Search Results

1935 Wheaties All-Americans. (Rob Fitts Collection)   “Last year in the Guide it was the pleasure of the editor to call attention to the fact that the Japanese had so thoroughly grasped Base Ball that they were bent on some day playing an American team for the international championship.”1 So proclaimed John Foster in the […]

In an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety, more than 1,400 officials, representatives, and executives of the major and minor leagues held their annual Winter Meetings in Hollywood, Florida, about a half-hour north of Miami, from December 8 to 12, 1975. Prepared to conduct business, entertain trades, and deliberate possible rule changes, many attendees wondered whether […]

In the baseball season of 1932, Jimmie Foxx—known then and now as Double X—made a concerted assault on Babe Ruth’s home-run record of 60 in a season. The Philadelphia A’s strong boy came up two short, ending his season with a total of 58. There is a persistent legend that Foxx would have broken Ruth’s […]

On July 23, 1972, Leo Durocher stepped down as manager of the Chicago Cubs. Durocher had taken over an underachieving Cubs team in 1966 and in two years, turned them into a contender, but Durocher’s abrasive style of managing alienated many of his players. There were also run-ins with umpires, health problems, and several unexcused […]

George Shuba greets Jackie Robinson at home plate on April 18, 1946. (Courtesy of Greg Gulas, Carrie Anderson, Mike Shuba)   The 1946 Montreal Royals of the International League have received much attention over the years because Jackie Robinson broke Organized Baseball’s historic and shameful color line by playing second base for the Royals.1 But […]

1953 Eddie Lopat All-Stars (Rob Fitts Collection)   Eddie Lopat was a fine, soft-tossing southpaw during a 12-year baseball career with the Chicago White Sox and most famously the New York Yankees. Called the Junkman because of his assortment of off-speed pitches, Lopat was also something of a baseball entrepreneur. He not only ran a […]

A summary of the 1951 World Series, won by the New York Yankees in six games over the New York Giants. Game One New York Giants 5, New York Yankees 1 October 4, 1951, at Yankee Stadium With the recurring sounds of “the Giants win the pennant!” still echoing, a World Series – even a […]

At SABR’s 2006 convention one speaker analyzed the commissioners of baseball and rated Judge Landis the best of all. In the question-and-answer session that followed, a member of the audience challenged the speaker: “How can you stand here in the year 2006 and praise Landis, who was so instrumental in keeping blacks out of Major […]

One of baseball’s most highly-regarded accomplishments by an individual player is hitting for the cycle: collecting at least one of each of the four types of safe hits (single, double, triple, and home run) in the same game. While recognized as a rare and remarkable feat, the cycle has been achieved 286 times during the […]

With an attack on a future Hall of Famer’s batting average, a lifetime ban handed down to a minor-league executive, and a power struggle between the American League president and the commissioner, the 1922 baseball winter meetings did not lack for story lines. Controversy abounded even before the meetings started, as there was serious concern […]

  Mike “King” Kelly, Arlie Latham, Cap Anson, and Albert Spalding were among the most popular and respected players of nineteenth-century baseball. But despite the players’ successes on the field, the public often viewed them as part of a working-class culture frequently associated with saloons and rowdy behavior. A minister in 1889 referred to ballplayers […]

In the Spring 2014 edition of the Baseball Research Journal, I authored a study that examined within-season attendance patterns attributable to the homegrown status of the home team’s starting pitcher (Ormiston, 2014a). While the analysis failed to find a relationship between homegrown pitchers and game attendance, a control variable in the model—the rookie status of […]

Urban Shocker, the legendary pitcher who perfected his signature spitball while playing for the Ottawa Senators. (Ottawa Journal, September 10, 1914: 4.)   On a hot afternoon in mid-July 1920, Ottawa-trained spitball pitcher Urban Shocker of the St. Louis Browns found himself at New York City’s Polo Grounds in a showdown with Babe Ruth. At the […]

  After being traded to Montreal, Dennis Martinez pitched the highlight of his career, a perfect game on July 28, 1991, at Dodger Stadium. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Dennis Martinez had just lost a heartbreaker of a game, 1–0, tossing 10 innings against the United States, losing to future major-leaguer Rich Wortham. […]

In every sport and at every level, the home team wins more games than the visiting team. While this is true in baseball, it is less the case than in other sports. Throughout baseball history, the home team has won approximately 54 percent of the games played. Nearly every aspect of the game has changed […]

Even when the Mets were at their most mediocre, dramatic victories were a common occurrence, and that trait carried over to the 1969 regular season. The Mets had their share of unlikely wins that season, including 11 in walk-off fashion. Mets Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae offers a closer look at those Amazin’ games.   April […]

In the first years of the American League, its eight clubs added to their ranks by drawing away players from the older National League. Baseball had been slumping, a situation stemming from the country’s economic depression and the failed leadership of team owners. Attempting to snap out if it, the NL magnates had pared down […]

Pre-game ceremonies for the 2019 Opening Day Series (Courtesy of Shane Barclay, JapanBall.com)   The two-game 2019 “Opening Series” between the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners at the Tokyo Dome served as the eighth time – the fifth in Tokyo – that Major League Baseball opened the season abroad. To prepare for the season opener, […]

At the end of the 1940 baseball season, all of the baseball men knew they would soon be facing the war’s demands. Shortly after the last game of the 1940 World Series, the order went out from Washington that all men ages 21-35 had to register with their local draft boards. Some men probably would […]

The 1954 Winter Meetings opened on December 6 at New York’s Hotel Commodore with an agenda filled with issues that had plagued the sport for years. They included the ongoing decline of the minor leagues, the increasing misalignment of major-league franchises with the national population, and player-management conflicts. Owners left the meeting two days later […]

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The next day, December 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. Three days later, December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy, supporting Japan, declared war on the United States; America in turn declared that a state […]

Gene Doyle’s 1920 All-Americans. (Rob Fitts Collection)   It began with big dreams and ended in chaos and farce. The 1920 tour was a lot of things all at once: a high profile, all-star tour that served as a diplomatic mission to engender positive relationships between two rising global powers, the United States and the […]

This article was originally published in The SABR Review of Books, Volume IV (1989).   Good afternoon, students. I am Professor Hailey, and this is Industrial Organization 162, “Baseball as a Business Enterprise” — which is better known around campus, I understand, as “Bats, Balls, and the Bottom Line.” In 1914 a New York court […]

The excitement was electric, as crowds filled Yankee Stadium to capacity on October 10, 1923. For the third consecutive year, the Fall Classic was an all-New York affair, pitting the dominant National League Giants against the upstart Yankees, representing the American League. The latter fittingly christened their magnificent new ballyard in the Bronx by going […]