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Here is the appendix for Todd Peterson’s “May The Best Man Win: The Black Ball Championships 1866–1923” from the Spring 2013 Baseball Research Journal.   Black Ball Champions and Championship Games, 1866-1923 KEY: E= East; W= West; S= South; SLCB= Southern League of Colored Baseballists; MSL= Middle States Base Ball League; EISL= Eastern Inter-State League; […]

By the fall of 1978 modern free agency was entering its third year, and teams were beginning to come to terms with both its existence and its potential, though ownership still hoped to roll it back dramatically. Front offices were figuring out the mechanics of pursuing free agents, how to fit them into their payroll […]

In 1989, Larry Fritsch sat in a rural Wisconsin warehouse—big enough to fit a full-sized baseball field and filled with 35 million cards—searching for a player who best exemplified the hobby of cardcollecting. Honus Wagner? Mickey Mantle? Hank Aaron? “No, no,” said Fritsch, collector extraordinaire and pioneer of the baseball card business. Then his face […]

In Rob Neyer’s chapter on San Francisco in his Big Book of Baseball Lineups, he speculates that there aren’t really good baseball cities and that attendance more closely correlates with winning percentage than with any other factor. He also suggests that a statistically-minded person look at this. I took the challenge and have been playing […]

Introduction and Context In 1937, both the National and the American Leagues held their Winter Meetings in Chicago, while the National Association met a few days earlier in Milwaukee. Rumors aplenty swirled around these gatherings, but very few teams actually pulled the trigger and made significant deals. The deals that did take place, however (and […]

Editor’s note: This article was published in the April 2018 edition of the SABR Deadball Era Committee newsletter. Pervasive cheating plagued baseball during the Deadball Era. Cutting bases, blocking baserunners, doctored baseballs, lob pitches, indifferent play, bribery, and fixed games found a way into every crevice of baseball. Much of the indiscretion occurred openly, regarded […]

Pete Rose’s move from left field to third base in early May 1975 often receives credit as a pivotal moment in the success of the 1975 Reds — and with good reason. That’s when the team began to win consistently, surging to the National League West Division title. Pete Rose roamed around the diamond during […]

On his way to setting the all-time record for consecutive games played in 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. also broke the major league record for consecutive innings played, having gone 8,264 innings without being taken out of the lineup. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2,632-consecutive-game streak is one of the most […]

Social distancing restrictions were still in place for COVID-19 for this game at Dodger Stadium on May 29, 2021. (Photograph by Scott Carter.)   The Los Angeles Dodgers began the 2020 regular season – finally – on July 23. A worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with prolonged negotiations on how the games could safely be played, […]

League Park as seen from the air. Note the large bleacher section in left field. (Strongsville Public Library / Public Domain)   In 1914 and 1915, for the only time in baseball history, two baseball teams, one a major league team and the other a minor league team, played a full schedule of games in […]

Jackie Robinson, center, shows his son Jack Jr. and the son of Roy Campanella the statue of Abraham Lincoln that stands outside the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey in February 1951. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   On July 18, 1949, Jackie Robinson appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to testify against Paul Robeson, […]

This paper examines competitive balance in the free agent era by comparing the old reserve clause system versus the modern collectively bargained system. Baseball’s reserve system began modestly on September 29, 1879, when the National League owners introduced a new rule that would eventually be incorporated into every player contract and would allow each franchise […]

Mike Donlin played only 34 games for the Reds in 1902. What was the reason? He had hit .341 for the American League Orioles in 1901 and was looking forward to the next season with Cincinnati. But in March 1902 the flamboyant Irishman was arrested for assaulting an actress on a Baltimore street. He was […]

Topps commemorated Ryan Zimmerman’s 11th career walk-off with a collectible card in 2018. (THE TOPPS COMPANY)   “The pressure is on him, man. It’s not on me. I’m supposed to get out.” — Ryan Zimmerman1 Baseball games are filled with moments of great theater. What do we expect before the curtain rises? Perhaps a great […]

If a modern fan could be transported back to a baseball game in 1908, to the strains of the new tune “Take Me out to the Ball Game,” he or she would feel right at home. The rules, the two major leagues, and many of the teams were similar then to what they are today. […]

Opening Day, April 13, 1954, should have been one of the best days of Wally Moon’s life. Instead, it was turning out to be one of his worst.1 The heavy-browed, lean-jawed, 24-year-old rookie from Bay, Arkansas, was the starting center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. But as he came to bat for the first […]

Leo Durocher, who is said to have said “nice guys finish last”—also the title of his autobiography—plausibly could have asked, “who said cheaters never prosper?” I refer, of course, to the revelation by Joshua Prager—first in a 2001 Wall Street Journal article and then his book, The Echoing Green—that in 1951 the New York Giants […]

Read the Fall 2013 BRJ on your computer or e-reader! SABR members, you can now download the Baseball Research Journal to your computer or e-reader! Click a link below to download the PDF, EPUB or MOBI version of the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2, to your computer. PDF: To download the […]

Read the Spring 2013 BRJ on your computer or e-reader! SABR members, you can now download the Baseball Research Journal to your computer or e-reader! Click a link below to download the PDF, EPUB or MOBI version of the Spring 2013 Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 42, No. 1, to your computer. PDF: To download the […]

Deadball Stars of the American League Edited by David Jones Foreword by Keith Olbermann Published by Potomac Books Publication Date: February 15, 2006 ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9335-9901-4, $39.95 8.5″ x 11″, 812 pages Two years after the release of the first volume of the series, Deadball Stars of the National League, the Society for American Baseball […]