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High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) June 2022 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors Update on BioProject Submissions The BioProject on Social Media Project Team From Co-Directors, Rory Costello and Gregory H. Wolf BioProject Tags: a call for suggestions Published stories on the BioProject […]

Eleanor Callow was more than just the greatest power hitter in All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) history. On top of being the all-time leader in home runs and triples, Callow was perhaps the league’s best all-around position player. A speedy outfielder with a strong throwing arm, Callow ranks in the Top 10 in career […]

Fred Merkle had his boner and Steve Bartman his bobbled foul ball. For Candy Maldonado, a momentary lapse and blinding lights contributed to a play less infamous but just as devastating for the unfortunate protagonist. It was October 13, 1987, as Game Six of the National League Championship Series pitted Maldonado’s San Francisco Giants (90-72) […]

Hal Deviney’s major-league debut came on July 30, 1920. Deviney’s last major-league game was on July 30, 1920. He’d been with the Boston Red Sox for more than the one day and the one hour and 50 minutes the game took to play, but that was the only action he saw – the last three […]

When John Otten first stood behind the plate for the St. Louis Browns on July 5, 1895, he brought with him a reputation as a strong defensive catcher who, at age 24, was among baseball’s youngest catchers.1 The effects of a broken thumb four days later, however, brought an early end to Otten’s major-league career […]

Billy Geer had a somewhat nomadic baseball career, playing parts of six major league seasons with seven different teams. That nomadic life would continue in his post-baseball career as he took up another profession that would keep him on the run for the rest of his life. William H. Geer was born about 1852 in […]

Because of his dark complexion, he was called Nig.1 For the same reason, some sportswriters referred to him as the Cuban Warrior or the Cuban Hero. But Nig Cuppy was not African-American or Cuban. He was a first-generation American, son of immigrants from Bavaria. George Maceo Koppe was born on July 3, 1869, in Logansport, […]

While his major-league career spanned a mere three months in 1884, the game of baseball played an important part in the life of Joe Moffet and his family for nearly a quarter of the 19th century. Six family members were involved in professional baseball, playing on teams in Wheeling, Cleveland, Toledo, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Boston. […]

Ed Williamson is most famous for setting the major league single season home run record in 1884, when he hit 27 homers for the National League’s Chicago White Stockings. The record was a bit of a fluke – for during that season, the White Stockings declared new ground rules saying that balls hit over short […]

Ballpark discounts and giveaways have fueled memorable moments, including some that certain teams would rather forget. In the second half of a doubleheader on September 26, 1942, after the New York Giants gave free admission to any child who brought scrap metal for the World War II effort, mobs of kids stormed the Polo Grounds […]

Considered one of the best defensive shortstops of his era, Hall of Famer and 10-time All-Star Pee Wee Reese was the quiet yet forceful captain of the postwar Dodgers. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field was hosting the All-Star Game for the first time, the last of the major league locations in existence in […]

The Boston Braves played 2,811 regular-season home games at Braves Field between 1915 and 1952, winning 1,378 of them. The very last of those wins, recorded in the first game of a Sunday doubleheader in September 1952, appears in retrospect to rank among the tightest and most exciting wins ever seen by Boston’s National League […]

Ironically, the Chicago Cubs got off to an auspicious start in baseball’s centennial year. They began the 1969 season with the National League’s best Opening Day record: 39 wins, 28 losses, 2 ties. And there was plenty of optimism on Chicago’s North Side as the newly-configured major leagues got underway. George Vass wrote of the […]

The Zanesville (Ohio) Greys were a Class C minor-league baseball team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians. In 1935 Earl Wolgamot led the Greys to the best overall record in the eight-team Middle Atlantic League, and he was voted the league’s manager of the year for the second year in a row.1 His best players, though, […]

If the Boston Red Sox taking the 1975 World Series opener from the Big Red Machine was surprising, 95-win Boston taking a two-games-to-none lead over the 108-win Cincinnati Reds would have been a complete shock to the baseball system. And for the better part of Sunday afternoon, October 12, it seemed that the Red Sox […]

Heading into the 1993 season, the July 2 game between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres at Veterans Stadium seemed like an unexciting item. The Phillies had finished last in the National League East Division in 1992, 26 games out; the Padres were third in the NL West, 16 games out. The Phillies promotions […]

Cal Ripken Jr. homers on September 6, 1995, during his record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game. (Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles)   The outcome of this game was of little importance to the fans of two cities separated by less than 200 miles. The New York Yankees’ record was mediocre, a pedestrian 60-61, only slightly better than […]

During early August 1923, the Cleveland Indians attempted to gain ground on the American League-leading New York Yankees. Entering the August 7 contest against the Washington Nationals, Cleveland was mired in second place, 13½ games behind power-laden New York. The Indians started the season with a six-game winning streak and held first place throughout April, […]

In the summer of 1936, the Lake Erie Shore was the place to be. Cleveland celebrated the centennial of its incorporation as a city1 with the Great Lakes Exposition, a fair that, in the depths of the Great Depression, was as much about tourism as it was a celebration of the region’s industrial might.2 Thousands […]

Oh, those New York Mets! In the first three seasons since the National League returned to New York in 1962, the Mets finished in last place. Would the 1965 season be their time to abandon last place for higher ground? To answer the question, manager Casey Stengel could be direct without resorting to some form […]

For both major leagues, 1912 “was a banner year for streaks by pitchers,” as noted at the start of a SABR article on such accomplishments.1 Future Hall of Famers in each league had already tied or set records for consecutive wins as the Tigers prepared to face Red Sox ace Joe Wood during the second […]

The Yankees and Dodgers have met more times in the World Series than any other pairing in postseason history.1 This World Series rivalry is punctuated by moments that have become as much a part of baseball history as the games themselves. Two of the plays in the historic 1955 World Series are recalled. Jackie Robinson […]

SABR members, you have the opportunity to take advantage of two special offers from MLB Advanced Media for the 2015 season: Click here to access a 20% discount off the 2015 MLB.TV Premium Monthly subscription package The link above allows you access to purchase a 2015 MLB.TV Premium Monthly subscription at a special price for […]

This is the online appendix to Herm Krabbenhoft’s article “James Bentley vs. William Henry, John Joseph, and Edward James: An Irresistible Force vs. Three Immovable Objects,” which was published in the Spring 2025 edition of the Nineteenth Century Committee newsletter. Click on a link below to scroll down to that appendix: Appendix A: Game-By-Game Pitching […]