Search Results

Over a span of 60 years, left-hander Bill Spanswick served the Red Sox as a pitcher for the 1964 team, and as a “rookie usher” wiping down seats at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, the team’s spring training home. In the spring of 2012, Spanswick said of his usher’s job and the $9,000 he made […]

Like Gummo Marx, Willie Delahanty is the forgotten member of a famous brothers act. A decidedly lesser talent, the youngest Delahanty never scaled the professional heights attained by his five ball playing siblings or garnered the public attention accorded them. About the only distinction that can be claimed by Willie is the fact that he […]

For nearly half a century, one man’s voice defined baseball in Baltimore. Chuck Thompson, referred to as “the voice of God in Baltimore”1 by fellow sportscaster Ted Patterson, was the play-by-play broadcaster of Baltimore baseball for nearly every season from 1949 through 2000. Cal Ripken, Jr. grew up listening to Thompson on the radio and […]

June 15, 1977 is a black day in the history of the New York Mets. On that date, in what came to be known as The Midnight Massacre, M. Donald Grant, the team’s chairman of the board, traded away Tom Seaver, a/k/a “The Franchise,” to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Dan Norman, […]

Few players in the history of our national pastime could match the versatility of the man Sporting Life magazine once referred to as “The finest all around player in the business besides Lajoie.” Lewis “Sport” McAllister was the ultimate utility man, making appearances at every position on the diamond during his 22-year tenure in professional […]

During the 1980s, Harold Reynolds stood out as one of the best second basemen in the American League. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner, Reynolds showed tremendous range and a strong throwing arm at the keystone position for the Seattle Mariners. He was also an adequate hitter and a threat to steal bases. Reynolds led […]

In the course of a major league baseball season, players assume certain important roles on their teams. Apart from whether they start or sit on the bench, intangible qualities such as being a team player or being a positive clubhouse presence can be essential to a team’s success on the field. Throughout his major league […]

When asked in 2015 about his earliest baseball memory, Tomás Pérez replied, “Caimaneras,” referring to Venezuela’s “improvised baseball game, without referees, in which players are chosen spontaneously, which usually takes place in the streets, in the schoolyards or in some field…”1 He recalled that his parents were angry that baseball, a game, interfered with his […]

Ben “Old Reliable” Taylor played professionally from 1909 to 1929 and got his nickname from his consistent on-field performance. Taylor is considered one of the best first basemen in the history of Black baseball. He was also a longtime manager. Today he is immortalized in Cooperstown as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. […]

Hardy, Abbott and Costello, George Burns and Gracie Allen. In baseball it was the great Chicago White Sox tag team of Jerry Staley and Turk Lown. Together they formed the best one-two punch out of the bullpen in 1959 for manager Al Lopez. “That year Lown and (J)erry Staley formed baseball’s most brilliant bullpen combination,” […]

Red Barber described how Graham McNamee helped break the ground for him and other great baseball voices, starting in the early 1920s. “There was no lamp of experience for the pioneer broadcasters. They had no past by which to judge the future. This is what made McNamee and the others so great. Nobody had ever […]

Imagine being able to say you’d seen the big-league debuts of Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Bill Mazeroski1 – not to mention an All-Star Game, a no-hitter, a four-homer game, and a batter hitting for the cycle. Some baseball lovers spend a lifetime hoping to see those kinds of milestones. Bill […]

If there had been a draft in the baseball world of 1890, a Chicago-born shortstop likely would have been the number one selection by any of the 24 teams of the three major leagues operating that season. In his prime of the 1890s, and even before, as he made his way toward national stardom, the […]

“I was born in 1912 [sic] in Giddings, Texas, a little town between Austin and Houston. Rube Foster came from about twenty-five miles from my house, a little town right above me.” — Hilton Smith 1   Something must have been in the air as the state of Texas produced eight Negro League Hall of […]

“I had a gift. That’s about all there was to it.” – Bill Byrd1 A Negro League ballplayer had no greater testimonial to his individual play than selection to the annual East-West All-Star Game. Of those who were pitchers, only three appeared in seven or more games. Leon Day led the way with nine, followed […]

On October 10, 1924, Virgil “Zeke” Barnes stood on the mound in Griffith Stadium, poised within tantalizing reach of a rare and coveted prize, just four outs shy of a Game 7 World Series win. Palpably close, but it was not to be. His moment of reckoning came with an improbable, aberrant bounce of the […]

Boston’s Fenway Park is pictured in 1912, the year it opened as home of the Boston Red Sox. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   The first regular-season game ever played at Fenway Park took place on April 20, 1912.1 The Boston Red Sox hosted the New York Highlanders (often already being called the Yankees).2 Construction had been done […]

Only 11 home runs were hit at Cleveland’s League Park in 1906.1 So when John O’Neill launched a long home run on May 5 – the first of the season at the ballpark2 – to give the Chicago White Sox an early lead over the Cleveland Naps, Forest City fans cheered as he rounded the […]

On Monday, January 21, 2021, the Larry Dierker Chapter was happy to host sixty SABR members from the Houston area and beyond for our monthly Zoom meeting. Chapter Chairman Bob Dorrill opened the meeting by introducing several new members. James Click, the General Manager of the Houston Astros, was the first presenter. He spoke briefly […]

Sixteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Tuesday, March 24, 2015. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. The original date, for the Jim Rygelski Research Conference, of Saturday, July 11 has become tentative and may be changed due to […]

Nineteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter attended the June 24, 2014, monthly roundtable, held at its usual location, The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. Items noted in “Today in Baseball History” was the first of Jackie Robinson’s 19 career steals of […]

Twins broadcaster Cory Provus was the featured speaker at the Halsey Hall Chapter fall meeting on November 2. Cory grew up as a Cubs fan outside Chicago and attended the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His first job after college was in Blacksburg, Virginia, doing play-by-play for Virgina Tech and […]

SABR member Dennis Pajot, an expert in the early history of Milwaukee baseball, has offered to share a series of manuscripts that he has prepared on the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association. These research files — one for each season — include more than 1,600 pages of original research on the Milwaukee Brewers from […]

Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer. SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from […]