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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. One of the longest droughts in baseball history came to an end in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918. With that victory, a new age was dawning. One in which even the Chicago Cubs could start […]

Umpire John McSherry. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   In April 1996, 51-year-old major-league umpire John McSherry collapsed and died while working behind the plate a few pitches into the first game of the season at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. McSherry’s weight had been listed at 328 pounds by the league, but even Richie […]

In anticipation of hosting SABR 40, the Magnolia Chapter has selected an All-Time Georgia-born All-Star team. Any major-league player born in the state of Georgia was theoretically eligible; no residency requirement was stipulated. In order to make the process more efficient, the author screened the master list of players to eliminate most “cup of coffee” […]

Al Kermisch, who joined SABR in 1971, was a baseball researcher for over 60 years. His paper, “Walter Johnson: King of the 1-0 Hurlers,” appeared in the first SABR Baseball Research Journal in 1972, and in 1975 he debuted “From a Researcher’s Notebook”: seven small stories covering 4½ pages. This became a regular feature and […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 29 (2000).   Imagine if a young major-league pitcher, like Andy Pettitte of the Yankees, decided, for whatever reason, to become an outfielder in the year 2001. And imagine if he hit over .300 for the next five years, culminating in 2005 by winning […]

R—O—L—A—I—D—S. The answer in the classic ad: “How do you spell relief?” TRIPLE PLAY!!! The answer to the question, “What’s the perfect remedy for a relief pitcher sum moned into a diamond game with nobody out and two (or three) runners on base?” Take for instance May 30, 1967, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. In […]

“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 […]

This article was originally published in “The SABR Book on Umpires and Umpiring” (SABR, 2017), edited by Larry R. Gerlach and Bill Nowlin.   Umpires “Bullet” Rogan, Robert Boone, and Hurley McNair, Ruppert Stadium, May 2, 1940. (NOIR-TECH RESEARCH)   “What about our Negro baseball umpires? They are cussed, discussed, made the subject of all […]

The life of Jimmie Reese as described by Tom Willman, journalist and friend.

They were called the “Hitless Wonders.” Chicago Tribune writer Hugh Fullerton wrote on August 21, 1906, “To those who have not seen the Sox in the wonderful winning streak, it is a wonder how they score so many runs on so few hits. Let them see the Sox cake every advantage of misplays and let […]

On the afternoon of Sunday, October 15, 1972, Jackie Robinson stood on the field of Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium in the brilliant afternoon sunshine. Game Two of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the Cincinnati Reds was to be played that day, and in a pregame ceremony, Robinson was being recognized on the 25th […]

Oscar Charleston was known as “the Black Ty Cobb.” Both men sprayed line drives to all fields and played a savage running game on the bases. But Charleston hit with power, which Cobb did not, and on the field he ran circles around the more famous Georgian. He was considered in a class with Tris […]

On October 13, 1985, a Pittsburgh resident by the name of Saul Finkelstein decided to personally commemorate the 25th anniversary of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series. Finkelstein went to the corner of the University of Pittsburgh’s campus where Forbes Field was once located to listen to a tape recording of NBC’s broadcast […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Journalism History, Vol. 32, No. 1, Spring 2006.   Had baseball card collecting been popular in the 1920s, fans of the nascent Negro leagues likely would have coveted the cards of Andrew “Rube” Foster, C.I. Taylor, Ed Bolden, and John Blount. Because these men were team owners and […]

“Boys,” recalled the oldest living former ballplayer, “I got the best hit I ever had off Walter Johnson. It was in the late innings of a close game, and I was on deck. Johnson wanted to walk the guy ahead of me, but the manager said ‘pitch to him; the next man (meaning me) is […]

With two games left in the 1933 season, manager Bucky Harris handed in his resignation. Detroit Tigers owner Frank Navin was suddenly in the market for a new skipper. He knew he needed a strong leader to light a spark under his perennially lethargic club. Enter Mickey Cochrane. In the fall of 1933, the Detroit […]

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 […]

In their book The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong tell a small but striking story of the racial insensitivity of Justice Harry A. Blackmun.1 It happened during the drafting and circulation of opinions in Flood v. Kuhn, the 1972 baseball antitrust case.2 As the story goes, when Blackmun circulated the […]

Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy are together on the wall in Cooperstown that honors all recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting greatness. Between Murphy and Nelson is Bob Wolff, who was considered for the inaugural Mets booth. (Courtesy of MetSilverman.com)   The New York Mets were born in sin, cleansed by pain, […]

Doug Glanville in his new baseball memoir notes that many players, “rewarded with huge contracts because of their offensive prowess, . . . have developed a kind of attention deficit disorder when it comes to defense. . . . If you put up tremendous offensive numbers year after year, the game will cut you a […]

Pitcher Faber Walked Seven Times in Row As Batter On July 14, 1915, Urban “Red” Faber of the White Sox defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 6-4 at Chicago. In the fourth inning of that game Faber was hit by a pitched ball by Joe Bush and then stole second, third and home to become one of […]

The run is the most fundamental and the most important statistic in baseball. Regrettably, clerical (e.g., transcription) errors have been made in the process of crediting the runs scored by the individual players in MLB’s official records.[fn]Two possible sources for errors can enter the official records. The first possible source for errors in the official […]

Many casual baseball fans and serious sabermetricians alike hold the belief that the home run was not a terribly important part of the game until the arrival of Babe Ruth in the outfield of the New York Yankees in 1920. Just the year before, Ruth had hit 29 homers to slip past Ned Williamson’s single […]

On the eve of the 1943 season, Boston Red Sox manager Joe Cronin faced a daunting task: replacing Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio in his outfield. The two All-Stars were serving their country as World War II raged across Europe and the Pacific. Sensing Cronin’s predicament, Associated Press features sports editor Dillon Graham shared a […]