Search Results

Current defensive statistics are far less meaningful than batting or fielding  statistics,  mostly because  the  correct  information  is  not  collected. Statistics that do exist tend either to be not revealing or incredibly complex. I propose the collection of a single new piece of information that I think might change popular understandings of defense and allow […]

Roy Mack affixes his signature to an agreement selling the Athletics to the Philadelphia syndicate on October 17, 1954—a commitment Roy would betray just a day later in a backroom deal with Arnold Johnson. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Bill Renna was playing winter ball for the 1953–54 San Juan Senators, managed by […]

We always remember the exploits of our favorite sports stars. Their accomplishments are relived and dissected by casual fans and historians alike. The same holds true for those who reach a certain level of notoriety, that one great (or infamous) season, series, or moment that defines a career. For most players history is not so […]

Doug Harvey. (Courtesy La Patrie du Dimanche, December 3, 1959.)   Professional baseball in Ottawa was sporadic in the early to mid-twentieth century. From 1912 to 1915, the Ottawa Senators played in the Class-C (later Class-B) Canadian League and finished first in three of the four seasons. The Senators resurfaced in the Class-B Eastern Canada […]

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 […]

WORLD WAR II decimated minor league baseball. Then, like the legendary phoenix rising from the ashes, the 1945 low of 12 leagues soared to an impressive 52 leagues in 1947. They ranged from Triple-A to Class D and covered the length and breadth of the United States plus towns in Canada and Mexico. Old leagues […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume V (1990).   James Patrick Brosnan was a baseball pioneer. A tall righthanded pitcher of average ability, he spent most of his career pitching for the Cubs, Cardinals, and Reds. Known as the “Professor” because of his habit of smoking a pipe while […]

Installing the lights at Lexington Park, St. Paul, in May 1937. (Minnesota Historical Society)   Although one was a pioneer for night games, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul were the last holdouts when it came to baseball under lights in the American Association. The first night game in the history of the […]

It could be argued that the most famous sentence ever written by a Canadian author is W.P. Kinsella’s, “If you build it, he will come.” That ghostly utterance may only be matched by Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson’s equally phantomic line about Pierre Trudeau: “he haunts us still.” Being interested in both political and baseball […]

University of Wisconsin and Keio University, September 22, 1909. (Rob Fitts Collection)   In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his eldest daughter, Alice, and Secretary of War William Howard Taft on a tour of the Far East, making stops in China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. The trip was part of Roosevelt’s plan to act […]

This article presents those little known but important men who helped to launch so many players from the sandlots of Los Angeles to baseball stardom.  Southern California has long been fertile ground for major-league talent. Walter Johnson, Jackie Robinson, Bob Lemon, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, George Brett, Tony Gwynn, and Ozzie Smith all began their […]

1908 Reach All-Americans with Mike Fisher (Rob Fitts Collection)   The “King of Baseball” was on the prowl for a new opportunity. Mike Fisher, known by everybody as Mique, was a bom promoter and bom self-promoter. He was a risk taker, tackling daunting projects with enthusiasm and usually succeeding. He was the quintessential late-nineteenth-century American […]

Freddie Fitzsimmons of the New York Giants gives a pitching clinic for the All-Japan team. (Courtesy of the San Francisco Giants)   On the morning of June 29, 1953, readers of the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa, were greeted by a headline on page 13: “New York Giants Invited to Tour Japan This Fall.”1 […]

Advertising billed The Great American Pastime as a comedy that would “keep us all in stitches.”   Following the Second World War, the baseball genre film enjoyed considerable popularity with Hollywood filmmakers hoping to recapture the commercial success of The Pride of the Yankees (1942). As that film re-told Lou Gehrig’s life story, many of […]

Had he been able to play a 154-game schedule every season, Josh Gibson would own many more hitting records than he already has. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   In 1972, Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard became the first players inducted into the Hall of Fame who had never played for the American or National Leagues. At the […]

  Mike “King” Kelly, Arlie Latham, Cap Anson, and Albert Spalding were among the most popular and respected players of nineteenth-century baseball. But despite the players’ successes on the field, the public often viewed them as part of a working-class culture frequently associated with saloons and rowdy behavior. A minister in 1889 referred to ballplayers […]

Jackie Robinson in his UCLA track uniform. (UCLA LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS)   Once he got to the major leagues, it didn’t take long for Jackie Robinson to establish his credentials as a Hall of Fame baseball player. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1947, and MVP two years later. His skill at baseball […]

Billie Barnie had taken the reins of the Baltimore Club of the major league American Association in March of 1883. He was determined that the fans not suffer through another dismal season like the previous one. That aggregation, led by Henry Myers, had been hammered in local newspapers with headlines like “BAD GAME OF BALL—DISBAND […]

Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Til Huston realized early in their partnership that New York wouldn’t tolerate anything less than a championship team. Ruppert had a championship in mind when he hired Miller Huggins to manage the club in 1918. According to Ruppert: “Huggins had vision. Getting him was the first and most important step […]

On September 28, 1947, the Bambino made an appearance before a game benefitting his Babe Ruth Foundation – later recognized as the first Old-Timers Day. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The story of Yankee Stadium cannot be told without telling the story of Babe Ruth. His home-field exploits during his playing days are well covered, but a […]

When you ask a Miami Marlins fan today, “Who is Mr. Marlin?” without hesitation you will get the response, “Jeff Conine,” who starred with the team for eight seasons. However, old-timers, who harken back to the days when minor league baseball ruled Miami, will give you a different answer: Woody Smith, a sure-handed third baseman […]

George Shuba greets Jackie Robinson at home plate on April 18, 1946. (Courtesy of Greg Gulas, Carrie Anderson, Mike Shuba)   The 1946 Montreal Royals of the International League have received much attention over the years because Jackie Robinson broke Organized Baseball’s historic and shameful color line by playing second base for the Royals.1 But […]

Stanford and Keio players discuss the controversial ninth-inning call on May 29, 1913. (Rob Fitts Collection)   The Stanford University Baseball Team is closely connected to the development of baseball in Japan. This stems from 1904-05, when Waseda University was planning an expedition to the United States and negotiated with different universities there, and Stanford […]

On September 20, 2002, the Los Angeles Dodgers played a doubleheader against the Arizona Diamondbacks and scored five runs in the eighth inning to come back and take game one 6-5. This gave the Dodgers a season record of 103-44, a .700 winning percentage (briefly, as they lost game two), a feat rarely accomplished in […]