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The 1976 season saw the revival of a rare custom-pitchers who work with the catcher of their choice. The success of Steve Canton and Mark Fidrych, who had personal catchers by request, may initiate other partnerships in the pitch-and-catch fraternity. Carlton, a 20-game winner for the Phils, had Tim McCarver behind the bat for 32 […]

We live in the best of times and the worst of times for information. The best of times: I now have vast libraries and thousands of newspapers accessible from home. From my sickbed last year, I read not only COVID-19 treatments, I downloaded archived newspaper accounts of the 2004 Red Sox trophy tour for an […]

The new era of increased base stealing launched about 20 years ago by Luis Aparicio and Maury Wills has reached a level of activity and proficiency that compares very favorably with the earlier era of base stealing which stretched from 1900 to about 1925. Some remarkable player, team, and league base stealing records have been […]

“During his career in Chicago, Hack [Wilson] has indulged in four fistic encounters. All of the battles have tended to increase his popularity. Most ballplayers would be called rowdies or hoodlums for such outbreaks, but there is something about Hack’s gladiatorial foray that makes the folks cheer instead of condemn. That is, folks who have […]

The headline in the March 13, 1903, edition of the New York Times read “Baseball Grounds Fixed.” The nonbylined article described an agreement, announced by American League President Ban Johnson, that a plot of rocky land was leased for the construction of a ballpark to be occupied by the newly minted New York American League […]

Lobby card for “Kill the Umpire” (1950) starring William Bendix. (Author’s collection)   Most baseball fans would agree that the best umpire is the invisible umpire. Sure, the umps on the field ensure that the rules of the game are followed. They call balls and strikes. They determine if the fielder who dives for the […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume III (1988).   If academic dissertations on baseball literature and baseball history provide a fruitful scholarly resource, this is not yet common knowledge among our active baseball researchers. Confirmation of the anonymity surrounding this rich body of work is provided in a curious […]

Introduction It was decided both major leagues would hold their annual winter meetings in New York City in December 1910. Although it would not be a joint meeting, this would be of great convenience to the writers and help centralize interest in the meetings.1 The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (the minor leagues) had […]

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 […]

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 […]

When quintessential baseball buff Douglas Heeren first approached me about a player named Ducky Holmes, I failed to grasp the depth of the subject. Pointing out my misidentification of Ducky in a team photo in my book about baseball in Northwest Iowa, Heeren simply wanted to set the record straight.1 A young man from rural […]

Before Mark Armour knew anything about baseball, he fell in love with those little rectangular bits of cardboard with a cheesy photo on the front and those wonderful rows of numbers on the back. He was just five or six years old, and had to ask his dad who Willie Mays was. In 1960, Mark […]

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 […]

Introduction and Context Once again the American and National Leagues met in New York City, December 7 to 9, 1925. The stormy drama that engulfed the winter meeting proceedings in 1924 gave way to clear skies this winter, and it was expected to be business as usual based on last year’s understood agreements. Hence the […]

INTRODUCTION Someone should have told Charles H. Weeghman to be “careful of what you wish for,” because wishes sometimes come true. Weeghman found fame and fortune in turn-of-the-century Chicago with a chain of downtown quick-lunch restaurants. Like many of his contemporaries, he itched to be involved in the world of sports, and after a few […]

Baseball leagues flourished in American shipyards during World War I as legions of workers built warships and troop transports to safeguard the Atlantic sea lanes and carry men and materiel to Europe. Among the best of these circuits was the Delaware River Shipbuilding League of 1918. Centered in Philadelphia, it represented eight shipyards operating along […]

As baseball’s powers-that-be prepared for the 1920 season, the national pastime was in complete turmoil behind the scenes. The American League was in the midst of a civil war over a series of controversial decisions made by its founder and president, Ban Johnson. There were steady rumors that the recent World Series between the Chicago […]

A note from the editor of the Spring 2014 BRJ.

Four members of the 1935 Detroit Tigers were later elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three of them were among the finest players of their era, while the fourth was a very good player whose election was the subject of debate. All were instrumental in the Tigers’ winning the 1935 championship, their first.Four members […]

This is the online appendix for Herm Krabbenhoft’s article, “Bobby Layne, 28-0: Hall of Fame Caliber Pitcher for the Texas Longhorns,” in SABR’s The National Pastime: Baseball in Texas and Beyond (2025).   Click on a link below to scroll down: APPENDIX A: Brief Summaries of Each Game Pitched by Bobby Layne for the Texas […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Winter 1987 (Vol. 6, No. 1).   Jiminy Christmas! By the great heavenly stars! Was Rickey Henderson born to steal bases? You bet your sweet ephemeris he was. Henderson was born Christmas Day 1958, a good day to be born if you want to grow […]

Introduction If you pick the baseball milestone carefully enough, you can always reduce the number of players that qualify to one. For example, the only player to hit more than 72 home runs in a season is Barry Bonds. He hit 73 dingers in 2001. Second on the list is Mark McGwire with 70 in […]