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In the spring of 2017, Quinnipiac University put out a poll that led the media to proclaim that New York was (back to being?) a “National League city” because, although the poll showed the Yankees holding a 48-43% preference among fans upstate, in the city the poll swung 45-43% in favor of the Mets.1At about […]

1981 Kansas City Royals Goodwill Tour advertisement (Robert Fitts Collection)   For decades it had been the hope of Matsutaro Shoriki, the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun Group, a conglomerate that produces the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and owns the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, that there would one day be a “true world series” played between […]

Any accuracy assessment of Bill James’s Runs Created (RC) requires aggregating the individual batters’ RCs and then comparing that total to the team’s actual runs scored.1 This seems simple enough until one realizes that the RCs of the individual batters can be aggregated in two different ways. We can apply the RC formula for each […]

The 1949 Drummondville Cubs, Quebec Provincial League champions. Left to right: Gerry Cotnoir, Roy Zimmerman, Roger Bréard, Quincy Trouppe, Len Hooker, Sal Maglie, Conrado Perez, Roberto Vargas, Joe Promowicz (Prom), Joe luminelli, Danny Gardella, Stan Bréard, Vic Power, Ernie Sawyer. (Collection of Daniel Papillon)   George Gmelch, then playing for the Drummondville Royals, recalled a […]

For the past six-plus years, since before the 2011 season, Rick Rieker has been director of umpire development for Major League Baseball. Rieker umpired his first major-league game in 1992, and worked as both a National League and then major-league umpire through the 2001 season. In 2002 he began work as an umpire supervisor. For […]

Fred Saigh had not expected the outcome. The St. Louis Cardinals owner walked into Judge Roy Harper’s federal courtroom on January 28, 1953, prepared to plead no contest to two counts of tax evasion in exchange for withdrawal of three other counts. The government’s investigation concluded that Saigh’s tax returns from 1944 to 1950 showed […]

Back in the Deadball Era, Sherry Magee was called “one of the greatest and most neglected of sluggers,” “a born dynamiter with the bat,” and “a genuine murderer of the pill.” Today we’d call him a five-tool player: he could hit, run, field, throw, and hit with power. We might also call him a psychopath. […]

Say a prayer for baseball’s competitive balance. The topic is discussed strictly to be mourned or vili­fied. Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 21, 2000, Commissioner Bud Selig warned, “At the start of spring training, there no longer exists hope and faith for the fans of more than half our thirty clubs. “1 […]

As inadvisable as it would be to draw conclusions based on 34 plate appearances or 72 innings of defense spread out over more than a decade, it’s safe to state that Roberto Clemente’s All-Star Game performances only enhanced his legacy. The lifetime .317 hitter batted .323 in 15 midsummer exhibitions against his most skilled competitors […]

Introduction and Context As World War II seemed to be winding down (even though the Battle of the Bulge in Europe was only days away and the Pacific invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were still in the future), recovery from the war was the watchword at the 43rd annual baseball winter meetings. The nation […]

In his 94 eventful years, George “Stormy” Kromer caught for the Wisconsin All-Stars, worked 54 years on the railroad, invented the railroad engineer’s cap, founded a manufacturing empire, and managed a minor league team to 35 straight defeats. And if that’s not enough, when he was 75, he managed a minor league team to an […]

When James “Deacon” White died on July 7, 1939, the obituary in The Sporting News said that his end had been hastened by disappointment at not being named to the Hall of Fame along with such contemporaries as A. G. Spalding, Cap Anson, Charles Comiskey, Buck Ewing, Hoss Radbourn, and Candy Cummings. He had not […]

INTRODUCTION It is not unusual to hear a sports fan or announcer say something like, “The window for this team is closing.” But what exactly does this expression mean? The general notion is that a team has a limited number of years when it can contend for a championship. Saying the window is closing implies […]

In the old days of professional baseball, players fist-fighting on and off the field was not uncommon. Players would scream at each other. Some would tease. Many others were just downright mean. One player in particular earned a nickname that perfectly described his slick dugout demeanor. The handle followed him throughout his days in the […]

Editor’s note: This article is a sidebar to John Cronin’s “When a Dream Plays Reality in Baseball: Roberto Maduro and the Inter-American League”, from the Spring 2011 edition of the Baseball Research Journal. Wayne Tyrone, who played for the Miami Amigos and led the IAL with eight homers, was a contestant on “The Price Is […]

Much more than a booster of baseball locally, V. Jamison Jr., prominent Hagerstown industrialist and civic leader, was a moving spirit of professional baseball for most of the first half of the twentieth century. His influence reached not only his hometown and the state of Maryland, but the country. Jamison was born in Luray, Page […]

The movement to bring the 1994 SABR 24 Convention to the Arlington area and the new Ballpark at Arlington actually might have started with the memories of two gentlemen who loved the game of baseball and who lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They were Flem Hall of Fort Worth and Bill Ruggles of Dallas. […]

  At its 1876 founding, the National League presented the nascent professional baseball community with a business model radically different from that of its predecessor: the National Association of 1871–75. The key difference was membership restrictions that were widely criticized as arbitrary and elitist, and were not yet proven to be effective. Perhaps the foremost […]

Tom Harris interviewed Bobby Thomson at his home in New Jersey on September 26, 1993. Some text in the original transcript has been omitted here and, for clarity, some portions have been transposed. Click here to listen to the entire interview in the SABR Oral History Collection.   Bobby Thomson: I was born in Glasgow, […]

One of the many things that make baseball great is the ability to both objectively and subjectively compare which players are the best. These comparisons range anywhere from scholarly research1 to radio talk show discussions to barroom arguments. In comparing players, many times researchers have developed new statistics in an attempt to find one all-encompassing […]

SABR Salute: Leonard Gettelson Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical […]

SABR Salute: Fred Ivor-Campbell Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical […]