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David Voigt’s History of Baseball, Part 11
The Winning Team This is the eleventh installment of David Voigt’s history, as fine a brief telling of the tale as I know. This series commenced at: http://goo.gl/E4adJX. Embattled Decade Campaigns:...
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David Voigt’s History of Baseball, Part 12
Bill James Baseball Abstract 1982 This is the twelfth and final installment of David Voigt’s history, as fine a brief telling of the tale as I know. This series commenced at: http://goo.gl/E4adJX....
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Baseball’s Bans and Blacklists
Fixed game, September 27, 1865 Players, managers, umpires, and executives have been banned from baseball ever since the first game-fixing incident in 1865. Prior to the onset of the Commissioner system...
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Five Books You Should Know
Baseball, Robert Smith, 1947 Now and then I am asked which books of baseball history are the best, or which a new fan should read first, that sort of thing. Sometimes I point the curious to an...
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Cooperstown Sonnet
Following upon his boffo debut at Our Game with “Kessler at the Bat” (http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/01/14/kessler-at-the-bat/), here’s the latest from my old pal Mikhail Horowitz, raconteur, bon...
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The Making of Baseball’s Magna Carta
Laws of Baseball, KBBC to Convention, January 22, 1857, page 1 Something odd, unusual, unexpected, even—to one not inclined to superlatives—utterly amazing has just now turned up, some 160 years since...
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The Origins of the Designated Hitter
The Temple Cup Two-Step March When rumors swirled a few weeks back about the imminent addition of the Designated Hitter to the National League rules, a reader suggested that I supply a little...
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Cuba, the U.S., and Baseball: A Long If Interrupted Romance
Minnie Minoso Before there was a United States, beginning in 1776, there was baseball. And before there was a Cuban Republic, beginning in 1868, there was baseball. Today, even after decades of...
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Bruegel and Me
Bruegel, The Harvesters, 1565; detail From my column “Play’s the Thing,” Woodstock Times, December 28, 2006: Walking through the European Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week with my son...
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The Momentous Baseball Convention of 1857
Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams With the newly discovered “Laws of Base Ball” coming to auction this weekend (http://scpauctions.com/), I thought it might be a fine time to post the text of contemporary news...
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The Baseball Convention of 1857, a Summary Report
Porter’s Spirit, March 7, 1857 From Porter’s Spirit of the Times, March 7, 1857, page 5. OUT-DOOR SPORTS. BASE BALL. BASE BALL CONVENTION. The final meeting of the delegates from Base Ball Clubs to the...
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Poster Girl
Model with Lily, 1897 Last week I received an unusual email from a baseball fan who will go unnamed here. It provides me with an excuse to share with you one of my (regrettably) all-too-many non-sports...
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Introducing “1927: The Diary of Myles Thomas”
1922-23 Kolb’s Mothers’ Bread Pinback This is an essay I wrote for ESPN’s new project, “1927:The Diary of Myles Thomas,” which launches today. While it appears on the project’s site (espn.com/1927DMT),...
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A Peek into the Pocket-book
I have just returned from SABR’s annual Nineteenth Century Baseball Conference in Cooperstown. There a handful of old hands swap stories, in some measure for the benefit of relative newcomers who will...
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Walt Whitman, Baseball Reporter
2009 Topps Heritage America’s poet expounded on America’s game in this little-known June 18, 1858 editorial from the Brooklyn Daily Times. (For calling it to my attention, thanks to Jim Carothers.)...
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Louis Fenn Wadsworth: Baseball’s Man of Mystery and History
The Laws of Base Ball I gave this talk at the Litchfield Historical Society on April 24, 2016. While Louis Fenn Wadsworth came in for some discussion in my 2011 book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden, I...
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Strangest of All Baseball Attractions!
Paul Mooney, House of David, 1920 In 1883-1884 the craze for all things baseball spawned not only a new professional league (the Union Association) and the World Series (Providence Grays against the...
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Baseball and the Armed Services
Fort Bragg Game On July 3, 2016, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association will support a regular-season game between the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves at Fort...
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Baseball and the Armed Services, Part Two
Fort Bragg Game Repeating the introduction from Part One (see http://goo.gl/NJXTdw): On July 3, 2016, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association will support a...
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Baseball and the Armed Services, Part Three
Fort Bragg Game Repeating the introduction from Part Two (see http://goo.gl/fT1zRa): On July 3, 2016, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association will support a...
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