Base Tender, from The Base Ball Player’s Pocket Companion. Published by Mayhew & Baker, Boston, 1859. In the Massachusetts Game of Base Ball, bases were marked by stakes. I once umpired a Massachusetts Game; note the base tender (and the smallish top hat provided by costume supply).

Happy New Year. The Pictorial Clipper, here from the last days of 1855 and the first of 1856, was an occasionally issued edition of The New York Clipper. I was lucky to snag a copy.

The Rise of Professionalism and other postwar innovations in a newly national pastime; the latest entry in a continuing series. ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-pictorial-...

If anyone is looking to close out the year with a great read about 19th century women’s baseball, I finally read this, and LOVED it. Obviously for the women’s baseball aspect, but also because it’s everything I want in a baseball history book. Give me all the social context!

Satchel Paige learning his lines. "Wonderful Country" (1959) starred Robert Mitchum and Julie London.

Merry Christmas to bookish baseball fans.

After the Civil War, race continued to be the ruling question in baseball as in American life. Recalling 1867 in the second part of this series. ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-pictorial-...

Absolutely right. AI might be able to summarize (poorly) what we currently know, but a major goal of historical research is to find the hidden surprises out there. Let me illustrate …

Merry Solstice, baseball fans. This occurred today at 10:03 AM, thus ... longer days from here on out. Put red stitches on those snowballs!

1943 Kansas City vs. St. Paul minor league program--dig the background.

A Pictorial Retrospective of Baseball: Part 1, 1868. The launch of a new series that goes back, back, back to the game's primordial days. ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-pictorial-...

Merry Winter Solstice to all baseball fans, whatever holiday they may mark. A Facebook post from a decade ago. ourgame.mlblogs.com/merry-winter...

The 1912 World Series by telegraph, to a theater scoreboard in Dallas, TX.

"A Revery of the Game," a poem that I had never seen, by Clarence Deming, who played baseball for the Yale nine once upon a time. ourgame.mlblogs.com/a-revery-of-...

Lou Gehrig's locker remained in Yankee Stadium until the late 1940s. It has been on display @baseballhall for decades since.

A Green Bay Packers bobblehead fetched $36,404.

New today: Latest Baseball Research Journal, free to members of SABR. Great cover by Gary Cieradkowski showing Lou Gehrig at Columbia, where he was coached by Paul Robeson.

One of my readers observed that baseball is the only sport where the enjoyment of the game decreases as the athleticism of the players increases. I don't know if I totally agree, but it's striking that so much of what we don't care for in the game these days is a function of guys being too good.

The Negro Leagues stats (1920-1948) have been updated. MLB's announcement of the slight changes to the data is included herein: ourgame.mlblogs.com/negro-league....

Spurred in part by my sharing image files tagged with dates from my decades-old collection, Bruce Allardice has been posting antique (pre-1871) images to Protoball. Others have shared their research, too. protoball.org/ProtoPix

First American Basketball League game of 1929 between New York Celtics and Rochester Centrals, November 16 at Madison Square Garden. The Rochester cagers lost the championship to the Cleveland Rosenblums. digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/coll...

Hail and farewell, Jimmy Cliff.

Willy Wonka's "golden ticket": a comprehensive view of MLB's lifetime pass. ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-golden-t...

The Hanlon Brothers, a long-lived vaudeville and acrobatic troupe, put on a wildly successful show called "Superba" in 1890. When veteran Baltimore manager Ned Hanlon (unrelated to the theatrical Hanlons) managed the Dodgers in 1899, the club took the name of "Hanlon's Superbas."

I dabbled in the vintage nonsports auction for the first time and won a card that I've wanted for a really long time. Despite the low grade, it looks pretty pristine for a 140 year old card (some moisture damage on the back).

A high-grade copy of Superman No. 1, from 1939, closed at $7.6 million on Heritage Auctions on Thursday, making it the most expensive comic book sold at auction.

Oh, the humanities! Not an explosion at Lakehurst, NJ, but the steep decline in liberal-arts majors from 15% in 2005 to 8.8% in 2025. (I majored In English Lit, @Beloit_College, Class of '68.) www.beloit.edu/live/news/72...

My introduction to Melville when I was a lad. Classic Comics.

Bronko Nagurski is #3, Ken Strong #50. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR-v...

Stan the Man: a story about a painting. ourgame.mlblogs.com/stan-the-man...

Harry Kingman, a four-gamer with the Yankees in 1914. He is the only MLB player born in China. Depicted in his Pomona College baseball uniform.

Henry Sandham's 1894 painting is lost, but the engraving (a "Goupilgravure") survives. Not better when colorized, by contemporary or later hands, it depicts a Temple Cup contest between Baltimore and host New York.

According to Joe Gould, whose secret was immortalized by Joseph Mitchell, "the Indians considered themselves smarter than white men, because they had more time to think. They realize that punctuality is the thief of time. The more time a man gives to his engagements the less he has for himself."

In honor of Veterans Day, here is a photo of the oldest known American war image, depicting General John Ellis Wool during the Mexican War commenced in 1846. And because there is always a baseball angle, a dag of Abner Doubleday at the Battle of Buena Vista, near Saltillo, 1847.

Fine story by @lukepplin about Arnold Hano, whom I knew a little bit. lepplin.substack.com/p/what-arnol...

Thinking today about Jim Devlin: ourgame.mlblogs.com/i-am-honest-...

Hail and farewell, Lenny Wilkens.

Hail and farewell, James Watson. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

This is a great read! Compiling the games from this tour was one of my favorite things I’ve done for Retrosheet (or, really, anywhere). www.retrosheet.org/NegroLeagues...

How was a baseball game scored before there were scorebooks? These two images provide the answer: a scoring stick, with a notch for each run scored by one team on the top, and for the other, the bottom. This is why a game has a "score" and why a pitcher notches a win.

Somehow new to me. Of course there have been many great finds since 1994. See: protoball.org.

My video interview with Global News, yesterday. globalnews.ca/video/115082...

O Canada: the consolations of history. ourgame.mlblogs.com/o-canada-17f...

This is such a classy thing for the Blue Jays to do.

Brilliant story by @DaveSheinin. My favorite, the "This Week in Baseball" theme by John Scott, has been my phone's ringtone, like, forever. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/...

Game 7 in Canada. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFX9...

Who tonight will join Derek Jeter as Mr. November?

Slide, Kelly, Slide: 1927 Yankees melodrama. A rookie pitcher gets drunk before a big game and is fired. In Game 7 of the World Series, the Yankees run out of pitchers (foreshadowing today). The batboy finds the fired star, who pitches till the end and scores the winning run.

Of the 5 intentional walks in Game 3 last night, 4 were issued to Ohtani, 1 to Betts. No run scored as a result of any ... yet each walk had a run value. F.C. Lane wrote about this in 1917. So did Pete Palmer and I in "Hidden Game of Baseball," in 1984. ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-base-on-...