Some of you will remember my post from a couple weeks ago in which I mentioned I was reading the new book on Tony Lazzeri written by one of our regular readers, Larry Baldassaro.
New Blog Topic: There’s No Crying—Or Sleeping!—In Baseball! Just Ask HOFer Edd Rousch!
A recent article in Baseball Digest had some interesting information about baseball ejections…
New Blog Topic: WILL WE EVER SEE THE RETURN OF THE ROUTE-GOING ACE
Just recently, I wrote about baseball’s attempt to limit the length of extra-inning games by implementing the rather un-baseball-like rule of putting a runner on second base to begin the tenth inning..
Should Ernie Lombardi Still Be Considered The “Goat” Of The 1939 World Series?
As we all know postseason errors can become magnified and can even overshadow the career of the fine ballplayer. Just think about the late Bill Buckner. ..
New Blog Topic: White Sox’ Yermin Mercedes Breaks 110-Year-Old Team Record Set by Ping Bodie!
And just wait until you hear about Ping Bodie’s 1919 “Spaghetti Eating Contest” against “Percy the Ostrich” And no, I’m not making this up…
The Demise of a Great Franchise: The Boston Braves
Sixty-eight years ago, March 13, 1953, on the day that will become known as “Black Friday” in Boston…
New Blog Topic: WHAT DOES MLB HAVE AGAINST EXTRA-INNING GAMES
When we were kids we always got excited when a ballgame went into extra innings. And why not?…
Reflections on the 1920 Baseball Season
People no longer need to try to imagine playing baseball during a worldwide pandemic since here we are in 2021 and that’s exactly what happened last year.
New Blog Topic: “Words of Regret” The Story of Giants’ Manager, Bill Terry
Did you ever say something off-handedly and regretted it almost before the words were out of your mouth? I know I have…
New Blog Topic: The Philadelphia Athletics “White Elephant”
Have you ever wondered why the Philadelphia Athletics had a “white elephant” as their mascot?…
New Blog Topic: THE .400 HITTER – GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
It’s one of baseball’s magical, yet elusive numbers. So elusive that it hasn’t been achieved in 80 years, not since the great Ted Williams finished the 1941 season with a .406 batting average…
BASEBALL APPETIZERS FOR THE ’21 SEASON
We love to think about baseball and talk baseball and figure out how our favorite team is going to do this year…
Tony Lazzeri Has One of the Greatest Days in Major League History!
“Tony Lazzeri was a money player almost without equal and one of the smartest athletics ever to patrol the diamond”…
Protecting Pitchers From Line Drives
The sound of the crack of the bat. It’s a sound like no other in sports. When winter turns to spring it’s one of the harbingers of the summer game in the United States and wherever baseball is played around the world!…
New Blog Topic: BECOMING A BASEBALL FAN IN THE 1950s
All longtime baseball fans have vivid memories of how it all started, whether it be collecting baseball cards, watching games on television, playing ball with your friends,
New Blog Topic: ARE THE HITTERS BEGINNING TO LOOK DIFFERENTLY AT THE SHIFT
There has been a lot of talk about the shift in baseball this spring, including here in these pages. Some feel it should be banned, others vote for modifying it,
Great Baseball Photo Collections: The Charles Conlon Collection, Part One
Today, we’ll continue our tour through some of greatest baseball photo collections. We’ll take a look into the Charles Conlon collection, probably the most famous collection from the early decades of the 20th century…
New Blog Topic: Some Thoughts About Infield Shifts
My friend Bill Gutman and I are both old-school baseball purists, so you can imagine how we feel about some of the new analytics such as “launch angle,” WAR, Win Shares, and others we can’t even pronounce…
New Blog Topic: MLB EXPERIMENTING WITH MORE RULE CHANGES
Well, they’re at it again. While Major League Baseball continues to be fixated on speeding up the game, they’re also finally taking heed about the lack of action caused by fewer balls being put in play during a ballgame…
Great Baseball Photo Collections, Part I: The George Brace Collection
I think it’s a safe assumption to say most of us enjoy looking at old baseball photos, especially those old black-and white collections from the first half of the twentieth century…
New Blog Topic: HAPPY FELTON’S KNOTHOLE GANG
Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a pre-game baseball show that actually brought young baseball players of Little League age to the ballpark…
New Blog Topic: Time for Another Quiz!
