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“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.” – Roberto Clemente Walker   (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   For a sports figure to be idolized for his or her greatness is not uncommon. Roberto Clemente received the […]

“Jarvis fires away…That’s a fly ball, deep to left, back, back…HEY HEY! He did it! Ernie Banks got number 500! The ball tossed to the bullpen…everybody on your feet…this…is IT! WHEEEEEEEE!” — Jack Brickhouse, WGN-TV, May 12, 1970 1   When the curtain rang down on the 1969 season, Ernie Banks was just three home […]

Editor’s note: Justice Samuel Alito delivered this speech as the Supreme Court Historical Society’s 2008 Annual Lecture. It was published originally in the “Journal of Supreme Court History 34,” no. 2 (July 2009): 183–95, and republished in SABR’s law-themed Fall 2009 issue of the Baseball Research Journal. The Justice expresses his gratitude to James Hunter, […]

Floyd County, Georgia, in the northwest corner of the state, once supported eight different textile mills, each with a baseball team composed of mill workers. These teams became the formally organized Northwest Georgia Textile League and flourished between the 1930s and 1950s, providing Floyd County with three decades of industrialized community recreation that has not […]

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination, and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet […]

Jean Faut, a child of the mid-1920s, was destined to become one of two All-American Girls Base Ball League players to earn MVP honors twice.  She noted that during the Depression and the beginning of World War II, there wasn’t much for kids to do in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, except play ball or go swimming […]

What with Bill Veeck Jr.’s gregarious nature, numerous achievements, and well-known career as “a champion of the little guy” (to quote from his Hall of Fame plaque), it is not surprising that writers have penned quite a few profiles of the flamboyant baseball executive. On the other hand, regrettably little ink has been spilled in […]

Frank Shaughnessy (middle, second row) guided the 1913 Ottawa Senators to their second straight Canadian League title, nosing out the London Tecumsehs by a single game. First baseman “Cozy” Dolan (top row, third from left) led the Senators with a .358 batting average. (Alfred Pittaway of Pittaway & Jarvis Photographers, Ottawa)   For Frank Shaughnessy, […]

Choices … Decisions: A player has already connected for one double, one triple, and one homer in the game and needs only a simple single in his next plate appearance to achieve the cherished cycle—one of baseball’s rarest accomplishments and one that will inscribe his name permanently in the record books. If he comes through […]

When James Bentley “Cy” Seymour of the Reds stepped into the batter’s box on August 2, 1905, in Cincinnati, he was battling Pittsburgh Pirates great Honus Wagner for the National League batting crown. At start of play that Wednesday afternoon Wagner, 31, was batting .356, and Seymour, 32, was at .357.1 Wagner had won the […]

Like raging dinosaurs in some prehistoric swamp, the Milwaukee Braves’ Warren Spahn and the San Francisco Giants’ Juan Marichal slugged it out for four hours, 10 minutes, and 16 innings, all through the night of July 2 and into the early minutes of July 3, 1963. Spahn, 42, personified an aging Tyrannosaurus rex defending his […]

“With the bases full Foley caught the sphere fair on the end of his ash and away it went over the left field fence for a home run.”1 This first-inning grand slam on May 25, 1882, by Buffalo Bisons outfielder Charles “Curry” Foley sparked a 20–1 rout over the rival Cleveland Blues. Along the way, […]

As a baseball executive, Lou Gorman worked for more than a third of a century with scouts. He’d been a farm director for the Orioles and Royals, director of player development with Kansas City, and GM or assistant GM with the Mariners, Mets, and Red Sox. The Providence, Rhode Island, native was once a minor […]

In the pregame ceremony for the final contest at Crosley Field, Dayton Daily News sportswriter Si Burick provided the epitaph for the venerable home of the Cincinnati Reds, concluding with “Rest in peace.”1 However, his final words turned out to be a bit premature, since the Reds would pull out one more victory from its […]

The Minnesota Twins’ defeat of the Baltimore Orioles on September 1, 1979, didn’t make much difference to either team in the long run. The Orioles, leading the American League East Division by eight games, ended the season with the same lead and went to the World Series. The Twins, two games out of first place […]

An estimated 350,000 fans greeted the Expos as they paraded through downtown Montreal in open-air vehicles on a chilly Thursday afternoon on the eve of their 1977 home opener.1 Baseball had captured the imagination of Montrealers even though the NHL’s Canadiens had just begun a playoff run for their second consecutive Stanley Cup. Buried under […]

During the hot afternoon of August 13, 1972, a nervous crowd of 30,207 at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium sat quietly and open-mouthed while looking skyward at a spectacle that had never been witnessed at a baseball game. “I was really scared,” admitted Philadelphia Phillies promotions director Bill Giles, who had come up with the idea of […]

“A lot of long relievers are ashamed to tell their parents what they do. The only nice thing about it is that you get to wear a uniform like everybody else.” – Jim Bouton1   There are all manner of relief pitchers in baseball – closers, set-up men, middle relief pitchers, left-handed and right-handed specialists, and, […]

Late in the Minnesota Twins’ inaugural season of 1961, the team noted that its final Saturday game, on September 30, would be played on the same day as a home game for the Minnesota Gophers football team at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. The Twins changed their game time from the usual 1:30 in the afternoon […]