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This article was originally published in “A Celebration of Louisville Baseball,” the 1997 SABR convention journal.   The baseball season of 1890 was a tumultuous season on and off the field. It was the year of open battled in the Brotherhood War, with the players forming their own league and fielding a full schedule of […]

Editor’s Note: This is an article that appeared earlier in “The Red Sox Journal.”   According to my best calculations, it’s approximately 2,580 miles as the crow flies from home plate at San Diego’s North Park playground to home plate at Fenway Park. Drive your old Mustang and we’re talking 3,000 miles plus. Literally and […]

When I was designated for assignment in Anaheim on April 30, 1981, I thought I was headed to the New York Yankees. I was the fourth-string catcher on the Milwaukee Brewers and hadn’t even played in a game that season. I didn’t catch an inning nor hit any baseballs outside of batting practice. Ted Simmons, […]

Rachel Robinson and Ken Burns discuss Jackie Robinson’s legacy. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)   Ken Burns’s film, Jackie Robinson, perfectly fits the definition of a documentary by providing a factual record or report. As a Black member of the audience, it was extremely important for me to hear from Black people in cultural context and […]

When Jack Roosevelt Robinson set foot on the green grass of Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, he understood the enormity of the moment and his role in it. He was breaking through a barrier that had been in place for 60 years, and by doing so was elevating his entire race. He knew the […]

During early 1912 two proposed leagues struggled to gain a foothold outside Organized Baseball.  In the middle west the Columbian League failed for lack of enough capital and quickly dissolved, a disappointment to its prime sponsor, John T. Powers of Chicago, who would launch the Federal League a year later.  The other upstart, the United […]

In the much praised SABR publication Minor League Baseball Stars, mention is made of the relationship between ballparks and hitting records. Nicollet Park in Minneapolis and Sulphur Dell in Nashville were cited, along with the Sacramento Park of more recent vintage. There are other parks which could have been mentioned. The one I know best […]

Visiting Cuba is like tripping in a time machine. We’re not talking about a beach vacation at Varadero, but a visitation to the living, working Cuba. A Cuba where baseball is woven into the shirts they wear, is the caffeine in their coffee, and the excitement in their voices. When you are there, you’ll find […]

There was one sentence that I read in Ted Williams’ autobiography, My Turn At Bat, which set me off on a personal research journey that took me some unexpected places and raised a few eyebrows along the way. It was a 44-word sentence about his mother, which I really only focused on the third time […]

In 1967, Carl Yastrezemski wasn’t just the sparkplug for the Boston Red Sox with his hitting and his fielding. He also posted some stats that no one matched for 45 years, winning the last Triple Crown in Major League Baseball until Miguel Cabrera in 2012. “And if I have my choice between a pennant and […]

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. Baseball already has had some interesting centennials. In 1939, they celebrated the first 100 years of baseball as an American sport and institution. It was the year the game’s shrine in […]

During the four seasons that Bobby Wine and Ruben Amaro were teammates, from 1962 through 1965, they split the shortstop duties for the Philadelphia Phillies — and each won a Gold Glove. In May 1962, Rubén Amaro (who had previously been in the Mexican Army) was recalled to service in the US Army. The Phillies […]

South Shields is a coastal town in Northern England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne, downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne. The town boasts an economy built around shipbuilding and coal mining, and produced the director Ridley Scott and actor/comedian Eric Idle. The main sports are rugby and soccer.1 So it may seem strange […]

Vida Blue lost two consecutive 1-0 games in 1971 and fans wondered why those Oakland batters couldn’t get this great pitcher some runs. Walter Johnson had this same problem a half century ago, but it wasn’t for just two games, or two seasons, but for 20 years. Johnson, in the course of his career, participated […]

On October 26, 1960, Calvin Griffith received permission to move his Washington Senators ballclub and bring major league baseball to Minnesota. As a result, in 1961 the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul were joined in support of one team. Until the coming of the Twins, however, the two cities had been supporters of their […]

Little Bobby Mathews (all of 5-feet-5½ inches) twirled a gem of a ballgame to initiate play of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. But the Fort Wayne Kekiongas’ fantastic 2-0 victory over Cleveland on May 4, 1871, was not a harbinger of scores to come as it was soon proved to be a […]

1962 Detroit Tigers Goodwill Tour program (Robert Fitts Collection)   For the Detroit Tigers 1962 was a year to forget. They finished the season in fourth place, 10½ games behind the pennant-winning Yankees, with 16 fewer wins than the second-place 1961 Detroit club. The best the Tigers could muster in 1962 was second spot in […]

Mike Piazza, Sadaharu Oh and Tommy Lasorda (Courtesy of Mark Langill)   What felt like a nostalgia trip unexpectedly served as a dress rehearsal for the next frontier of professional baseball when the 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers staged a modest five-game “Friendship Series” in Taiwan and Japan. Nobody could’ve predicted a “Tornado” on the horizon, […]

The year 2000 was not just the beginning of a new century for humanity but also marked a new era in Major League Baseball’s relationship with Japan as the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs opened the season in Tokyo. US major-league squads had been touring Japan since 1908 but the 2000 Opening Day Series […]

The pregame ceremonies before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series included a giant American flag in center field and President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch. (Courtesy of Scott Pitoniak)   At Yankee Stadium over the weekend of September 7-9, 2001, the Yankees had swept the visiting Boston Red Sox. Boston was […]

San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Willie Mays influenced the lives of two other Giants, Bobby and Barry Bonds, both of whom who had significant careers of their own. He was Bobby’s teammate with the Giants, while taking on the role of godfather for Barry as a youngster. When Barry later became a Giant, Mays continued […]

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 […]

Even when the Mets were at their most mediocre, dramatic victories were a common occurrence, and that trait carried over to the 1969 regular season. The Mets had their share of unlikely wins that season, including 11 in walk-off fashion. Mets Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae offers a closer look at those Amazin’ games.   April […]