A Chicago newspaper archive loaded with baseball history

The Chicago History Museum is digitizing thousands of images from the Chicago Sun-Times photo archive that was lost for a while and resurfaced in 1917 in a storage locker in Dixon, Illinois. An estimated 5 million images are in the collection. When I learned about this new resource, the first thing I searched for was […]

Baseball isn’t back — but I am

This may be the season that wasn’t. I’m writing this post as I conclude Week 6 of working from home during the coronavirus outbreak. Major league baseball has been postponed while most Americans and millions of others around the world are experiencing the strange sensations (or lack thereof) of social distancing. A decade ago when […]

A visit to Shibe Park (sort of)

I live not far from Philadelphia, and yesterday I finally decided to seek out the site of old Shibe Park, a.k.a. Connie Mack Stadium, where the Phillies and Athletics played for the better part of the 20th century. I drove through north Philadelphia and expected to walk around the site a bit, anticipating that I’d be […]

How many major league ballplayers died serving their country in World War II?

On this Memorial Day, I awoke early, wondering how many major league baseball players lost their lives in the service of their country. The son of a World War II veteran, I was most curious about that conflict, and a Google search quickly pointed me to the Baseball in Wartime site. The site reveals that […]

On Presidents’ Day, a tip of the cap to William Howard Taft for starting the ‘first pitch’ tradition

For most Americans, William Howard Taft is not the first chief executive to leap to mind as we celebrate Presidents’ Day. But we baseball fans owe him homage for starting one of our country’s most enduring traditions: the president throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of the season. From a specially built box at National […]

Google’s news archive a treasure for baseball researchers, fans

For the baseball fan and the baseball researcher, the Google News Archive is a dream come true. Point your browser to news.google.com/archivesearch and at your fingertips you have access to an unimaginable bounty of newspaper and magazine clippings on the grand old game, not to mention just about any subject you might care to […]

Scoring big with discount-bin ball caps

My wife is a regular shopper at Marshall’s and TJ Maxx. I often tag along eagerly in hopes of finding a great deal on baseball or football caps and clothing. The stock at these discount stores rotates regularly, and you never know when you’ll stumble onto something you really like. After numerous trips over the […]