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A moment that marked a dramatic shift in the power structure between major league baseball players and owners occurred on December 23, 1975, when an arbitrator’s decision brought an end to the primary effects of the reserve clause. Prior to the decision,the pendulum of power had been firmly with the owners. The players had made […]

From the beginning of professional baseball in the nineteenth century and continuing through the first decades of the twentieth, Georgia was a popular site for major-league spring training. Between 1871 and 1953, more than 20 major-league baseball franchises from 14 cities held their spring training in the state (see table 1).[fn]In order to prepare these […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a recipient of the 2025 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   On July 25, 1966, Casey Stengel and Ted Williams were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Although most observers likely assumed that Casey would steal the show, as he usually did, it was Williams […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Over the decades, major-league baseball has produced a host of memorable teams, but only one infamous one — the 1919 Chicago White Sox. Almost a century after the fact, the exact […]

In 2009, on SABR-L (SABR’s online listserv), Trent McCotter cited two instances of a player taking a swing while being walked intentionally and wondered if anyone knew about other instances of a batter hitting a deliberate ball. I responded with two such incidents I had happened on during my research. Several other SABR members, including […]

This story begins and ends with fried chicken. It also includes four armed men, an All-Star ring, an abduction, and a brush with the grim reaper. Oh yeah, and in the middle of it is the greatest Puerto Rican baseball player of all time, Roberto Clemente. So why isn’t this story common knowledge among baseball […]

The Cy Young Award is Major League Baseball’s premier annual recognition of pitching achievement. While only one outstanding pitcher in each league is presented the award, is that honor fundamentally an individual, or a team, recognition? The Cy Young Memorial Award was established in 1956 by baseball commissioner Ford Frick to honor the best pitcher […]

On the evening of August 15, 2006, Nate Moulter and Mike Gavin arrived for work at Boston’s Fenway Park and started their evening by making a list of that day’s major league games with the uniform numbers of the starting pitchers. Then they turned to the main task of their job — posting information on […]

Preemptive Measures by the Senior League Before the 1902 season ended, the National League presidents met to strategize their approach to the burgeoning American League. The year-old AL already had four teams in National League cities (Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, and Chicago) and was threatening a move to the NL stronghold of New York. For […]

Within the past 25 to 30 years, baseball has unquestionably achieved the status of being a “World Game.” It is now being played in virtually every part of the globe. We keep hearing reports that baseball is making significant progress in a number of European countries, including Italy, Holland, Belgium, Czecho­slovakia and Spain. We all […]

Do catchers in general do a better job of handling the pitching staff as they gain major- league experience? In a previous study published in By the Numbers (“Catchers—Better as Veterans,” spring 2000), I concluded that the answer to this question was a resounding Yes! The two sets of data used were the team ERA […]

Imagine former  boxing champion Muhammed Ali playing baseball for the Louisville Colonels, or current heavyweight champ Larry Holmes playing for the Rochester Red Wings. It seems pretty farfetched. But there was a former heavyweight champion who played several regulation minor league games – while he was champion and right after he lost the crown. This […]

Editor’s note: All statistics published below are through the 1979 season. When the Phillies defeated the Cubs 23-22 in 10 innings on May 17, 1979 in the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field in Chicago, it prompted research as to the other unusually high scoring games in the annals of baseball. The classic irony is that […]

On August 15, 1911, the legendary Cy Young, the only major league pitcher to reach the 500 mark in victories, was unconditionally released by Cleveland. His career from 1890 to 1911 bridged the ancient and modern periods of the sport and included outstanding service in both major leagues. Now it seemed that old Cy had […]

Now that Henry Aaron has closed out his illustrious career and there is no home run hitter of note around to challenge his record, it is a good time to sum up his contributions in the context of an over-all home run review. As practically every baseball fan knows, Aaron closed out with 755 roundtrippers. […]

    It was in early 1973 that I first began searching for the whereabouts of George Paige, a righthanded pitcher appearing in two games with the Cleveland Americans in 1911. He was among the missing-there was neither a current home address nor a date and place of death for him on file. But the reason […]

Minor League Baseball has enjoyed great success in western Pennsylvania from the earliest days of professional baseball through the 1950s. Leagues such as the Iron and Oil League, Western Pennsylvania Association, Ohio- Pennsylvania League, and others operated in the region. While many of these leagues came and went, the two most prominent minor leagues to […]

This article was originally published in “The Empire State of Baseball,” the 1989 SABR convention journal (Albany). In 2020, Bud Fowler was selected as SABR’s Overlooked 19th Century Base Ball Legend.   New York state made a significant contribution to black baseball in the 19th century. Not only did such great independent clubs as the […]

This article was originally published in “Above the Fruited Plain,” the 2003 SABR convention journal.   In San Jose, California, a bronze mural stands as a memorial to the Japanese and Japanese-Americans relocated from their homes on the West Coast during World War II. The memorial, documenting the relocation and subsequent internment in concentration camps […]

AN AMERICAN LEAGUE BIRTHDAY On January 10, 1918, The Sporting News published an article tucked away on page five celebrating the American League’s birthday. “If you are a believer in the Darwinian theory of evolution, then January 2 should be a day of interest to you for it marks the ‘birth of the American League,’ […]

Joe DiMaggio. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Perhaps the Pacific Coast League never had a chance. For decades, the PCL was baseball to fans along the Pacific Coast, the closest thing to the major leagues recognized in the East and Midwest. The league thrived before the age of air travel, but as modernization shrank the country, the PCL […]