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In 1969, his first season as manager of the Washington Senators, Ted Williams worked wonders. He gave instant celebrity status to a team formerly mocked and ignored, even in its own city. With essentially the same roster as the 1968 team that finished 65-96, the worst record in Major League Baseball, Williams’ Senators won 86 […]

Charles Victor (“Victory”) Faust left Marion, Kansas, in the early summer of 1911 to bring victories and a championship to the National League’s New York Giants’ Baseball Club. He intended to do it as a player, but instead accomplished this objective as the quintessential mascot. Many people at the time merely thought of Charley as […]

For more than a century the World Series has been an integral part of American culture. It has become a final celebration of the more than 2,700 games that connect the early spring with the late fall. The annual ritual of the best team in the American League facing the best of the National League […]

Rock and roll is the métier of choice at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (a.k.a. O.co Coliseum since 2011). For example, the Allman Brothers Band’s hit “Ramblin’ Man” can often be heard at the baseball Athletics’ 35,067-capacity home. It is fitting, given the franchise’s peregrination from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955 and then to Oakland […]

On a sunny day in the middle of December 1930, the House That Ruth Built was converted into a football stadium. Yankee Stadium hosted America’s Rivalry – Army vs. Navy – in a postseason football game “on the turf hallowed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.”1 This was nothing new. The first football game played […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Introduction In his December 29, 2005 internet blog, John Thorn, the noted baseball author and SABR member, mentioned that the shotgun that killed Ty Cobb’s father in 1905 had been part […]

The 2003 Winter Meetings were held from December 12 to 15 at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans. This was the fifth time the Winter Meetings were held in The Big Easy, with the most recent having been in 1997. Economic conditions in the United States were improving as lower interest rates, the child-tax credit, […]

The 1963 baseball winter meetings were alive with discussion of important issues, including the permissible size of catcher’s mitts and the color of baseball bats. The clubs also made time to once again reconfigure the minor-league structure and adopt an amendment designed to assist the player-development efforts of expansion teams. The minor leagues kicked off […]

“Kill him! Kill the umpire!’ shouted someone on the stand; And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.”   Even people not interested in the national pastime are familiar with that homicidal exhortation from Ernest Thayer’s 1888 poem, “Casey at the Bat.” While murderous rhetoric has never become a reality, […]

To date, there has only been one woman who played baseball with a team of major leaguers in a big-league ballpark. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Murphy and she played for a team of “all-stars” against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Lizzie Murphy’s team beat the Red Sox, 3-2.1 The year was 1922, […]

The time was shortly after 7 AM. The place was a stretch of seashore on the Normandy coast of France designated Omaha Beach. The date was June 6, 1944. Less than sixty minutes had passed since H-Hour, when the first wave of men from the 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, the only […]

Jerry Sullivan as a teenager.   The city of Baltimore has hosted a number of historic baseball events. Although this story barely qualifies as such, it is nevertheless an interesting aside involving Jerry Sullivan, a 32-year-old, 3-foot-11 stage actor who appeared in an Eastern League game in Baltimore in 1905. Forty-six years later, the St. […]

Tony Pena sat alone on the top of the dugout steps, his legs sprawled in front of him. He tucked the gold chains around his neck under his jersey and fastened the clasps on his shinguards. After staring at the dirt for a moment, Pena snapped to his feet. Peering into the dugout, he smiled […]

Keeping it Alive: The Proactive Clark Griffith  At age 72, Clark Griffith again faced the challenge of maintaining the operations and financial stability of his “small market” team, the Washington Senators, during a world war. The Senators, by population, were the smallest team in major-league baseball. During World War I, the major leagues continued to […]

Lobby card for “Kill the Umpire” (1950) starring William Bendix. (Author’s collection)   Most baseball fans would agree that the best umpire is the invisible umpire. Sure, the umps on the field ensure that the rules of the game are followed. They call balls and strikes. They determine if the fielder who dives for the […]

Every two years, the nation’s capital sees senators leave town and new senators arrive to take their place. After a while, the suits all begin to look the same; only the bodies filling them out are different. The dance of those coming and going is typically confined to Capitol Hill. But between October 1960 and […]

What was George Sisler thinking when he signed a contract to play professional baseball in Akron, Ohio, in January 1911 at the tender age of 17? After all, he had not consulted with his family or any other adult except for Jesse Goehler, who, acting as a representative of the Akron club, signed the future […]

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 […]

On his way to setting the all-time record for consecutive games played in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. also broke the major league record for consecutive innings played, having gone 8,264 innings without being taken out of the lineup. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2,632-consecutive-game streak is one of the most […]

Spring in Ottawa Taunts. It teases and tantalizes, offering its charms in unexpected bursts, only to pull back its promise with cruel wintry blasts that test endurance and resilience. In January, spring is merely a concept, but as the days come off the calendar, there is cause for hope, perhaps distant, but hope, nonetheless. There […]

Merle Harmon interviews Herb Score. The 1955 American League Rookie of the Year winner later joined the baseball broadcasting fraternity after his career ended prematurely. (COURTESY OF MERLE HARMON)   He was a sports broadcaster and former college football player from the Midwest. Tall and gray­ haired, he sported a crooked nose as a football […]

A note from the editor of the Fall 2013 BRJ.

He was known as “The Tall Tactician” and was baseball’s grand old gentleman for more than a generation. Statuesque, stately, and slim, he clutched a rolled-up scorecard as he sat or stood ramrod straight in the dugout, attired in a business suit rather than a uniform, a derby or bowler in place of a baseball […]

Entering the postseason, the 1975 Cincinnati Reds were widely considered to be baseball’s best team — but there was still the matter of winning the World Series. The Reds had lost the 1972 World Series and the 1973 NLCS to teams considered their inferior by most observers, and neither Sparky Anderson nor his veteran stars […]