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Back in the Deadball Era, Sherry Magee was called “one of the greatest and most neglected of sluggers,” “a born dynamiter with the bat,” and “a genuine murderer of the pill.” Today we’d call him a five-tool player: he could hit, run, field, throw, and hit with power. We might also call him a psychopath. […]
Histories of the Philadelphia Phillies portray the club’s admission to the National League (NL) as a straightforward and swift process. Early in 1883, League president Abraham G. Mills informed former star player and old friend Alfred J. Reach that the Worcester franchise was moving to Philadelphia. Mills asked Reach — now a successful business entrepreneur […]
A summary of the 1951 World Series, won by the New York Yankees in six games over the New York Giants. Game One New York Giants 5, New York Yankees 1 October 4, 1951, at Yankee Stadium With the recurring sounds of “the Giants win the pennant!” still echoing, a World Series – even a […]
When the American League expanded for a second time in 1969 and split into a pair of divisions, the California Angels could be excused for still thinking of themselves as an expansion team, since they had come into existence only eight years earlier. Over the course of this brief lifespan, the Angels had compiled a […]
In addition to 1976 being the Nation’s Bicentennial, it also is a big year for celebration in each of America’s major baseball organizations. The venerable National League, being born in New York, February 2, 1876, is celebrating its proud centennial. Its once upstart junior, the American League, is accepting congratulations on surviving 75 tempestuous seasons. […]
Magnates attending the 1899 winter league meetings in New York had a full docket: Contraction of the National League The gathering threat of other circuits aiming to claim major-league status; Various internal headaches, chief of which was mollification of angry and vindictive New York Giants owner Andrew Freedman.1 In the end, the progress achieved on […]
The “sport” of dog fighting captured many headlines in 2007 with the conviction of Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons star quarterback who admitted to participating in the inhumane and illegal business of pit bull fighting as well as the execution of underperforming dogs. No major league baseball player has ever been similarly implicated in criminal […]
We the undersigned, Professional Base Ball Clubs of the United States, by our representatives in convention assembled, in the city of New York this 2d day of February A.D. 1876, lamenting the abuses which have insidiously crept into the exposition of our National Game, and regretting the unpleasant differences which have arisen among ourselves growing […]
The East All-Stars for the 1953 Longhorn League All-Star game played July 25 In Midland, Texas. Front row from left, John Malgarini of San Angelo, Roger Dalla Betta of Midland, Scooter Hughes of Midland, John Tayoan of San Angelo, and Barney Batson of Odessa. Second row from left, Joe Riney of Big Spring, Art Bowland […]
My home town of Virginia, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range, is best known for its iron ore and as the home of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company, for a time the largest white pine sawmill in the world. Sadly, growing up I had no knowledge of Virginia’s rich baseball past. It was […]
Radio broadcasts of Yankees games in the 1920s were sparse, but Graham McNamee (shown here with Babe Ruth) often called the few that did make the air. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) For New York Yankees fans, Wednesday, April 18, 1923, was a momentous occasion: That was the day the brand-new Yankee Stadium […]
By 1920 the idea of matching two high-minor-league teams in a lesser version of the major-league World Series had finally taken root. Informal series had been staged in 1904, 1906, 1907, 1917, and 1919. In 1920, the pennant winners of the International League (IL) and of the American Association (AA) met in the Little World […]
Lefty Williams, left, and Eddie Cicotte carried the load for the Chicago White Sox in 1919. The two pitchers started, and won, more than half of the White Sox’s games during the regular season. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) As soon as Red Faber reported for spring training, Kid Gleason knew he had […]
Prologue The American National Leagues each held individual annual meetings on December 9, 1930, in New York City. Although the National League was bound by its constitution to meet in New York City, its American League counterpart had originally planned to meet in Chicago. However, league President E.S. Barnard later changed this arrangement so the […]
Introduction and Context The 2006 baseball Winter Meetings were held in Orlando, Florida, at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. The size of the resort — an 87-acre facility featuring two hotels with over 80 meeting rooms and 300,000 square feet of meeting space — matched the big names on the market heading […]
Background Baseball was going through a time of transition as the 1968 Winter Meetings approached. Most dramatically, the major leagues were about to add four new teams beginning in 1969, and had recently held two expansion drafts to stock the new clubs. On Monday, October 14, the National League held its draft for the Montreal […]
Baseball Magazine put Stan Musial on its cover in September 1948. The Cardinals superstar was putting the finishing touches on his greatest season in the big leagues. (SABR-Rucker Archive) Every renowned artist has his or her most famous creation, their pièce de résistance, that singularly most remarkable composition that stands out in an already […]
Lenny Randle (SABR-Rucker Archive) WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU? Reality check: Playing professional baseball is a job. It requires supreme skill, demanding hours, cultural fit, and a balancing act to win approval from demanding, unpredictable bosses who control when you play, even if you’ll be traded. The pressure can become overwhelming. When you feel […]
How important is the subject of pitchers’ fielding? Just ask Jim Leyland, manager of the 2006 Detroit Tigers, who lost the World Series. Five errors—four of them throwing errors—committed by four different pitchers, one in every one of the five games of the series, led to seven unearned runs for the opposing St. Louis Cardinals. […]
After their on-field exploits of 1961, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were sought by film producer Tom Naud for a Hollywood feature. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) Occasionally, baseball films spotlight sequences or storylines that are Florida-centric. Not surprisingly, they primarily are linked to spring training—and some even have real-world connections. Slide, Kelly, […]
The SABR 19th Century Committee recently polled its members to determine the top ten players of the pre-1900 era not in the Hall of Fame. Heading the list in a three-way tie were Jimmy Ryan, Harry Stovey, and George Van Haltren. My favorite is Ryan, the great Chicago outfielder. A brief review of his life […]
Well-seasoned SABR members will easily recall the days of perusing box scores in which frequently rather than rarely the lineups came to nine to a dozen players on each side. In nearly all instances, box scorekeeping was relatively easy. When now and then a box score addict encountered a batting order alteration caused by substitutions, […]
All baseball fans are familiar, if not from the movie, then from the grainy newsreel footage, with Lou Gehrig’s legendary speech at Yankee Stadium home plate on July 4, 1939. Yet that was not the first nor the last time a speech would have a dramatic impact at The House that Ruth Built. Baseball, football, […]