The Infinite Baseball Card Set is a never-ending card set of baseball’s forgotten heroes: Negro League legends, barnstorming mercenaries, semi-pro sluggers, blacklisted bums, foreign phenoms, bush league oddballs, and the famous before they were famous.
On this day in 1922, half of the eight Black Sox players embarked on what they thought would be a lucrative tour of the Midwest. Little did they know that disgruntled fans, bad weather and broken teeth awaited them… […]
This new series will pick up where most history books end, for these ballplayers did not disappear into obscurity, but continued to play the game they betrayed—far beyond the reaches of Major League Baseball in the murky world of Outsider Baseball. Some continued playing ball as a mercenary-for-hire on small town teams, while others plied their trade alongside other notorious baseball outcasts in outlaw leagues in frontier mining towns of the Southwest. […]
The boys of G Company probably didn’t care much about the reason why the Germans still fought them tooth and nail, but each man had had his life interrupted and shipped halfway around the globe to stop an evil that was threatening to swallow the whole world. […]
He was bombastic, flamboyant, a genius when sober, brilliant when he had one drink and a raving lunatic when he had too many. With the energy and recklessness of a Category 5 hurricane, Larry MacPhail got stuff done. […]
Why did Jimmy O’Connell admit to offering an opposing player $500 to throw a game? It’s possible that lessons learned in his childhood hold the answer to that question that has baffled baseball historians since 1924. […]
When his team disbanded mid-season, Harry knew he had one last chance to make it real. A leap of faith took him to a beach town in New Jersey because, as the song says, “down the shore, everything’s all right.” […]
Here’s a look at the new series of t-shirts I did for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Find out why I picked these players as the first five of the series. […]
Among the things I re-discovered when culling my archive was the color proofs sent to me when I when I was writing my book, The League of Outsider Baseball. Here’s the second group of 10 different illustrations that are available in my store. […]
At one time, John Beckwith was the man all subsequent Blackball sluggers were measured against. Yet today, he rarely rates more than a passing mention – and that is a shame because John Beckwith is simply too big to forget. […]
Military baseball historian Shawn Hennessy tells us the story of Dutch Raffeis. Dutch played against Babe Ruth, was sought after by the Chicago Cubs, won 19 championships in 20 years, and was probably the greatest Navy baseball player of all-time. […]