the exhibit’s grand […]

This article appears in SABR’s “The Base Ball Palace of the World: Comiskey Park” (2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. “It makes no difference if the nation is in the midst of a major depression or riding the wave of prosperity, the East-West game is always a rousing success. It is the biggest sporting event […]

Here are the SABR Defensive Index™ rankings through games of June 16, 2019. For the seventh consecutive season, the SDI will be used to help select the winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The SABR Defensive Index accounts for approximately 25 percent of the Rawlings Gold […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]