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Like most Southern cities, baseball was introduced to Nashville, Tennessee during the Civil War. With the Union army’s occupation of the city in 1962, the troops showed the city’s citizens how to play the game of “base ball.” One of the first professional baseball teams in Nashville was the Nashville Seraphs. Nashville also fielded teams […]

When the Boston Red Sox recorded the final out against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series, it concluded the 100th fall classic in Major league Baseball history. The outcomes of these 100 matchups have ranged from boringly predictable to totally shocking, with everything in between. One hundred is a nice round number […]

Babe Ruth is seated in a bistro. A waiter takes his order. William  Bendix, wearing a putty-flattened Ruth nose, orders milk. Babe Ruth??? Milk??? That scene was enough to curdle “The Babe Ruth Story,” a  cheaply made production of the great slugger’s life. And Ty Cobb doesn’t fare any better. In 1916, Cobb was coaxed […]

Every baseball fan worth his salt knows that Babe Ruth began his career as a pitcher and rose to become one of the American League’s best in the years around World War I. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that once his hitting skills were revealed Ruth was gradually moved into the role of an everyday […]

SABR member Gordon H. Fleming has written a highly praised book about the 1908 National League pennant race called THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON. The book is excellent and the season he wrote about, hinging as it does on the unfortunate Fred Merkle base-running blunder, was certainly unforgettable. In 1884, 24 years earlier, there had been another […]

The 1981 minor league baseball season had at least one unique experience and that was a 32-inning tie game between Rochester and Pawtucket that was continued at a later date amidst all kinds of excitement. But 30 years ago, in 1951, there was an even more unusual game in the Class D Mississippi-Ohio Valley League […]

Editor’s Note: This article, written by Jim Reeves, was originally published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.   Politicians called it modern-day highway robbery. The nation’s capitol mourned as if it had lost a president. Fans wept openly at old RFK Stadium and threatened to lynch Bob Short on the spot. In North Texas, specifically the […]

There is an expression in baseball that refers to a player “having a cup of coffee” in the majors. The inference is that he was with a team such a short time about all he had time for was a cup of coffee. In that parlance, the “shortest cup of coffee” is appearance in one […]

As the Cincinnati Reds prepared for the 1975 season, they had reason for cautious optimism. The club had plenty of talented players, including some of the biggest stars in the game, and they had been a strong team for several years. But they had not won the World Series in 35 years; and the Los […]

Though they lacked such modern tools as an amateur draft that drew from high-school, college, and amateur team rosters, and free agency for veteran players, Roy Hamey and John Quinn put together a winning team in Philadelphia using the means at their disposal.The 1964 Phillies were the handiwork of two general managers, Roy Hamey and […]

New Amsterdam Domed City, Mars Colony, Baseball League Game System Diagram (JAMES BREAUX)   Emma Hasford cycles through the civic dome at a leisurely pace. She keeps an eye on the crowded lanes, an ear on her comm, and her hands on the bars. The bike’s autopilot and gyros keep her upright and dodging the […]

1962 San Diego Padres. (Courtesy of Tom Larwin.)   The San Diego Padres’ first season in the Pacific Coast League was 1936. The team’s last season in the PCL was 1968. In only four of those 33 years did the Padres finish in first place. This story is about one of those four teams, 1962, […]

May 1, 1951: Minnie Minoso debuts for Sox and homers in first at-bat On April 30, 1951, the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics, and Chicago White Sox orchestrated a trade. Philadelphia sent Lou Brissie to Cleveland, which in turn shipped Sam Zoldak and Ray Murray to Philadelphia and Orestes “Minnie” Minoso to Chicago. The Athletics also […]

BACKGROUND: The 2010 SABR convention publication, The National Pastime: Baseball in the Peach State, included an article entitled “That Was Quick” describing a professional baseball game that lasted a mere 32 minutes. Based on information in “The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball”1 and a Google-based search for any quicker game (as unlikely as that seemed), […]

Actor Jack Lemmon toes the rubber, looks in for the sign, and takes a deep puff from a sizeable Cuban cigar. He throws a fastball down the heart of the plate, and I whistle a line drive inches from his famous visage for a single. This was no dream or fantasy—just one of the Hollywood […]

Willie Mays played in more regular-season games in center field than anyone else in major-league baseball history (2,832). He also played 83 games at first base, 12 in right field, 2 in left field, 2 at shortstop, and 1 at third base. This article presents the positions in order by when Mays made his first regular-season […]

Led by Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio’s brother Vince, who belted 21 homers and knocked in 100 runs, the 1941 Pittsburgh Pirates under future Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch finished in fourth place with an 81-73 record, 19 games behind the National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers.  Two months later, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the country […]

In 1912, Chicago was under consideration by two upstart baseball leagues. On February 12, John T. Powers’s Columbian League awarded a franchise to Chicago (along with Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, Milwaukee, and St. Louis), but the venture failed to materialize due to a lack of money. On April 3, an official announcement was […]

The Ottawa Senators sport their unique tartan uniforms, custom-made by local tailor J.R. McNeil in 1898. While these outfits were a source of pride in Ottawa, they received mixed reactions elsewhere. Though the photo is dated 1897, it was actually captured in 1898 during the team’s first and only season in the city. (National Baseball […]

The replay review system has changed Major League Baseball. The goal of the instant replay system was to reduce the impact of umpire error, while minimizing the time needed to review plays. In this paper we will examine the effects that replay review has had on the game and its strategies. Major League Baseball (MLB) […]

In 1987, Stan Musial traveled to Poland. He is shown here during a baseball clinic in Kutno (wearing a Boston Red Sox cap borrowed from another American) with Waldemar Goralski and Moe Drabowsky. (Courtesy of Slawomir Podemski, with thanks to Josh Chetwynd)   Stan Musial’s father, Łukasz, believed in the American dream. Work hard, get […]