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MOE BERG One day when the senators were on the road, Al Schacht called Moe Berg in his hotel room to tell him he was with two ladies who wanted to meet him. “Moe, this is Al. I’ve got a couple young ladies down here in the lobby. I’ve been telling them about you being […]

Punctuated by Enos Slaughter’s mad dash around the bases in Game Seven of the World Series, the 1946 season saw major-league baseball back on the upswing. Total attendance had climbed to more than 11 million, a 71 percent increase over the previous season. The total also well exceeded the prewar 1941 figure of 9.7 million. […]

  Roberto Clemente with the ball and bat used to hit #3,000. (Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)   The Great One. When looking at players’ performances both on and off the field over the past several decades, few have surpassed the work of The Great One, Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente. The first Latino […]

Notwithstanding his ultimate status as one of the greatest hitters in major-league history, Stan Musial’s early visions of a big-league career rested on his strong left arm. As he tried to persuade his father to allow him to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals, the young southpaw dreamed of translating the success he had enjoyed […]

Since the World Series scandal of 1919 baseball has been so exemplary in avoiding allegations of illicit activity that the exceptions are of special interest. Possibly the most important allegation since 1919 concerned the Houma club in the playoffs of the Class D Evangeline League in 1946. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the episode, […]

I have news about the publications department here at SABR. I’ll be taking a sabbatical in the fall to write a SABR book for University of Nebraska Press. I’m expanding the SABR Style Guide into a handbook for baseball writers and editors, to be published in 2026. This is something I’ve wanted to do ever […]

First, a little housekeeping. The SABR main office has created a new email address: BRJsubscribe@sabr.org. If you have any questions, concerns, or problems with your BRJ subscription, including lost or missing issues, credit card updates, or if you didn’t sign up to get the print edition at first, but you’ve decided now you’d enjoy taking […]

Until now, the Chadwick Award has been intended to recognize writers and researchers who have done most of their best work in the background, enriching the game with dogged effort but little notice. One could argue that Daniel Okrent (1948- ) has been amply honored in public, so why would this consummately nerdy award be […]

Instead of using shovels, Judge Roy Hofheinz and other officials fire six-shooters at the ceremonial ground-breaking. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS)   “Houston Astrodome or Bust” —Tagline for Bad News Bears in Breaking Training   The Astrodome was born in spectacle, a very Texan sort of spectacle, tied to the state’s historical heritage and […]

During the first years of the twentieth century many of the most celebrated—and marketable— major leaguers supplemented their incomes by headlining in vaudeville or touring in legitimate plays during the off-season. A few even appeared in motion pictures: a new medium that was revolutionizing the way in which Americans passed their leisure hours. And so, […]

The job of a major league baseball player is to help his team win games, for the ultimate purpose of making the playoffs and winning the World Series. Since the early history of major league baseball, pitchers have been credited with wins and losses as official measures of the effectiveness of their pitching. Of course, […]

The oldest professional baseball park in the United States—Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama—adds another chapter to its rich history this summer when it hosts the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in a regular-season game.1 The specialty game will coincide with Juneteenth celebrations and honor Hall of Famer Willie Mays, who played for the […]

The Outaouais — a unique region of southwestern Quebec situated along the Ottawa River—lives a double life. Though most of its communities began as administrative centers for the Quebec-based timber industry and the draveurs who worked the Gatineau River, the twenty-first century economy of the region is quite different. As anyone who has walked the halls […]

The 1955 crop of baseball “bonus babies” included Massachusetts native Tom Gastall, born on June 13, 1932, in Fall River, to Thomas and Concetta Gastall. (A “bonus baby” rule was first implemented by the major leagues in 1947, intended to restrict the inflated offers made by wealthy club owners seeking to monopolize the best young […]

In December 1941, the outbreak of the Second World War elicited drastic changes throughout nearly all sectors of American society while the nation struggled in an unprecedented mobilization toward global conflict. This was particularly true in the realm of major league baseball, where over 90% of all active players at the outset of the war […]

On October 14, 1965, the Minnesota Twins lost a heartbreaking World Series Game Seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2–0. While the disappointment was palpable, there was every reason to believe the Twins would soon be back in the Series. The team had won the pennant convincingly with a record of 102-60, […]

SABR honors two individuals with one of the nine inaugural Henry Chadwick Awards because their accomplishments in baseball history were indivisible. Although plaudits were directed solely to Harold Seymour (1910–92) in his lifetime, it has since become clear that his wife, now Dorothy Jane Mills (1928-2019), did a great deal more than offer behind-the-scenes support. […]

   Of all the former players who went into business or industry, none quite “made it” like Franklin W. Olin. This may not have been reflected in the moderate way he lived, but he was a real American industrial giant who affected the lives of many people.     Olin was born January 9, 1860 in […]

It has been over 20 years since Baseball Prospectus developed the statistic “Wins Above Replacement Player” (WARP), and 12 years since Sean Smith’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) was first posted on Baseball-Reference.com.1 WAR now is widely recognized as a useful metric for assessing a ballplayer’s overall performance. Several performance-based awards are given to players each […]

Sandy Koufax (top row, second from right) finished fourth in scoring on the University of Cincinnati’s freshman basketball team in 1953-54. (Courtesy of University of Cincinnati Athletic Department)   In his early teen years Sandy Koufax, like most like-minded kids of his era, played the sport of the season, stopping only for dinner and maybe […]

The 13-year-old third baseman from Colorado, who identified his race as Hispanic American, didn’t look far from home when he named his favorite player, who also happened to be his favorite athlete and his hero: Colorado Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez. A 14-year-old Minnesotan, who proclaimed his primary position on his select baseball squad as third base, […]

Sixteen months ago, we were stuck in our homes wondering if, or under what circumstances, baseball would return. To some degree, as I began this essay in April 2021, things had not changed. There were encouraging signs during the summer of 2020. Once, as I was walking my dog, Buddy, we happened on a batting […]

SABR Salute: Norman Macht Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical […]