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A slide of a black-and-white, full-length postcard showing Billy Sunday comparing wingspan with an Iowa Giant, Billy Robinson, in the humorous photograph. Sunday’s back is to the camera. He wears a dark suit and a white shirt. Robinson also wears a suit and a bow tie as he looks at the camera. “Photo by Snodgrass,” […]

  High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) October 2018 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors From the Editor Update on BioProject Submissions Project Poobahs   From Co-Director, Rory Costello Disappearing Images Perhaps you’ve noticed that the pictures accompanying certain biographies have either disappeared or […]

Just before the start of the 1969 World Series, Baltimore Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson was said to have uttered the rather Grinch-like statement, “We are here to prove there is no Santa Claus.”1 Such unabashed, un-American hubris could only naturally result in a rude October awakening for Baltimore. No presents under the Orange Birds’ […]

Vince DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio, and Dominic DiMaggio were his sidekicks. He and Joe wore their first uniforms while playing with the San Francisco Boys Club team. He played with Joe at Francisco Junior High. Joe played shortstop and Dario was his double-play partner at second base. When he moved on to Galileo High School, Dario […]

Team captain Sal Bando was the glue that held the volatile Oakland A’s together during their three-year run as World Series champions (1972-1974). Respected by teammates, peers, and his managers, Bando was Oakland’s unequivocal leader, a durable, rough-and-tumble third baseman who averaged 23 home runs and 90 runs batted in over an eight-year span in […]

It’s not unusual for a player who has a cup of coffee in the majors to be unknown to fans; not every player can gain the notoriety of Moonlight Graham. Malachi Hogan could certainly claim to be more obscure than any of the others. He played a single game in August 1901, but his true […]

Aquino Abreu was a diminutive righty who pitched for a decade and a half during the formative years of the modern-era post-revolution Cuban League. That Abreu’s triumphs fell entirely outside the realm of professional Organized Baseball may be a prime reason he remains virtually unknown to North American and Asian baseball fanatics. Few know anything […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda.   On May 7, 2000, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully gave Fordham University’s 155th commencement speech. “Don’t let the winds blow away your dreams or your faith in God,” he said. “And remember, sometimes your wildest dreams come […]

There was a dark cloud over Comiskey Park in Chicago as the Chicago White Sox hosted the Detroit Tigers in the opening home game of the 1921 American League season. It had nothing to do with the weather. After losing the 1919 World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds, Chicago had finished second in 1920, […]

“Sometimes it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. The Reds found this to be true today. Collapsing like a one-horse shay, especially in the finale, they dropped both ends of a sloppily-played doubleheader…”1 In this era, doubleheaders were a regular occurrence on the baseball calendar.2 Many were part of the regular-season schedule, while others […]

“Tho’ much is taken, much abides … that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses   The night was perfect for baseball, as so many nights are […]

Early in the 1987 season, a large chart was hung on the wall of the Expos’ clubhouse with a small box for each game on their schedule. Players could select a square, and whoever correctly guessed the game in which a much-anticipated milestone took place would win the money in the pool.1 The event that […]

Many surgical procedures or even surgical incisions are named after the surgeons who originally performed them. Having a medical condition named for a patient is uncommon, although silent movie star Rudolph Valentino died of Valentino Syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is better known as Lou Gehrig Disease. Of course, if Claude Elliot had a more […]

The 53rd major-league All-Star Game was the first midsummer classic played outside of the United States, and this landmark game paid tribute to both the global nature of the sport and the proud history of professional baseball in Montreal.1 The two-day celebration had a distinctly international flair that went well beyond the public-address announcements in […]

Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley brought his team out west in 1958. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   To Walter O’Malley, Dodger Stadium was never just a building, or a place to sell tickets. It was “a monument to the O’Malleys.”1 As such, he took an almost obsessive interest in its design and construction, from innovations in precast concrete to […]

The affair of honor that began on Saturday, October 20, 1883, at a baseball game in Burke County, Georgia, continued the following afternoon at Hardscrabble Church near McBean. On that Monday, a coroner’s inquest was held at the church. No two accounts of the events were identical. In fact, the Atlanta Constitution concluded from the […]

It has become increasingly common in recent years to hear that a relief pitcher’s ERA is unnaturally low, by about 50 points or a full run. A relief pitcher undoubtedly has an ERA advantage over a starting pitcher, created by the fact that he often begins his work with one or two men out in […]

Clyde Sukeforth as Dodgers manager, 1947. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   I met Clyde Sukeforth three times altogether. On the first occasion, Howard V. Doyle, an old Mainer, friend, and former boss who knew I’d be interested, invited me to join him on a trip to Waldoboro, Maine, specifically to meet Clyde, with […]