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Willie Mays hit 22 home runs in extra innings, tops among all major leaguers, and four more than the second batter on the list. When you rank in the top 10 home-run hitters of all time, it’s not surprising that you would also rank high among those who hit home runs in extra innings. As of […]

If any team might symbolize the tumultuous years of major-league baseball during World War II, the St. Louis Browns would be a prime candidate.  During the war the quality of play at the major-league level deteriorated as players were drafted into the service.  They were replaced by untested youngsters, passed-over minor leaguers, resurrected veterans, or […]

1931 All-Americans in front of the Oriental Hotel in Kobe (National Baseball Library, Cooperstown, NY)   It was a tour initially framed by the dreams of retired fringe major-league outfielder Herb Hunter, the continuing quest of a Japanese newspaper publisher to bring Babe Ruth to Japan before he retired as a player, and the metastasizing […]

The 1985 Winter Meetings had showcased a then-record 62 free agents, but the 1986 free-agent class shattered that mark as 82 players filed for free agency by the deadline.1 Despite the uptick in the number of free agents, however, for the second year in a row none of them signed with a new club at […]

  New Yorkers love baseball. Their passion for the national game (and its bat-and-ball precursors) can be traced back into the earliest decades of the nineteenth century. Prior to the Civil War, scores of juvenile and adult teams in New York vied for bragging rights or trophy balls on emerald fields and dusty lots.1 Boys […]

The first season of the National League ended on a bittersweet note. While the league crowned Chicago its inaugural champion and all eight franchises remained solvent through the season, the magnates went into their first postseason meeting with a major concern: Two franchises had failed to finish their schedule, and dealing with the issue threatened […]

San Francisco Seals 1949 Tour of Japan Program with Lefty O’Doul. (Rob Fitts Collection)   There are moments, sometimes fleeting, often accidental, when sport transcends mere athletic competition. These moments are not judged by wins or losses, nor by runs scored or surrendered. The baseball tour of Japan undertaken by Lefty O’Doul and his San […]

Johnny Evers (left) on the Braves in 1914 with his manager, George Stallings (right). As player-manager of the Cubs in 1913, Evers took himself out of the lineup against left-handers, but George Stallings (right) used handedness substitutions in the Braves’ lineup regularly for strategic advantage starting in 1913. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   The Fall 2014 […]

In the typical telling of the Jackie Robinson life story there are two acts. The leading figures in both acts are White men. Act I is the run-up to White baseball: Pasadena, UCLA, the United States Army, the Kansas City Monarchs, the scouting of Clyde Sukeforth. This Act concludes in Branch Rickey’s Ebbets Field office […]

Forfeits were relatively commonplace in the early days of baseball. There was at least one forfeit in the major leagues every year from 1883 to 1907, including 13 in 1884. A review of the reasons for these forfeits reveals how ”bush league” the major leagues still were. In 1889, St. Louis’s American Association team failed […]

It is obvious that the game of baseball has changed drastically over the years. With the value of RBI compilations accepted now as a matter of course the serious historian must take note of their promi­nence in league history-and by extension, baseball itself. As far as the International League is concerned, the 1920s mark the […]

When Fenway Park opened in 1912, people looked at its now-legendary left-field wall and said no one would ever hit a home run over the fence. After all, it was — at best — 300 or more feet from home plate and stood — at the time — 31 feet tall. How long did it […]

An unusual major league game took place in Chicago on July 11, 1892. That was the year the National League played a split schedule- the only one in major league history. Boston had the first half sewed up and was in Chicago to wind up a series. Cap Anson, boss of the Colts, tried to […]

This article was published in the SABR Deadball Era Committee’s November 2023 newsletter.   Ed Reulbach is remembered principally for three things: for his five-year run of pitching success for the Chicago Cubs between 1905 and 1909; for his then unprecedented one-hit game in the 1906 World Series; and for shutting out the Brooklyn Superbas […]

New York Yankee Babe Ruth in dugout at Fenway Park. 1933. (Leslie Jones photo, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.)   On January 5, 1920, the New York Yankees announced that they had purchased the contract of Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. The next morning’s New York Times erroneously reported the sale price […]

Dr. Joseph Jones of the Excelsiors club, former president of the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), walked to the front of the room as he was being announced by the outgoing president, Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald of the Athletic Club of Philadelphia. Jones, now the chairman of the Committee on Rules and Regulations, approached […]

Back in the early seventies, Ottawa had a baseball club (amateur) which was a real credit to the city. This club was Ottawa’s first real effort to play the game. … that pioneer team played real classy ball, which would compare favorably with any of the amateur baseball played today. — Ottawa Citizen, December 12, […]

Prologue The American National Leagues each held individual annual meetings on December 9, 1930, in New York City. Although the National League was bound by its constitution to meet in New York City, its American League counterpart had originally planned to meet in Chicago. However, league President E.S. Barnard later changed this arrangement so the […]

Baseball was booming in the years immediately following the Civil War. New clubs were forming in cities and towns across the country as established clubs created more excitement than ever. Major matches attracted unprecedented crowds. Competitive rivalries grew more heated. This environment led inevitably to controversies. One of the greatest was the claim that the […]

The 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox: Grinders and Gamers Edited by Eric Conrad, Mark Morowczynski, Bill Nowlin, and Don Zminda Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers Foreword by Jerry Reinsdorf Publication date: March 11, 2025 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-960819-36-9, $9.99 ISBN (paperback) 978-1-960819-37-6, $34.95 8.5″ x 11″, 326 pages The 2005 World Champion Chicago […]