Tris Speaker's self-identified greatest play. medium.com/@thorn_john_...

What is the first film of an MLB game? Maybe this: Rube Waddell and his A's vs Baltimore (1902, lost). Two surviving films are earlier: The Ball Game (1898; depicts Zane Grey, not yet famous but playing for Newark), and Casey at the Bat (1899; filmed on Edison's lawn in NJ).

Hail and farewell, Charley Rosen (an old pal).

On Robert Redford and the enduring power of ‘The Natural,’ a timeless baseball fairy tale www.nytimes.com/athletic/663...

The tush push is as old as football. Below, Yale in 1894.

Hail and farewell, Ed Giacomin.

Hail and farewell, Robert Redford.

The Greatest Plays You Never Saw, No. 20: Dummy Hoy's miraculous catch on a steed, in 1886 or 1887. (Don't call him William or Billy; Dummy was how he was known in his day and how he referred to himself.) ourgame.mlblogs.com/dummy-hoy-18...

From Cliff Blau, working on an August 26, 1887 game for Retrosheet: "Bid McPhee that day became the only player in major league history to hit for the reverse natural cycle with all FIVE types of hits; he homered, tripled, doubled, singled, and then walked, which was scored a hit that year only."

MLB begins Hispanic Heritage month on 9/15. Cuba's Steve Bellán at age 13 was sent to New York with his brother to be educated at Fordham's Rose Hill prep school--a practice common for Cuba's middle class, going back before the U.S. was born. He played pro ball in 1871 with Troy.

Robin Roberts (No. 36) pitches to Duke Snider at Ebbets Field, 1955. The shortstop is Granny Hamner (no. 2). Snider of course wore No. 4. Amazingly to me, I still recall their uniform numbers. (Look Magazine, photographer Frank Bauman; Museum of the City of New York)

The Greatest Plays You Never Saw ... or in this case, anyone anywhere. "Abner Doubleday — Spring 1839." And yet the scratching out of a diagram in the dust became the origin for the game of baseball, and for its sacred pantheon. ourgame.mlblogs.com/abner-doubleday-spring-1839-443f54606189

Hail and farewell, Davey Johnson.

Hail and farewell, Ken Dryden.

I'll be giving a talk, followed by conversation and Q&A, at the New York State Museum in Albany on Monday evening, October 6.

Mansplaining at the Polo Grounds in 1907: “You See, There Are Nine Men on a Side.”

Can it be 40 years ago?

Jim Creighton ... the old essay by yours truly, freshly illustrated. ourgame.mlblogs.com/jim-creighto...

This little book was issued 30 years ago to mark Penguin’s 60th anniversary with 60 titles by its authors. I was pleased to be included, as it placed me in the company of my betters, from Melville and Poe to Emerson and the Pope. @StephenKing and I received the same fee ($200).

Jim Creighton, via Molly Lawless. ourgame.mlblogs.com/jim-creighto...

Holiday-weekend pursuit: The National Association of of Professional Base Ball Players was established in New York City on March 17, 1871, at actor James W. Collier's Saloon, 840 Broadway; listing from the 1871 city directory; image of saloon at right, opposite Wallack's Theatre.

Congrats to Kyle Schwarber on hitting four homers tonight. He becomes the 21st (or 22nd, if we count Josh Gibson's four-homer game). Details in this week's Our Game post! ourgame.mlblogs.com/bobby-lowe-m...

It happened right here, on Montague Street, on this day. This is where the national pastime at last began to live up to its name. I wrote this a dozen years ago. ourgame.mlblogs.com/215-montague...

Before the Weavers' recording in 1950 ("Wimoweh") and that of the Tokens in 1961 ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight"); eerily great. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQ...

This is cool because Trump is demanding that people like me in the Baseball Writers of America Association vote for the guys he wants in the Hall of Fame right now and my reaction to that is “lol no.” And I’d like to add “lol never.”

