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A Pictorial Chronology of Baseball in the 19th Century, Part 18: 1893–1894
Hitting Explodes, Attendance Stabilizes, and the NL stands aloneContinue reading on Our Game »
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A Pictorial Chronology of Baseball in the 19th Century, Part 19: 1895–1896
Baltimore’s Orioles, the powerhouse Phils, and the passing of the old guardContinue reading on Our Game »
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The Big Picture
Remarks delivered at the first annual conference of SABR’s 19th Century Baseball Research Committee, at Cooperstown on April 18, 2009Louis F. Wadsworth tombstone, Green-Wood Cemetery, BrooklynDespite...
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A Pictorial Chronology of Baseball in the 19th Century, Part 20: 1897–1898
Freedman and Rusie, Spalding and Anson; bitterness aboundsBoston defeats Baltimore 19–10 on September 27, 1897 at Union Park, the home of the latter, cementing its hold on first placeAmos Rusie was,...
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A Pictorial Chronology of Baseball in the 19th Century, Part 21: 1899–1900
Labor pains and the birth of Major League BaseballThe St. Louis Browns of 1898 finished last in the 12-team NL, with a record of 39–111. For 1899, renamed as the Perfectos, they rose to fifth place,...
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10 Things I Think I Think for Monday, September 30
Eliott Kalb and the MLB Network Research Dept.Babe Ruth’s Home Run CandyFirst, it’s not me thinking anything today except Wow … another great, memorable season of baseball. The ten things in today’s...
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Forget What You Know About the Black Sox Scandal
My Op-Ed in Today’s New York TimesThe Black Sox, sketched by Bernie Fuchs for my second Armchair Book of Baseball (1987)On this, the day that the 1919 World Series concluded a century ago, The New York...
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Exercise in New York: 1820s & 1830s
Contemporary reports, from the news clippingsThe packet of clips below, collected by my estimable friend George A. Thompson, follows upon yesterday’s publication at Our Game of “Baseball, Boating, and...
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World Series Centennial Review: 1919
Also 1944, 1969, and 1994; recalling a black eye for baseball (actually, two)The Chicago White Sox of 1919This story was written for and appears in MLB’s World Series Media Guide.In the bottom of the...
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The Washington Nationals Come to the White House
No, this is not a World Series predictionThe Excelsiors and Nationals intermingled on the White Lot, behind the President’s residence, in 1866The Washington Nationals, celebrated as National League...
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Washington Wins the World Series
From The New York Herald Tribune, October 11, 1924Continue reading on Our Game »
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Ballplayer, Umpire, Drunkard; Gambler, Pickpocket, Preacher
Not Billy Sunday, but one of the game’s mystery menThe Bowery at Night, painted by W. Louis Sonntag, Jr. for the New York Journal, 1896My airplane reading for the seven games of the 2019 World Series...
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The Three True Outcomes, and a Possible Fourth
The annual Hot Stove League talk at Beattie-Powers PlaceBeattie-Powers Place, Catskill, NYThe World Series is over and I have returned to find fewer leaves on the trees by my home. Come to think of it,...
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Roy Hobbs and Dick Hoblitzell
Baseball bat or magic wand?Dick HoblitzellMy friend Eric Zweig, principally a hockey writer who sometimes strays into baseball, sent me an odd story from The Brooklyn Citizen of February 12, 1910, that...
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The Game of the Golden West
From rival to savior; how the West rescued the EastAmong the Sierra Nevada, California (1868), by Albert Bierstadt; Smithsonian American Art MuseumI delivered this speech at SABR’s Interdisciplinary...
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Beizbol (Бейзбол)
Between the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb came the B-BombThe biweekly Smena (“Change”), №607, September 1952, featuring “Baseball Is a Big Catch”Once upon a time we knew what to do with Russian disinformation....
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Humors and Tragedies of Baseball Training Time in Dixie
Including a new Victory Faust story; from Fred Lieb in The Literary Digest, April 9, 1921Spring training; a map from 1910Training-time in Dixie looks pretty soft to the brethren of the Hot Stove...
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A New Image of Rube Waddell
And some down-the-rabbit-hole adventuresContinue reading on Our Game »
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The Strange Story of the Sacrifice Fly
What did Ted Williams really hit in 1941?Continue reading on Our Game »
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