The Glory Days: More 1960s Stars Depart

There were other players who retired in the 1960s after having helped the Dodgers and Yankees make regular treks to the World Series in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. The best-known players from that group were Dodgers Carl Furillo, Johnny Podres, Jim “Junior” Gilliam and Clem Labine, and Yankees Bobby Richardson, Gil McDougald, [...]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1908 & 1909 Negro Leagues

The 1908 season saw the emergence of a national scene in black professional baseball.  Two important eastern teams, the Philadelphia Giants and the Cuban Giants of New York, made trips to the Midwest, their most notable opponent being Rube Foster‘s new powerhouse, the Chicago Leland Giants.  The Cuban Stars of Havana spent significant time in [...]

A Four Course Feast of Baseball Ignorance

The past couple of weeks have brought an even greater parade of baseball ignorance than usual from the professionals who play and report on the game. I started to write about one of them, but before I could fully digest that affront to my baseball taste, another one jumped out at me, followed by two [...]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1910 & 1911 Negro Leagues

This week we’ve added the 1910 and 1911 Negro leagues to the DB.  This gives us the pleasure of presenting statistics for one of black baseball’s great teams, the Chicago Leland Giants of 1910.  Led by Pete Hill and John Henry Lloyd, both in their prime, a 37-year-old Grant Johnson, and the brilliant pitching of [...]

Ballparks Database Updated!

The Seamheads.com Ballparks Database has now been updated with 2011 data plus the latest and greatest corrections. As a reminder, we provide two sets of calculations: 1-year factors and 3-year factors. The 1-year factors are observed factors, based on only the season in question.  While we do use an other parks corrector as described in the [...]

Get Used to It Mr. Strasburg

On the same afternoon when I watched Mike Pelfrey pitch eight innings of one-run ball only to see the bullpen (aided by a muffed fly ball) blow a 4-1 lead and cost him the victory, I saw that the same thing happened to Stephen Strasburg. That is, he left the game as the potential winning [...]

Factor12 Top12 Last12

Over the last twelve MLB seasons, there have been some legendary pitching performances.   The Factor12 Rating is able to quantify each successful season or failure.  Where does your favorite pitcher rate against the competition? Since 2000, there have been 7569 pitching seasons. Of these occurrences, only 12 times has a pitcher recorded an F12 Rating over 33.000. [...]

It’s Always ‘Springtime’ in DC

The flowers remain in full bloom; the weather as gorgeous as a quad full of coeds; and the Nationals took three of four from a good Cincinnati team to move their record to 7-3. There was a billboard near the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta for many years that read, “It’s Always Springtime at Bulldog [...]

How Hack Wilson’s Historic 1930 Season Avoided Knockout Punch

Lewis “Hack” Wilson enjoyed one of the most inspired seasons in baseball history in 1930. Playing outfield for the Chicago Cubs, he hit .356 with 56 home runs and a major league record 191 RBI. He had set the National League RBI record the year before with 159, but shattered that with his inspired play [...]

Clearing The Bases

We always say at draft time don’t overpay for saves, and that piece of advice seems to be especially important this season.  Closers normally take a beating as it is the one spot on a baseball team that is sure to have the biggest turnover year after year.  Not every relief pitcher is capable of [...]

The Day of the (Starting) Pitcher

So we’re one day into the new baseball season, and most of what we’ve seen is great starting pitching. Even though the Mets moved in the outfield fences at Citi Field, the Mets and Braves managed to scratch out one puny run between them. Kyle Lohse didn’t allow a hit to the Marlins until the [...]

Audio Interview With Chattanooga’s Aaron Miller

On April 3rd, I had an opportunity to interview Chattanooga Lookouts pitcher Aaron Miller. He was a first round selection in the 2009 MLB Amateur Draft. Prior to the 2011 season, Aaron was ranked as one of top ten pitchers in the Dodgers organization. This interview focuses on the injury he suffered last year and [...]

OOTP 13: Perhaps The Best Sports Simulation Game Ever

To paraphrase the words of the portly Simpsons character Comic Book Man, Out of the Park 13 is perhaps the “Best Game Ever” when it comes to sports simulations. Proclaiming OOTP13 as such doesn’t give the game enough justice. As awe-inspiring as last year’s edition was, producer Markus Heinson and his band of creative baseball [...]

Baseball Gauge – Introducing our new version of Wins Above Replacement

In celebration of the new season, Seamheads.com and The Baseball Gauge are proud to announce our new Wins Above Replacement. The updated calculation has two major changes from our previous system. The first upgrade is our Fielding system, which now uses Runs Saved from Michael Humphreys Defensive Regression Analysis. This allows us to compare and [...]

A Best Of Collection of Favorite Obscure Baseball Players

A year ago I started a project on my blog of asking people to name their favorite obscure baseball figure from the past: not exclusively players, but anyone employed by the game. The volume of responses (many came from the now-defunct Baseball-Reference blog) surprised me, and led me to start the project up again this [...]

An Interview with Baseball’s “Wild Horse”

Neill “Wild Horse” Sheridan always enjoyed sports, playing a variety as a youth. He grew up believing the football was his best sport, and played collegiately at the University of San Francisco, but his future turned out to be baseball. He was just good enough to get a cup of coffee in the major leagues, [...]

Talking About the Dynamics and Emotions of Spring Training With Jack Perconte

The surface rituals of spring training are well known to fans, but camp presents unique challenges to players whether they’re established starters, prospects or trying to make sure they hold onto their big league jobs. Baseball instructor Jack Perconte, who now coaches players privately in Illinois, was in spring training most years in the ’80s, [...]

