Baseball Purist
“For Love of the Game”
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Hey Big Spender
BP was in a discussion recently with a fan who pointed out that in this year’s League Championship Series (LCS), three of the four teams came from small markets. In the past though, BP took the position that it is much better to be a big spending, large market team as noted in our posts…
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The Day LSD Took the Mound: The Incredible Legend of Dock Ellis and Baseball’s Most Unbelievable No-Hitter
By Bill Coleman On June 12, 1970, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. That sentence alone would not have made history. No-hitters are rare, but baseball has seen hundreds of them. What happened that afternoon, however, transformed a remarkable achievement into one of the sport’s most enduring…
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Was Ted Williams Really a .406 Hitter? The 1941 season was even more extraordinary than the record books suggest
By: Bill Coleman There are certain numbers in baseball that need no explanation, like .406. Even people who do not follow baseball know what it means. Ted_Williams, the Boston Red Sox’s 22-year-old hitting prodigy, finished the 1941 season with a batting average of .406, which is the last time a major-league player finished a full…
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Baseball Attendance: Year End Wrap Up
We looked recently at the current state of MLB’s baseball attendance in our post titled The Baseball Attendance Myth. Now that the regular season is in the books we thought we would take a quick look at the final numbers. Total attendance was 71,752,722 in 2026, which represents an increase of 343,200 fans from 2025.…
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When Baseball Was Still “Base Ball” – Part II
Note: This is the second half of a two part post. Read the first part here. By: Bill Coleman Baseball Before It Became a Business There is another reason that vintage base ball played under the direction of the Vintage Base Ball Association (VBBA) can feel almost surreal to modern fans. The game exists outside…
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When Baseball Was Still “Base Ball” – Part I
Note: This is a two part post with the second half found here. By Bill Coleman Inside the Vintage Base Ball Association—and the remarkable movement bringing the 19th century’s game back to life On a summer afternoon, the baseball field looks almost right. There are nine men in the field, a batter waits at home…
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Going Bananas: How Savannah Turned Baseball Into the Greatest Show on Dirt
By Bill Coleman They dance. They slide. They steal first base. Fans can catch a foul ball for an out. And somehow, in an age when baseball has struggled to hold the attention of casual fans, the Savannah Bananas have people lining up to watch. There was a time when baseball was supposed to be…
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The Baseball Attendance Myth
“Statistics do not lie but liars use statistics” Major League Baseball has continued to promote that it is back and better than ever, mostly by stating that rules changes employed in 2022 have helped to increase attendance at ballparks. Those rule changes included the implementation of the pitch clock, extra inning ghost runner, and the limitation…
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The Bird Who Captured Baseball
By Bill Coleman The Unforgettable Summer of Mark Fidrych By the summer of 1976, baseball needed something unexpected. Free agency was arriving. Television was changing sports. Attendance in some cities felt flat. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a young pitcher with blond curls, endless energy and a habit of talking to baseballs became the most…
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Next Stop: The Ballpark
By: Bill Coleman When Major League Baseball Players Skip the Luxury Car and Take the Train! Professional baseball players are often associated with luxury SUVs, chauffeured town cars and gated communities. Yet throughout Major League Baseball history, a surprising number of stars have preferred something much more ordinary: public transportation. Whether it’s the New York…
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Stolen Bases*
The number of stolen bases in baseball has fluctuated greatly over time. Some of those periods and the causes of those fluctuations include: The latest change in stolen base activity occurred with the introduction of analytics into the game in the early 2000’s. Prior to that, in the 1990’s there were regularly more than 3,000 successful…
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Did Boston’s Greatest Baseball Miracle Get a Little Help From Some Cambridge Nerds?
By Bill Coleman The MIT Conspiracy The following story is fictional. To date, no evidence exists that the Boston Red Sox hacked another team’s communication system, employed MIT graduates to steal pitch signs or did anything improper during their 2026 winning streak. There are hot streaks. There are unbelievable hot streaks. And then there is…
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Baseball Purist in the News: Click on the audio link to hear our own Bill Coleman (not pictured), who was interviewed by Tim McArthur on Long Island New Radio (103.9 FM) and which aired on September 1, 2026.
