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Detroit’s Bennett Park hosted a four-game series between the Senators and Tigers in mid-July 1909. Detroit won the first three games of the set, with the finale set for Friday, July 16. The Tigers began that day atop the American League, with a 50-28 record. Washington lay in last place, at 23-52. Detroit was pursuing […]

Baseball is different. Among the worldwide variety of stick and ball games, baseball (along with its cousins cricket and rounders) is different in that it is the player, and not the ball, who does the scoring – and the ball is often far away when the scoring is done. In field hockey, hurling, lacrosse, shinty, […]

Like all the other major-league teams, the Boston Red Sox had lost many of their best players to military service during World War II. In 1945 five pitchers who had been regulars, Tex Hughson, Joe Dobson, Mickey Harris, Earl Johnson, and Mace Brown, were serving in the military. The Red Sox had finished in fourth […]

The New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates were to play the initial game of a three-game series at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on Monday, September 8. The Giants had just concluded a four-game series against the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Polo Grounds. The Giants split the four-game set with more than 166,000 fans attending. After […]

The 1972 season was marred by a season-opening strike. When agreement was reached, it was decided to play out the schedule as it had been, even if that meant some teams would play a game or two more than others. That resulted in the Detroit Tigers playing one more game than the Boston Red Sox. […]

The 1940 World Series featured the National League champion Cincinnati Reds, who won 100 games and outpaced their nearest rival by 12 games, and the Detroit Tigers, who captured the AL flag by a mere one-game margin over Cleveland. The Bengals were in a dogfight until the very end as only eight games separated the […]

“As a diehard Yankee hater and former Yankee killer, I even helped to germinate the seeds of the feud by spreading some fertilizer of my own.” — Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Boston Red Sox pitcher, 1969-1978.1 Books have been written, blogs have been posted and newspaper accounts have captured the intensity of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, […]

In the early part of 1927, the Midwest was bursting with anticipation as the baseball season segued from projections to facts delivered by daily sports accounts. By mid-April, pitching matchups, game summaries, and season standings would replace the “dreary box-scoreless winter” to provide “something in the newspapers.” Even an umpire might expect applause for one […]

At 10:45 A.M. on July 5, 1947, Larry Doby and Cleveland Indians assistant public relations director Louis Jones arrived by train in Chicago. The pair made a brief stop at the Congress Hotel to pick up Indians owner Bill Veeck, and journeyed to Comiskey Park, where they were about to make history.1 It was the […]

In September baseball fans are typically focused on playoff races. The 1998 season gave fans some extra excitement, a home-run contest. It pitted Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals against Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. Each slugger entered their contests on Monday, September 14, 1998, with 62 homers, making them the current record-holders […]

A record-setting home-run barrage and a thrilling finish at Briggs Stadium left a big impression on even the most time-tested of baseball minds in June of 1950. Detroit Tigers manager Red Rolfe seemed amazed. “Did you ever see a game like last night’s? I never did,” he said.1 Will Harridge, president of the American League, […]

“If manager Red Rolfe had written the script, the Tigers could not have arranged a more dramatic finish,” wrote the AP’s Jack Handy.1 With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a scoreless game, outfielder Vic Wertz blasted a dramatic home run to give the Detroit Tigers a 1-0 victory over the […]

“We’ll all have the answer pretty soon. Hank Greenberg is coming back. If he can’t make it, all the rest of them better cash in their GI pay and open a poolroom somewhere.” — Al Simmons1   With the surrender of Germany and the Japanese Empire on the verge of collapse, war-weary Americans were eager […]

Boston Red Sox rookie Ted Williams was 20 years old when he first played in a game at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. It quickly became his favorite ballpark in which to hit. Williams — “The Kid” — had won the Triple Crown in the American Association in 1938, with 43 home runs among his contributions to […]

Forty thousand fans turned out at Navin Field on a cloudy and chilly Tuesday afternoon to witness an extraordinary homecoming: Ty Cobb, the greatest Tiger of them all, was returning to Detroit – in the uniform of the visiting team. The Tigers had fallen from fourth to sixth place in 1926, and to many it […]

On June 10, 1924, the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers stood only a game apart in the standings, the Yankees tied for first place with the surprising Boston Red Sox, the Tigers in third place only a game back. The Tigers were eight games into a 21-game homestand when they hosted the Yankees for […]

The decision had come down barely a week before: baseball was closing up shop and going to war. Suddenly, in the middle of summer, the 1918 baseball season was drawing to a close. On May 23 General Enoch Crowder, provost marshal and director of the draft, decreed that by July 1 all eligible men aged […]

Harry Heilmann entered the final day of the 1927 regular season in a tight race for the AL batting championship. He had been in a similar situation just two years earlier. In 1925 Heilmann surpassed veteran Cleveland Indians center fielder Tris Speaker with six hits in a season-ending doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis […]

“I was a damn effective pitcher. It pains me to be remembered for one unfortunate pitch — and, unfairly, a pitch surreptitiously signaled to the hitter — as opposed to a hurler who, for a number of years, had good stuff.” — Ralph Branca1   The young Brooklyn Dodgers fan raced home from school on […]

Baseball fans throughout the country in 1976 had been hearing the scattered chatter, ever since mid-May. Talk of something new and exciting happening in Detroit. Some rookie pitcher with long hair. Didn’t they say he talked to the baseball? Got on his knees before each inning and groomed the mound? Stomped around the field like […]

“The baseball rule makers made sweeping changes in the playing code of the national game today, and heaped so much additional duty and authority on the shoulders of the umpires that next season the officials will all have to take a rest cure before the season is half over.” – New York Times, February 10, […]

Fenway Park in Boston was supposed to host the 1945 All-Star Game on July 10, but it was canceled on February 21 after the Office of Defense Transportation asked the American and National Leagues to curtail travel by 25 percent as part of the war effort during World War II.1 As NL President Ford Frick […]

“Of all the skills wrapped up in the complex game of big league baseball, none is practiced with more ingenuity and less publicity than the fine art of diamond larceny.” – Martin Abramson1 A wiring system sending signals to an in-ground junction box and a vibrating device or maybe a telescopic sight from a World […]

BioBlabber The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) December 2015, Volume 1, Number 2 (Special Festivus Edition) Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley From the Editor From the Director What Happens When the Info Looks Right but Is Wrong Project Profile: Emily Hawks Happy Festivus Project Poobahs From the Editor The […]