A Pilgrimage To the Past

Baseball is all about connections. Players make connections with teammates that extend beyond the playing field and beyond their careers. Management links combinations of people whose connections strengthen the collective effort. As fans, we connect with teams, players, and events, and each of us accumulates a rich fabric of memories, favorites, and unfulfilled wishes. Every [...]

The 1981 California Angels

The clouds that swirled over the 1980 Angels threatened the skies in the subsequent season. When the storms finally relented, the Angels had fired manager Jim Fregosi and gutted their roster, turning over half of their lineup, and only two pitchers remained from the 1979 American League Western division championship squad. Wheelin’ and Dealin’ California [...]

How Baseball Connected John Dillinger to Crime

Throughout history, America’s obsession with outlaws is almost as strong as its love of baseball. While not necessarily condoning their illegal activities, the exploits of those like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and myriad of others have captured the attention of many. John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber from the 1930′s is part of that [...]

Remembering Jennifer

This article first appeared on Seamheads.com on March 2, 2009, a little more than three years after my sister’s tragic death, and will be re-posted here every year on this day, her birthday, with slight modifications. My sister would have been 41 today. But for the senseless act of a coward who took her life [...]

“Long Taters” Goes Deep

I first met Ron Anderson via email three years ago when he replied to a post I made about my search for contributors to Seamheads.com.  Ron and I struck up a friendship and I was thrilled to learn he was in the early stages of a book about one of my all-time favorite players—George “Boomer” [...]

National League Players Most Likely to Break Out in 2012

The American League breakout players were covered in last week’s post- http://baseballhistorian.blogspot.com/2012/02/2012-american-league-break-out-players.html –  and now it is time to go over their National League counterparts. The senior circuit has their own crop of impressive up and coming players, many of whom will play important roles in their team’s fortunes in 2012. Arizona Diamondbacks- First Baseman- [...]

Pitchers and Catchers And Technology…The New Rite Of Spring

This is one of the weeks that baseball fans cherish, the week pitchers and catchers report, and hope springs anew for each of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs. Everyone feels like they have a chance to catch the defending champion Cardinals, all starting with a clean slate in the warm weather of Florida and [...]

Farewell

“And listen to the sound of a new beginning Oh, this is where the old is ending Listen to the sound . . . .” Building 429     We arrived at the ballpark early, my sister and I.    Very early.   Two weeks ahead of pitchers and catchers.   Few people walked the neighborhood.   [...]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1912 & 1913 Negro Leagues

We’ve posted two more Negro league seasons, 1912 and 1913.  The number of games between the best black professionals gets a little sparser with each year you go backward.  It’s not that they were playing fewer games overall, it’s just that their opponents were much more likely to be white semipro or amateur teams. Important [...]

Picking Your Favorite Obscure Baseball Figure

Last year I started a project on my blog of asking fans to send in their picks for their favorite obscure baseball figure from the past. As the word “figure” indicates, the person didn’t have to be a player; it can be anyone employed within the game itself, by a team or by a league, [...]

MLB Fan Cost Index

Besides Major League Baseball (MLB) teams’ market population, popularity and win-loss record, their attendances at home games depend on such factors as prices of tickets and other Items while at the ballpark. This information initially appeared in 1994 when a company named Team Marketing Report (TMR) published a Fan Cost Index (FCI) for the 1993 [...]

Glory Days of the 50s and 60s: Offseason Transactions

Transactions make the offseason fun. Until free agency came along, we watched for trades and waited for the blockbuster variety. Of course, those deals still pump life into baseball’s winter – the rumors alone provide plenty of drama – but now there are also signings and those rumors as well. Nobody liked trades more than [...]

The Winter of My Discontent

It has been more than a month since I felt like writing anything about baseball. The musings, daydreams, and historical diversions that usually fill the off-season void have not been sufficient to overcome the ravages of reality enough for me to celebrate anything with words. Oh, I’m having a fine winter on a personal level. [...]

2012 World Baseball Coaches’ Convention: Learn From The Best

The 2012 Mohegan Sun World Baseball Coaches’ Convention – January 19 – 21 – takes place at the spectacular Mohegan Sun and will feature another blockbuster presenter line-up. You can be sure that we’ll have some of baseball’s top coaches and instructors on board to help you become a better coach. From Cal Ripken, Jr. [...]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1914 & 1915 Negro Leagues

New to the DB this week are the 1914 and 1915 Negro leagues.  The 1914 season in particular marks a turning point in black baseball history, as Charles Isham Taylor, former manager of the Birmingham Giants and West Baden Sprudels, arrived in Indianapolis to take over the A.B.C.s, bringing along with him his three ballplaying [...]

Mr. President, Baseball Lasts Til Almost November

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the Rose Garden soon for the customary victory lap stop-over at the White House. It will be a rare baseball event for President Obama, and that is a sad commentary for both the game and for a president whose political advisors are so clearly asleep at the switch. Presidents [...]

A Brief Dissection of the 2012 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

First off, congratulations are in order for the Baseball Hall of Fames’ newest member, Barry Larkin. His selection today caps off an excellent 19 year major league career that was spent exclusively with the Cincinnati Reds. With 86.4% of the votes, Larkin was the only player on this year’s ballot to garner the necessary 75% [...]

Shiny New Penny

Years ago such a small thing as finding a shiny new penny could brighten the day of a small child. Nationals fans are a mature lot, but the Nationals acquisition of Gio Gonzalez has added a little of that magic back into their new year’s equation. There is real baseball value from adding the hard [...]

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