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Financial Considerations History clearly showed the quest to repeat as World Series champions is not easily achieved. Through 1992, the last team to win back-to-back World Series titles had been the 1977-78 New York Yankees. A repeat would require a critical assessment of the current roster to project what changes would be required to maintain […]
All baseball fans are familiar, if not from the movie, then from the grainy newsreel footage, with Lou Gehrig’s legendary speech at Yankee Stadium home plate on July 4, 1939. Yet that was not the first nor the last time a speech would have a dramatic impact at The House that Ruth Built. Baseball, football, […]
Major League Baseball held its 25th annual All-Star Game at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on July 8, 1958. The game was broadcast nationally on NBC Radio and TV. Ernie Harwell and Bob Neal were the radio announcers while Mel Allen and Al Helfer handled the television broadcast. MLB had recently signed a five-year contract with […]
Editor’s note: This article has been reformatted for the SABR website. Click here to download a PDF file of this article to read it in its original format. The following description of the Chicago Daily News collection appears on the Archives Library Information Center page of the National Archive website1: “This American Memory Collection […]
During the years following World War II, the minor leagues evolved to a formal affiliated status with the American and National Leagues. This was especially true in the American Association. The Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints became affiliated with the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, respectively. St. Paul began its affiliation with […]
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!’ shouted someone on the stand; And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.” Even people not interested in the national pastime are familiar with that homicidal exhortation from Ernest Thayer’s 1888 poem, “Casey at the Bat.” While murderous rhetoric has never become a reality, […]
A boy on a pony, his glove hitched to his belt, emerges from the fields along Venezuela’s Oeste 1 highway and pauses while a cane truck lumbers by. A bus sweeps past, enveloping him in dust, but brakes for the slow-moving truck. The boy, with a whoop, gallops after the crawling caravan. Waving wildly, he […]
Not long after D-Day, in June 1944, Esquire magazine summoned 16- and 17-year-old boys from all over the country to New York for the first Esquire All-American Boys Baseball Game. Chicago was one of 29 cities to send players to this game. A local newspaper would select a deserving local player and pay their travel […]
The drama of All-Star, championship series, and World Series contests notwithstanding, the no-hitter remains the most intensely exciting game in baseball for spectators and participants alike. The pressure felt by a pitcher striving to realize a rare achievement that will ensure him both fame and immortality in the record books is widely appreciated. And the […]
I was inspired to write this article by Jonah Gardner’s Sports-Reference.com post “Remembering Mike Piazza’s 8 Amazing Days with the Florida Marlins,” about Hall-of-Famer Piazza’s short 1998 Florida Marlins stint before getting traded to the New York Mets.1 New York City’s major league teams have a storied history but I was curious: how many Hall-of-Famers […]
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 […]
Pumpsie Green. (SABR-Rucker Archive) When Elijah “Pumpsie” Green made his debut for the Boston Red Sox in 1959, the American League team became the last of the original 16 major-league White clubs to cross the color line, 12 years after Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers broke the major-league color barrier. Thus, Green became forever […]
Smile. Tilt your head. Lean back. A little more. You’ve got it. Right there. Beautiful! Snap! With each pose, each shutter click, Marla Collins crossed the line from Chicago Cubs ballgirl to Playboy model. Both paying roles relied on sexuality: one teased and implied, the other overt. And before you hyperventilate about “pornography,” know […]
The 1884 New York Gothams, featuring catcher Jack Humphries (front row, far right). Humphries’ improbably journey took him from the hamlet of North Gower, outside Ottawa, to Cornell for Latin and Greek, then to New York to catch Mickey Welch and Tip O’Neill. (COURTESY OF DAVID McDONALD) On September 6, 1993, Denis Boucher pitched […]
The 1876 London Tecumsehs. Early curve bailer Fred Goldsmith is seated front row, second from left. (Canadian Illustrated News, July 15, 1876) 1876: A seminal year in baseball. Club owners and organizers recognized the necessity of providing increased stability and an opportunity to elevate the game of baseball on a national level by establishing […]
Roland Hemond has made lasting and unprecedented contributions to professional baseball with seven major-league teams. Born in 1929 to parents of French-Canadian heritage in Central Falls, Rhode Island, Hemond is one of the industry’s most respected and experienced executives. Hemond is also a member of one of baseball’s most distinguished multigenerational families. His wife, Margo, […]
In keeping with one of SABR’s objectives—“To encourage further research and literary efforts to establish and maintain the accurate historical record of baseball”—the Society has promoted numerous research initiatives. One such effort, the BioProject (archived online at sabr.org/bioproject), has generated large amounts of information in its mission to publish biographical articles about everyone who ever […]
Cupid Childs was one of the best-hitting major-league second basemen during the late nineteenth century, not to mention a better than average fielder who possessed great range on the diamond. Only four other second basemen in the history of major-league baseball have averaged more total chances per game than Childs. His all-around outstanding play made […]
This article was originally published in “The Northern Game—And Beyond,” the 2002 SABR convention journal. While many believe that the darkest day in Boston sports history was the day Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees, January 19, 1900, may well qualify as its most tragic. It was in the early hours of that […]
The major-league portion of the 1907 winter meetings were held by both leagues on the same days, Tuesday through Thursday, December 10-12. It was the second year they’d met simultaneously. The National League met in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria while the American League met in Chicago. New York was the home of […]
Courtesy of The Clemente Museum. Stories about Roberto Clemente are numerous. He is much more than a man who died at age 38 in a plane crash carrying humanitarian aid to Nicaragua. In the half-century since his untimely death, Clemente has transcended to cultural icon and been honored with numerous public remembrances. Public […]
In 1892, Frank Grant played for the Gorhams and then the Cuban Giants on his way to a Hall of Fame career. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY) During a playoff game in October 1905, Leland Giants pitcher Walter Ball rushed onto the diamond at Chicago’s West Side Park and threw a punch “with […]
The night of July 15, 1952, looked unpromising for baseball in Beaumont, Texas.1 Storm clouds and a forecast of rain kept attendance low as the visiting Tulsa Oilers prepared for a Texas League night game. Only 335 customers would eventually file through the turnstiles, the lowest crowd count of the year to date at Stuart […]
Even though the value of stealing bases can be argued, there is no dispute about the impact on a game’s outcome when a runner steals home. And one player, more than any other, can be considered the “Master Thief”: Tyrus Raymond Cobb. His record-setting career 54 steals of home (SOH) is a mark that may […]