My quiz from last week about the “Mystery Person” in the Polo rounds Clubhouse while Willie Mays made his famous catch (it was Jeo Garagiola), that I’m back for more this week!
STAN MUSIAL: THE BEGINNING-THE CRISES- THE THIRD MVP
“Whaddya say, whaddya say!” was Stan Musial’s standard, smiling greeting…
The Philadelphia Athletics Complete A “Double Triple Steal”!
You may be wondering what the heck a “double triple steal” is. You’re not alone.
New Blog Topic: HIGH VELOCITY PITCHING – BLESSING OR CURSE
Just recently, a friend forwarded me a story that appeared in the Washington Post back in May of 2019…
Ballplayers and Children, Part Four: Lou Gehrig
My ongoing series: Ballplayers and Their Sons got me thinking about the Iron Horse and his well-known interaction with kids, so I thought I’d give him some overlooked attention…
Ballplayers and Their Children, Part Three: Hack Wilson and Son Bobby.
The diminutive Hack Wilson was one of the most accomplished power hitters in the game during the late 1920s and early 1930s…
New Blog Topic: SOME VERY STRANGE BASEBALL RULES
For as long as most of us can remember, the basic rules of baseball haven’t really changed much since we discovered the game…
New Blog Topic: The Best Catchers Of All Time – In Terms of Throwing Out Base Stealers
While doing the research about great catchers, one of the interesting stats I uncovered was that Roy Campanella has the highest “caught stealing” percentage in major league history…
Ballplayers and Their Children, Part Two: “Sad” Sam Jones
In the featured photo from the George Brace collection with his two son, George and Paul,
New Blog Topic: WHERE HAVE ALL THE GREAT BASEBALL NICKNAMES GONE?
Here we see “Double-X” teasing “The Splendid Splinter” about his scrawny biceps. There was a time when many baseball players had colorful nicknames that followed them their entire careers. Some of them weren’t exactly flattering, but they stuck.
Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe: A Great Negro League Ballplayer NOT in the Hall of Fame
As we near the close of this year’s Black History Month, I thought this might be a good time to salute Ted “Double-Duty” Radcliffe…
New Blog Topic: “Who is the Mystery Person”?
Check out this neat color photo of Willie Mays’ great catch in the 1954 World Series off the bat of Vic Wertz. It’s from Game One, played at the Polo Grounds on September 28, 1954…
Stan Williams, RIP
“I don’t like the Dodgers, and they don’t like me. They have completely divorced me over the years, and I pull against them every night.’’ –Ex-Dodger, Stan Williams…
New Blog Topic: WHAT GAME ARE WE WATCHING?
For longtime baseball fans like us, the game has always meant a great deal and we’ve been watching it for as long as we can remember…
The Original Wrigley Field Scoreboard, October 4, 1935
The featured photo above was taken during the 1935 World Series between the Tigers and Cubs.
THE AMAZING STORY OF REX BARNEY
“I should have been up there with the greats. I should have gone right up the ladder, but too many rungs were missing.” -Rex Barney
“Owners Aren’t Angels”: The Story of the 1943 Phillies
“If there is a ‘jerk’ connected with the Phillies, it is William D. Cox, president of the baseball club…and he’s an all-American jerk!”…
New Blog Topic: THE MUSIC OF BASEBALL, PART TWO
It started when I wrote a blog about baseball’s National Anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I followed it with another blog, highlighting the Music of Baseball, four classic tunes about our great game…
New Blog Topic: Let’s Have Some Fun on President’s Day, 2021
Since I’m always looking for ways to connect baseball history with national holidays, the thought occurred to me that maybe we could have some fun even with Presidents’ day…