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Robert Taylor Walker was born on August 20, 1914, in Arboa, Florida. For many years, the legend was that his mother had named him after the actor Robert Taylor, but as the motion-picture star was born just three years before Walker and did not make his movie debut until 1934, that particular tale seems implausible. […]

In January 1903 twenty-eight year old George Barclay “Win” Mercer had already played nine years in the major leagues, won 131 games, just been given his first managerial job, and was enormously popular with fans and players. He seemed to have the world in the palm of his hand. Yet, less than two weeks into […]

On August 1, 1902, manager Bill Armour of the Cleveland Bronchos found himself with a seriously depleted pitching staff. Two off-days the previous week had been filled with exhibitions that went 15 and 13 innings respectively. Then Bill Bernhard injured his knee sliding into a base. Addie Joss was sick and Gene Wright was nursing […]

One of the few ballplayers with a palindromic last name, Johnny Reder is also one of just four natives of Poland (as of 2015) to play in the major leagues. To first reach the majors and play for the Boston Red Sox was a real comedown in athletic competition. He was used to playing before […]

Luke Stuart was a long-time minor league infielder who, in the course of a brief three-game major league sojourn in 1921 with the St. Louis Browns, established an American League feat that went unrecognized for more than seven decades. Through the efforts of SABR’s Records Committee in the mid-1990s, Stuart ascended from total obscurity to […]

A crowd of 1,2501 was on hand to watch the Philadelphia Phillies demolish the Louisville Colonels, 29-4, on August 17, 1894, breaking the National League records for runs, hits, and total bases in a game. Sam Thompson, playing as part of the “only major league outfield of future Hall of Famers who had all three […]

Determining the first enclosed baseball field is a matter for debate. A significant criterion for inclusion is whether the playing site was adapted from another recreational venue such as a race track, fairgrounds, cricket pitch, skating rink, or a parade field. Candidacy should be solely based on whether the grounds were specifically erected and intended […]

True, a hitter going for .400 doesn’t like outs – but was this taking things a little too far? Bob Dunbar of the Boston Herald let it be known that Boston Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams had “bored a couple of holes through the left-field fence with his new rifle. … Teddy’s sharp-shooting ability […]

A late summer baseball game can build confidence during a pennant race and boost momentum. Unfortunately for the crowd of 26,087 at the August 26, 2016, game between the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks, neither team was in contention. The Diamondbacks, the National League’s youngest franchise, entered the game with 53 wins and 75 defeats. […]

Despite a roster featuring Hall of Fame-bound Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Joe Torre, the Atlanta Braves entered their September 3, 1966, doubleheader with the Houston Astros at Atlanta Stadium in the middle of the National League pack. The Astros were looking up at the Braves from several spots below. In fact, the Braves, in […]

With the 2013 season winding down and the first-place Boston Red Sox enjoying a 7½-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East Division, the Red Sox took a 4-0 lead over the visiting New York Yankees in the first inning, let the lead get away from them, scored another four runs, […]

A day after dropping both ends of a Sunday doubleheader to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Forbes Field, the winless Pittsburgh Pirates traveled to New York City to take on the defending World Series champion Giants on Monday, April 18, 1955. It was yet another loss for the visitors, in front of fewer than 3,000 paying […]

In 1904, the South Atlantic League (aka the “Sally” League) was a new Class C minor league with six teams: three in Georgia (Macon, Augusta, and Savannah), two in South Carolina (Charleston and Columbia), and one in Florida (Jacksonville).1 Under the leadership of manager Billy Smith, the Macon Highlanders won the pennant. He returned to […]

For many baseball fans, 1901 marks the beginning of the “modern” era.1 That year saw the arrival of the eight-team American League to go with the recently realigned eight teams of the National League, and a stability that lasted for over 50 years.2 It also marked the emergence of one of the greatest pitchers in […]

The Philadelphia Athletics arrived in Louisville for a four-game series on September 26 with a 3½-game lead over the second-place St. Louis Brown Stockings. To win the American Association pennant, either Philadelphia needed to win at least one game against the Eclipse or St. Louis needed to lose one game against the lowly Pittsburgh Alleghenys. […]

“The Buccaneers turned impending defeat into a glorious victory snatched from the very jaws of disaster” gushed the Pittsburgh Press about the Pirates’ six-run ninth inning to beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-7, in the Windy City.1 The Pittsburgh Post called the Deadball Era offensive explosion a “sensational slugfest,”2 while sportswriter J.J. Alcock of Chicago Tribune […]

Chicago’s Comiskey Park, built in the heyday of the first wave of steel and concrete ballparks and opened in 1910, hosted its share of iconic baseball moments. A World Series championship in 1917 was followed by the infamous Black Sox Scandal two years later. It was the site of the first All-Star Game in 1933 […]

Black baseball pioneer and 2022 Hall of Famer Bud Fowler played for at least 15 minor-league teams from 1878 to 1895, and he’s considered the first acknowledged African American professional baseball player.1 One stop on his journey was with the Montpelier Capital Citys of the 1887 Northeastern League. Throughout his historic career, Fowler was the […]

Pittsburgh baseball fans were frustrated over their team’s slow start to the 1912 season. Their displeasure escalated with the team’s inability to scratch out a run in the first game of a series against Cincinnati. The Pirates managed just seven scattered singles while being shut out by Reds hurler George Suggs. Because of a rainout, […]

The lead-up to Game 162 of the 2018 season for the Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics seemingly offered very little drama. Los Angeles was completing another disappointing campaign, sitting at 79-82 despite the efforts of perennial Most Valuable Player candidate Mike Trout1 and newly arrived Japanese star Shohei Ohtani, soon to be named American […]

Baseball is different. Among the worldwide variety of stick and ball games, baseball (along with its cousins cricket and rounders) is different in that it is the player, and not the ball, who does the scoring – and the ball is often far away when the scoring is done. In field hockey, hurling, lacrosse, shinty, […]

“They might be right,” Dan Evans thought to himself when he saw the cover of the April 6, 1987, issue of Sports Illustrated, with its subhead that proclaimed, “Believe It! Cleveland Is the Best Team in the American League.”1 After all, the then 27-year-old Evans knew the team he served as director of baseball operations, […]

After finishing the 1921 season in the top five of National League hitters for doubles, home runs, RBIs, total bases, and extra-base hits, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Austin McHenry had established himself as one of the premier left fielders in baseball. In fact, after the season The Sporting News named McHenry as one of the […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in “Baseball Research Journal #33” in 2004. It has been republished at SABR.org in its original form. Click here for a list of upheld protests at Retrosheet.org.  It is well known that a manager may formally protest a game only if he claims an umpire has made a decision […]