Category: History
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When Baseball Was Still “Base Ball” – Part I
NOTE: This will be a two part post with the second half released next week. 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…
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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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When the Money Reached the Diamond: MLB’s Biggest Gambling Scandals
By Bill Coleman For more than a century, Major League Baseball has treated gambling as its greatest threat to competitive integrity. While players have battled performance-enhancing drugs, sign-stealing controversies, and labor disputes, nothing has frightened baseball executives more than the possibility that the outcome of games could be influenced by betting interests. From the infamous…
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Ed Kranepool – The Original Mr. Met
By Stephen Kohn I met Ed Kranepool in the late 60’s at an autograph event in my hometown on Long Island. I was an avid Mets fan since 1965 and meeting him was a real thrill. He was one of the original New York Mets and his jersey number 7 became my favorite number throughout…
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Fidel Castro and the Island Game: Power, Politics and a Lifelong Love of Baseball
By Bill Coleman Few political figures of the 20th century are as tightly bound to a single sport as Fidel Castro was to baseball. In Cuba, baseball is not just a pastime, it is a cultural language, a shared rhythm and Castro spoke it fluently. Long before he became the face of revolution, he was a tall,…
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The Final Days of Roberto Clemente
A Hall of Famer’s Last Mission Became His Greatest Act of Humanity By Bill Coleman On a warm autumn afternoon in 1972, baseball fans watched one of the game’s greatest players achieve a milestone that seemed to seal a perfect career. Just three months later, he would be gone. The story of Roberto Clemente is…
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La Insólita Historia de las Tarjetas de Béisbol Venezolanas de Topps (1959–1968)
By Bill Coléman Baseball Purist received such a popular response from our Latino readers for our previous post titled The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968) that we have decided to repost it in Spanish as well. Enjoy!! Baseball Purist recibió una respuesta tan positiva de nuestros lectores latinos por nuestra publicación anterior,…
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No Game for Old Men
Leonard “Bones” McCoy: Admiral, wouldn’t it be easier to put an experienced crew back on the ship?James T. Kirk: Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor. From the movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan Evidently, so is the game of baseball. We examined the current, top 100 position players in terms…
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The Crazy Life of Rube Waddell
By Bill Coleman There have been baseball stars. There have been baseball legends. And then there was George Edward “Rube” Waddell, the flame throwing left-hander who may have been the strangest superstar the sport has ever seen. Author’s Note: “Rube” began as slang for an unsophisticated country bumpkin in the mid-19th century. It was a…
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The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968)
By Bill Coleman Ink, Gum, and Caracas Dreams: When Topps Took Baseball Cards to Venezuela In the late 1950s, as America’s pastime stretched its cultural reach far beyond U.S. borders, one unlikely export followed close behind: the baseball card. For Topps, already the dominant force in the hobby, the decision to produce cards in Venezuela created one of…