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1. THE INTERNATIONAL RETURNS In the case of Ottawa’s return to the International (née Eastern) League, as has so often been the case in Organized Ball, one town’s misfortune proved to be another city’s gain, however briefly. The New York Giants’ Triple-A club in Jersey City, affectionately or derisively known as the Little Giants, struggled […]

Jackie Robinson with the Kansas City Monarchs, October 23, 1945 (COURTESY OF RACHEL ROBINSON AND THE ESTATE OF JACKIE ROBINSON)   A brief and often forgotten chapter in the legendary life of Jackie Robinson was the five months he spent as the Negro Leagues batting star for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945. This era […]

Washington is the only city to have lost two major-league teams. In its last twenty-five years as an American League franchise, the nation’s Capital never even reached the first division. But its greatest single misfortune may have taken place on October 26, 1934, when owner Clark Griffith sent Joe Cronin to the Red Sox for […]

The 1967-68 offseason was launched in October when Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley was granted permission to move his team to Oakland, California. When Kansas City officials threatened legal action, the American League hastily announced plans on October 18 to add new teams in 1969 in both Kansas City and Seattle. The National League […]

The 1957 baseball Winter Meetings, held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from December 2 to 7, had many issues on the table — the relocation of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively; remuneration to and realignment of the Pacific Coast League; major-league television rights in minor-league territories; minor-league […]

The 1936 Black Panthers. Charlie Culver is the first on the left, sitting. (Jerry Cohen, Ebbets Field Flannels)   The reception that Jackie Robinson received in Montréal is well known. A few years later, the Provincial League became a prime destination for Negro League veterans. Many factors can explain how that came to be, but […]

Montreal Expos’ manager Gene Mauch and New York Mets’ manager Gil Hodges post prior to the first game in franchise history, Shea Stadium, April 8, 1969. The Expos won, 11-10. (Courtesy of the McCord Museum, Montreal)   Gerry Snyder, Charles Bronfman, and John McHale. Three of the biggest names in Montreal Expos history. Without Snyder’s […]

Former Washington Senators pitcher and pitching coach Sidney Charles “Sid” Hudson dedicated 19 seasons as a player and coach to the national pastime in the nation’s capital. Unsung and scarcely remembered in the city in which he lived and worked all those years, Hudson nevertheless holds an exalted place in the hearts of the people […]

Major League Baseball has always been a for-profit business.  It emerged from the Roaring Twenties and survived the Great Depression to emerge firmly entrenched as “The National Pastime,” but despite the reverence held for the game the primary objective of the owners was to fill the stadiums and keep costs to a minimum, maximizing their […]

On August 4, 1948, the Roseville Press-Tribune trumpeted the arrival of a new professional baseball team. The Far West League’s financially failing Pittsburg Diamonds were moving ninety miles northeast along what was then US Highway 40 to Roseville, just outside Sacramento.1 The late-season move was bold; although Roseville today ranks among California’s fastest growing cities […]

The late Ed Linn, coauthor of Veeck—As in Wreck, later wrote in The Great Rivalry (1991), “I don’t care what anybody says, there is no rivalry on the face of the earth that can compare with the Yankees and Red Sox.”1 Linn, who died in 2000, might have been able to justify that statement more […]

Cover of the Arizona Diamondbacks expansion draft program on November 18, 1998. (Photo courtesy of Joel Zolondek)   In the first two decades since major-league baseball granted an expansion bid to Arizona Baseball, Inc., the Arizona Diamondbacks franchise has been characterized by the stability of its leadership. The franchise has had two managing general partners, […]

“For the hour will come when Your vigor will fade, And Fortune, ye know is a slippery jade; The Partition’s but flimsy, `twixt glory and shame And Solomon like Napoleon is now lost to fame.” — Anonymous   Homer King Solomon ruled supreme for one brief and brilliant year. He wore the flowing purple in […]

When the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, one question among the many to be answered was: What will baseball’s place in American society be during wartime? Thanks to a letter written by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1942, baseball’s role became clear. In that communication, known as the ”Green […]

Two pitchers emerged in the New York Yankees’ remarkable 1947 season who would lead the team to unprecedented success: Allie Reynolds and Vic Raschi. The 1947 season for the New York Yankees was expected to be another step down in the decline of the franchise. Joe DiMaggio and Joe Gordon had returned from the military […]

Aquino Abreu in the uniform of the 1968–69 National Series champion Azucareros ball club, three seasons after his miraculous three-game pitching string. (Author’s Collection)   Aquino Abreu—a diminutive right-handed fastball specialist who labored for a decade and a half during the formative years of the modern-era post-revolution Cuban League—remains entirely unknown to North American and […]

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 7 (McFarland & Co., 2014). The long relationship between Negro League baseball and Yankee Stadium that provided the Black leagues with both income and prestige began in 1930 when a millionaire lent his prized major league ballpark to a man who […]

Minor-league baseball in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is virtually synonymous with Texas League professional baseball in the region. The small parts not connected to the Texas League are the rise and fall of black baseball in the area and the brief sojourns of the Fort Worth and Dallas teams in other leagues. (The Metroplex is […]

This article was selected for inclusion in SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game. Babe Ruth was presented with flowers before a game during the 1934 baseball tour of Japan.   November 20, 1934; Shizuoka, Japan With a flick of his wrist, the boy received […]

Background The 1972 baseball Winter Meetings played host to over 1,300 people at the Sheraton-Waikiki Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii, from Saturday, November 25, through Friday, December 1. “It looms as the largest in history,” said Jack Quinn, general manager of the Pacific Coast League’s Hawaii Islanders, “and it marks the first time that all convention […]

While the New York Yankees had a wife swap between pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich in Florida in March of 1973, the Oakland A’s went about the business of getting ready to defend a world championship in Arizona. The only snag was that the A’s had no experience as world champions. The organization had […]

The night of July 15, 1952, looked unpromising for baseball in Beaumont, Texas.1 Storm clouds and a forecast of rain kept attendance low as the visiting Tulsa Oilers prepared for a Texas League night game. Only 335 customers would eventually file through the turnstiles, the lowest crowd count of the year to date at Stuart […]

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 […]

  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 […]