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AT 4:09 A.M. on Easter morning, April 19, 1981, just 51 minutes before sunrise, a hardy group of 17 freezing souls huddled in the 28-degree pre-dawn chill of McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I. They had just seen their beloved PawSox close out the thirty-second inning of a 2-2 tie against the Rochester Red Wings. When […]

You can whiffle all you want about Reggie Jackson’s 18 post-season home runs. Big deal – it took him 77 games and 281 at-bats to reach that mark. More impressive is Mantle’s 18 in 65 games and 230 at-bats – all hit in the World Series. I am even more impressed by the Babe’s 15 […]

Sox Bid Curse Farewell began as a project of SABR’s Boston Chapter, but as the 20th anniversary of the 2004 Red Sox season approached, it was adopted by the national organization and we are pleased to have it presented as a SABR publication. At the beginning of 2024, SABR published its 100th book in the […]

This spring, baseball attention will be focused on Henry Aaron as he strives to reach and pass that magic number in the home run summit of fame — 714.   There is another historic home run number that is being approached and soon some one will be achieving that milestone.   That will be the 100th home […]

Jackie Robinson playing in a spring training game vs. Havana Cubans. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)   Separated by fewer than three miles, the Hotel Los Angeles near la Habana Vieja (Old Havana) and the Hotel Nacional in the city’s Vedado district were worlds apart. Sitting on a bluff overlooking El Malecón, Havana’s famed coastal roadway, the Nacional […]

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact (unlike the bird). Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it […]

In May of 1957, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley took a helicopter ride over Chavez Ravine, the eventual home of his iconic new ballpark. In Brooklyn he had loaded the team with Italian and African American players to reflect the demographics of that borough. He wanted his team to reflect the large Mexican American population in […]

“My mother and father never taught me to hate anyone, or to dislike anyone because of their race or color.…I don’t believe in color. I believe in people.” – Roberto Clemente Walker Images courtesy of The Clemente Museum.   The establishment of the Clemente Museum in the Lawrenceville neighborhood adjoining downtown Pittsburgh was the brainchild […]

Comics Bud Abbott and Lou Costello perform “Who’s On First” in the film “The Naughty Nineties”. (Library of Congress)   Bud Abbott: Well Costello, I’m going to New York with you. You know Bucky Harris, the Yankees’ manager, gave me a job as coach for as long as you’re on the team. Lou Costello: Look, […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Vol. 1 (1986).   Who reads baseball juveniles? It’s pretty sure the kids still do; those series books in the shelves at Braswell Memorial Library here in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, look pretty well-thumbed to me. I’m hoping that adults do, too, or that […]

Don Fisher was working for the electric company and pitching sandlot baseball in Cleveland when he signed with the New York Giants in August 1945. He pitched only two games for the Giants, was sent to the minors in 1946, and won just three games there before his brief professional career came to an end. […]

Fans depart Wrigley Field via the diamond. Note the temporary bleachers set up beyond the left field wall on Waveland Avenue as well as the “jury box” section in left-center field. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   On January 22, 1914, Charlie Weeghman leased land to build a ballpark at Clark and Addison streets […]

After the Dodgers’ win over the Pirates on August 5, 2004, the game’s broadcasters announced that the Dodgers had just achieved a season sweep of the Pirates. The announc­ers added that it was the Dodgers’ first season sweep since mov­ing to the West Coast in 1958. First, I found it surprising that this was their […]

Before the Boston Red Sox faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, they sent Frank Malzone, a former All-Star infielder, to scout the opposition. “It was a great thing the club did in assigning Malzone to scout the Cardinals. He knows just what to look for, and for me it was just great. He […]

For the past two years I have pored over approximately 2,000 media guides, from the  1960s through 2007, to find material for this article. In addition to learning about players’ off-season jobs, marital status, children, fathers, brothers, hobbies, and other oddities, I found out a great deal about media guides themselves. Let others devour reams […]

What was the best-hitting team in modern (i.e,. post-1900) baseball history? There are many ways to answer that question. If you were to rank offense the way newspapers used to, by batting average, the 1930 Giants and their .319 batting average would top the list. That same year, the Phillies collected the most hits in […]

While Charlie Chaplin went into the boxing ring in City Lights (1931), the Marx Brothers played football in Horse Feathers (1932), Curly Howard wrestled his opponent to the mat in Grips, Grunts and Groans (1937), and W.C. Fields almost played golf in The Golf Specialist (1930), the true sport of the great movie comedians is […]

There have been many pitchers who also excelled with the bat, hurlers who could help their team with the stick as well as with their arm. This article will look at some of the most proficient home run-hitting pitchers in the major leagues and some of their accomplishments. In 1999 there was a shoe company […]

Who was William Holbert? No, not the founder of the National League.  That was William A. Hulbert. We are talking about William H. Holbert, a National League catcher from 1876 to 1888. His claim to fame is that he is the only major league player to go to bat 2,000 times in his career without […]

The annals of baseball prose include several memoirs and biographies from and about major-, minor-, and amateur-league umpires, well stocked with entertaining war stories from the diamond front, as well as numerous how-to-manuals for those pondering careers in this noble and unappreciated profession; and books inviting fans to offer their own interpretation of baseball’s knottier […]

In the old days of professional baseball, players fist-fighting on and off the field was not uncommon. Players would scream at each other. Some would tease. Many others were just downright mean. One player in particular earned a nickname that perfectly described his slick dugout demeanor. The handle followed him throughout his days in the […]