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Baseball has been around for over 150 years, and during that time many thousands of pitchers, hoping to find the unhittable pitch, have experimented with grip, delivery, and release of the ball. Consequently, rarely is there anything new under the sun in the modern game. When a potentially new pitch comes along, therefore, it can […]

The sacrifice fly was a part of major league baseball, off and on, for 36 of the 65 seasons before 1954, when it became, for the first time, a separate item in the official statistics. It has had a very checkered history and the reader may have trouble understanding or even following the various changes. […]

Major league players, after their active diamond days are over, move into a range of occupations that are not much different from those which apply to most of the male population. Of course, a certain percentage branch off into other baseball or related positions, such as manager, coach, umpire, scout, executive, or broadcaster, which are […]

Edwin Newman, who usually turns a wry eye to the world of words, recently diverted his gaze to the world of numbers in a New York Times article: “A World Series isn’t just a baseball contest. As the Yankee–Dodger series has demonstrated, it’s also a cause of statistics.” Among the “stupefying array of facts and […]

Nate Colbert set a single-season RBI record in 1972; hardly anyone noticed. Even today – ten years after the fact – few fans and fewer record books are aware of the big right-handed slugger’s accomplishment. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his performance on August 1 of that year – the best single day […]

From left, Coach Buck Bailey of Washington State, Umpire Jim Tobin of National Association of Professional Baseball, Umpire Lon Warneke of National League, Coach Bibb Falk of Texas, and Umpire Hank Soar of American League. (Author’s collection)   The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I conference, 1914-96, which included colleges from Texas, Oklahoma, […]

For most of the first 100 years of major league baseball, owning a team could be profitable or perilous. Some club owners made fortunes and wore handmade silk shirts. Others lost their shirts, whatever they were made of. Some did both in their lifetimes. Connie Mack was in the latter category. The patterns of his […]

Columbia University’s Society for Baseball Research group includes the following contributors: Anthony Montes, Anthony Argenziano, Brian O’Sullivan, Charles Orlinsky, Drew Posner, Matthew Chagares, Anna Flieder, Bennett Bookstein, Jack Chernow, and Teddy Brodsky.   The shift has been a part of baseball for as long as the sport has existed. From a crisp “give me two […]

Tecumseh Park hosts an International Association match between Guelph and London, 1877. (C.J. Dryer, Canadian Illustrated News. Photo courtesy of Library and Archives Canada)   There resides in London, Ontario, across Queen’s Avenue from the old early nineteenth century courthouse located above the confluence of the north and south branches of the Thames River (locally […]

The image of American higher education reflected by college athletics is any­thing but flattering. As of March 1982, 17 schools were on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s pro­bation list—the highest number for a single period—and the Association’s enforcement department declared that the list would lengthen before it shortened. An additional 35 schools were under investigation […]

Gerry Nugent and the Phillies were flat broke. Worse than that: They were concave broke. Not only were they penniless, they were in debt to the National League. NL president Ford Frick went looking for somebody to rescue the franchise. Bob Paul, sports editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, was approached by local sports promoter […]

  Actor Chadwick Boseman portrayed Jackie Robinson in “42: The True Story of An American Legend,” released in 2013.   Jackie Robinson was one of the most complicated men to ever play the game, and so it is no surprise that fictional representations of him largely fail to fully capture this nuanced hero. His is […]

     Hillsboro Hops manager Shelley Duncan being ejected from the game against the Tri-City Dust Devils by short-season Single-A Northwest League umpire Joe Schwartz, August 26, 2015. (Courtesy of Michael Jacobs)   The theater of baseball contains many acts and scenes, from the overarching storyline of a masterful pitching performance or offensive feat to the […]

Canadian soldiers play baseball against their American allies at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London during the First World War. (Library and Archives Canada)   Bill Humber, Canada’s foremost baseball historian, has long made the case for baseball’s distinction as Canada’s earliest “national game.” Before indoor rinks and reliable refrigeration, hockey had yet to freeze itself […]

In September 2020, I had the good fortune of speaking with Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s daughter, over the course of two interviews in which we discussed representations of her father. The conversation is frank, detailed, and gives a keen insight into just how involved the Robinson family has been in telling their patriarch’s tale. Sharon also […]

In May of 1957, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley took a helicopter ride over Chavez Ravine, the eventual home of his iconic new ballpark. In Brooklyn he had loaded the team with Italian and African American players to reflect the demographics of that borough. He wanted his team to reflect the large Mexican American population in […]

The 1954 Winter Meetings opened on December 6 at New York’s Hotel Commodore with an agenda filled with issues that had plagued the sport for years. They included the ongoing decline of the minor leagues, the increasing misalignment of major-league franchises with the national population, and player-management conflicts. Owners left the meeting two days later […]

“Everybody thinks it’s just whatever glove you have on your hand, but it becomes part of you, part of your body.” — Craig Biggio1   The phrase “flashing the leather” is a common saying in baseball. These words are used to acknowledge an excellent play made in the field by a defensive player. Of course, […]

Few single-game achievements are as highly-regarded as the cycle: “A single, double, triple, and home run (not necessarily in that order) hit by a player in the same game.”1 Since 1876, there have been 344 documented regular-season cycles in the history of major league baseball (excluding the Negro Leagues).2 Table 1 breaks down the players […]

Dick Higham, with the 1877 Syracuse Stars. Second row from the back, left to right, Higham is the third seated with arms crossed. (Public Domain)   Any book about major-league umpiring would not be complete without a mentionof Richard “Dick” Higham.1 He was a professional player in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 24, 2004.   Black America at the end of the 1920s was a very different place than it had been just a few years earlier. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban centers of the North, which had […]

Sox Bid Curse Farewell: The 2004 Boston Red Sox Edited by Bill Nowlin Publication Date: March 26, 2024 Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers ISBN (ebook): 978-1-960819-18-5, $9.99 ISBN (paperback): 978-1-960819-19-2, $34.95 In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in historic fashion. This SABR Digital Library book, published on the 20th […]