MLB History

The Chicago History Museum recently placed a 1920 court deposition on its website, and it contains quotes that imply the Cubs may have thrown the 1918 World Series against the Boston Red Sox.

Eddie Cicotte, who was one of the 1919 Black Sox banned from baseball after being accused of throwing the World Series, said that there was talk of just such a thing.

I promise you that this article isn't going to be one of those that simply reminisces about glory days and laments the passing of the 'good old days' when a postage stamp was 10 cents and outfielders shared baseball mitts.

Look, a lot of positive changes have occurred that have helped to improve the enjoyment of the game of baseball. But I must admit that some of the changes do have me occasionally longing for things I miss about the game.

Major League Baseball is the American pastime, but foreign-born players have played a big role in the sport’s history.

Foreign-born players now make up 29.0 percent of 2011 MLB Opening Day rosters.

International stars used to be restricted in baseball, but now they are becoming more prominent, and they are becoming even better.  There are only 10 foreign-born stars in the Hall of Fame right now, and I’m sure you can come up with 10 more who will be in there soon off the top of your head.

In professional baseball, knowing how to run the bases is something that is taken for granted.  It is assumed that anyone can figure out how to run around the diamond-shaped path on a baseball field's infield.  

So, when players make mistakes on the basepaths, they stand out more than things like errors, or wild pitches, or other mistakes because everyone watching knows that even they could do that.  Sometimes these base running blunders are laughable, but sometimes they can change the course of baseball history.

It's a wonderful thing baseball is back.  After a long cold winter, we can finally get back to spring time, warmth, and baseball.

Now that we can enjoy our pastime again, we can get back to the traditions that we practice for every baseball game.  Sure different teams have different traditions, but these traditions bind us from one generation to the next.

Traditions are one of the most important parts of baseball.  Here is a list of the top 25 traditions in baseball stadiums:

There have been over 350 brothers to play in Major League Baseball history.

In some of them, the older brother was the better player.  Hank Aaron was easily a better player than Tommie Aaron.  Paul Waner was better than his younger brother Lloyd, but both are in the Hall of Fame.

So, out of all the brothers to play at the major league level, which of the younger brothers were better than their older siblings?

In part three of this 13-part series of the greatest Mets of all time, we move on to position players, beginning with catchers.

This past spring, all 30 teams in Major League Baseball had an opportunity to get a good look at many of the younger players currently in their farm systems, with a small percentage of those players getting the chance to show their stuff at the big league camps.

While some of the players received more publicity than others (Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, John Mayberry Jr.), others went through the spring under the radar, but impressed nonetheless.

Those of us who are baseball fans generally know statistics for the greatest players of the game.

But sometimes we fail to consider how some of the greatest had altered statistics because they served their country during times of war.

Let's consider four Hall of Fame Players whose numbers could have been so much greater.

Ted Williams is generally regarded as the greatest hitter ever to play baseball.

Williams finished his career with a lifetime average of .344. He had 521 home runs and 2654 hits.

Jackie Robinson is one of baseball's all-time great players who is underrated by some of today's fans.

Robinson was a belligerent competitor who despised losing even more than he despised the New York Giants.

The general consensus today is the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York's other team, the New York Yankees, is the fiercest rivalry in sports. It is difficult for many of today's fans to imagine that a more intense rivalry existed, but it did.