If you like baseball and can make the hike to the third floor mezzanine of the Smithsonian NPG, it’s worth it. From the ongoing Champions exhibition…. @sabrpictorial.bsky.social @bballhist.bsky.social @johnthorn.bsky.social

Congress Street Grounds, c/o Digital Commonwealth-lots of movement in this great image.

Two batters have hit four homers in a game this year. Boston's Bobby Lowe was the first, on May 30, 1894. Did others hit more? ourgame.mlblogs.com/bobby-lowe-m...

"Basket Ball--The New Craze for Athletic Young Women," New York Journal, May 17, 1896.

Préjà vu. I am coming to resemble the figure on my old friend Lenny Koppett's book jacket.

Special thanks to @johnthorn.bsky.social, Bruce Allardice, and Tom Gilbert for all of the extra information they contributed. Without their help, I would’ve presented an incomplete picture of George’s life. And an extra special shoutout to Bob Tholkes, who first discovered this game last year.

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is." —Vonnegut Tonight is one of those of those moments.

Friend Bruce Garland tipped me off to a no-hitter I had missed in my Our Game story on Monday: by Harvard's Harold Ernst on Fast Day, April 13, 1876, against the formidable Lowell club.

Before it was called the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation quietly evaluated a claim that Babe Ruth was a WWI slacker.

1. Found another missing player yesterday, this time it is John J. Dailey who played in the National Association in 1875. I did a thread on the hunt for him a couple weeks ago. I'll go through the process of identifying him and some of the new/fun facts I've learned about his tumultuous life.

17. Why would a stranger with the same name as her husband be buried with her and her mother? It had to be our man. John Dailey aka Brock aka Watch-the-Ball had died on Jan 12, 1902. It seems fitting that for all his notoriety in life, he died in complete obscurity. His was a life worth forgetting.

New at Our Game: the inimitable Joe Borden, whom I believe to have thrown @MLB's first no-hitter. Some talk, too, about the first perfect game, and even the first shutout, working our way back into the dark ages of the game. ourgame.mlblogs.com/joe-borden-m...

On this date, the first performance of "Casey at the Bat," in 1888, by De Wolf Hopper at Wallack's Theatre.

The days of the espn PAGE on compuserve with all the breaking news, updated once a... week. In 1994 I wrote an espn internet column once a... week

Some appropriate art from my forthcoming book:

I never used AOL, but I was involved with a short-lived (thanks to Netscape) dialup rival, AT&T Interchange, in 1995 or so. My company back then, Total Sports, was a principal sports service. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/b...

Charlie Bevis is one of the game's best researchers, and this story is great: bevisbaseballresearch.wordpress.com/research-arc...

To my delight, readers of this story, posted to Our Game yesterday, have added to my research, now reflected in footnotes. Pete Palmer added two "ultimate grand slams" between those of Connor and Ruth, and Frank Vaccaro found a grand slam by Jack Chapman in 1864. ourgame.mlblogs.com/roger-connor...

Bonds or Ruth? Clemens or Young? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/s...

Roger Connor hit MLB's first grand slam, but his manager at Troy had hit one earlier. The Greatest Plays You Never Saw, No. 16. ourgame.mlblogs.com/roger-connor...

Charles Schulz: “Happiness is not funny.” Chaplin and Keaton would have agreed.

For the Fox streaming series "Field of Valor," Christy Mathewson, in which I had a hand. app.frame.io/presentation...

Pretty great: "City of Gold," 1957, a short documentary film narrated by Pierre Berton, whose hometown Dawson City was. The pan and zoom of still images might have inspired Ken Burns. Oh, and there is baseball. www.nfb.ca/film/city_of...

Feeling my years today. ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-sentimenta...

In the Brooklyn Museum archives, not on view, are railings from the old Police Gazette Building, 340 Pearl Street, Franklin Square, Manhattan, constructed in 1883 and demolished in 1965. Woodcut shows building on the day the Brooklyn Bridge opened (railings were later).