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The Membership Directory The first Membership Directory, one of SABR’s most basic and vital tools, was mailed in October 1971. It was a four-page mimeographed list containing 52 names. Since then, the Directory has remained the communication link that weaves the Society together. The second edition, with 105 listed members, had 20 subject categories for […]

Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is famous as the longtime home of the Phillips Petroleum Company. When it comes to baseball players, though, Bartlesville’s chief claim to fame is probably Tim Pugh, who went to Bartlesville High School and pitched for the Reds (and two other teams) in the 1990s. When it comes to superstars of baseball research, […]

PAUL DICKSON (1939 – ) vaulted to the front rank of baseball researchers immediately following publication of The Dickson Baseball Dictionary in 1989. Lauded as “a staggering piece of scholarship” by the Wall Street Journal, the book won the 1989 Macmillan-SABR Baseball Research Award and quickly became a well-thumbed addition to baseball bookshelves everywhere. Dickson […]

From youth “select” baseball to the major leagues, the percentage of players who are African American has reached a historic low. As low as the percentage on 2020 MLB teams’ 30-man rosters had ebbed (7.5 percent1), it is even lower among college players and youth players.2 Scholars and pundits have offered reasons for, and solutions […]

After a 90-loss, ninth-place season in 1966, the Boston Red Sox entered spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, with a new manager and a new outlook.Spring training 1967 was quite different from spring training 1966 for the Boston Red Sox. We can remember 1966 as the year when Earl Wilson was turned away from the […]

The greatest offensive season ever recorded by a Venezuelan player belongs to Miguel Cabrera, who delivered an extraordinary performance for the Detroit Tigers in 2013, posting an impressive WAR of 7.5. Remarkably, this came just one year after Cabrera achieved baseball immortality by capturing the American League Triple Crown, cementing his status as one of […]

Telephone card souvenir from the 1986 Super Major Series (Robert Fitts Collection)   Opposing thoughts can complement one another and fill our lives with elegant contradictions. In ancient Chinese philosophy, this theory was known as yinyang. In Japan, the word is inyo. Although frequently associated with Eastern thought, inyo is a universal part of the […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989). “In the vast range of baseball novels boys’ books written by men like John Tunis to adult novels written by men like Bernard Malamud, women for the most part have been either complaisant wives or stupid bimbos — or perhaps sexual […]

We propose to measure overall offensive performance of a baseball player as the ratio of Bases Advanced to Outs Created. This new Overall Offensive Performance (OOP) statistic is deterministic, objective, readily calculated, and easily understood. OOP captures in a single number all aspects of offensive performance included in multiple, existing offensive stats, plus additional aspects […]

Once a very sparsely settled farming community, Holyoke, Massachusetts’s geographic location on the banks of the Connecticut River was ideal for development, utilizing its ample source of hydroelectric power.1 A group of four wealthy executives from Boston, about 90 miles to the east, believed the South Hadley Falls of the river was large and powerful […]

In addition to an All-Time Georgia-born All-Star team, the Magnolia Chapter selected an All-Time Atlanta Braves All-Star team. While acknowledging the talent of any number of players who served the Braves franchise during its time in Milwaukee and Boston, we wanted to restrict this team to players who actually played in Atlanta. We suggested that […]

Of the major league teams that trace their history before 1960, most started out with several short-term unofficial nicknames or even no nickname at all. Although several reputable sources provide a history of these nicknames, there are numerous contradictions between the available sources, and sometimes even when these sources agree, they conflict with the original […]

It’s a basic rule that’s familiar to all baseball fans: A batter, when struck by a pitched ball, shall be awarded first base. While some people may dismiss the hit-by-pitch as a relatively minor aspect of the game, a hit batsman can have significant consequences. As an extreme example, the Tommy Byrne pitch that struck […]

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. Babe Ruth was presented with flowers before a game during the 1934 baseball tour of Japan.   November 20, 1934; Shizuoka, Japan With a flick of his wrist, the boy received […]

In Babe Ruth’s first year with the Yankees in 1920, he hit 54 homers to break his own American League record set the year before with Boston. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   On the morning of January 6, 1920, New Yorkers awoke to a headline in The New York Times that screamed “Ruth […]

Claims pop up with frequency that this team or that invented the pitching rotation. These find life in our modern media and attract proponents. Thanks to David Smith, Tom Ruane, and scores of volunteer researchers, we have Retrosheet, and there are methods to determine rotation patterns and fact-check such comments as one spoken by New […]

Lenny Randle (SABR-Rucker Archive)   WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU? Reality check: Playing professional baseball is a job. It requires supreme skill, demanding hours, cultural fit, and a balancing act to win approval from demanding, unpredictable bosses who control when you play, even if you’ll be traded. The pressure can become overwhelming. When you feel […]

Los Angeles Dodgers Assistant General Manager Kim Ng never thought she would become one of the highest-ranking women in the sport. After all, what place did women have in a sport run by the good ol’ boys? And yet by the beginning of 2011 she was frequently touted as a sure bet to be the […]

Babe Ruth is handed a 10-gallon Stetson hat by Dallas Mayor Jimmie Stetson (right) upon his arrival at Love Field on July 8, 1947. A joyous Claire Ruth (left) looks on. (Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library)   Babe Ruth’s plane landed at Love Field in Dallas on the afternoon of Tuesday, July […]

On May 9, 1950, Bill Sisler finally ended his baseball odyssey with a record that makes any other player look like a homebody.1 Sisler played for at least 44 different teams during his 23 active years in the minors between 1923 and 1950.2 Forty-four. It can’t be said with absolute certainty that it’s a record, […]

Mickey Mantle’s wife, Merlyn, and eldest son Mickey, Jr. attended the first Mickey Mantle Day on September 18, 1965. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Mickey Mantle stepped up to the microphone not far from where he had stepped up to the plate for 18 seasons, but it was no use. The 60,096 adoring spectators who had gathered […]

A packed crowd of 61,808 fans heard Lou Gehrig make his “Luckiest Man” speech between games of a doubleheader against Washington. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Lou Gehrig played his final game for the New York Yankees on April 30, 1939. Though only 35 years old, the Iron Horse, who played in 2,130 consecutive games, had been […]