Pete Palmer

Max Blue

Richard Hershberger

Andy McCue

Takeyuki Inohiza

The Baseball Research Journal is the flagship research publication of the Society for American Baseball Research. Founded in 1971, SABR now has over 6,000 members investigating every aspect of the sport, from statistical analysis to biographical research, to psychology, economics, physics, biomechanics, game theory, and more. In this issue: Leaving a Mark on the Game Allan Roth by Andy McCue The Creation of the Alexander Cartwright Myth by Richard Hershberger Stolen Bases and Caught Stealing by Catchers: Updating Total Player Rating by Pete Palmer New York Connections McGraw’s Streak by Max Blue Clyde Sukeforth: The Dodgers’ Yankee and Branch Rickey’s Maine Man by Karl Lindholm Identifying Undated Ticket Stubs: An Attempt to Recapture Baseball History by Dr. James Reese Outside the Majors “Many Exciting Chases After the Ball”: Nineteenth Century Base Ball in Bismarck, Dakota Territory by Terry Bohn The Great 1952 Florida International League Pennant Race by Sam Zygner and Steve Smith Aquino Abreu: Baseball’s Other Double No-Hit Pitcher by Peter C. Bjarkman Defiance College’s Historic 1961 Postseason by Roger J. Hawks Analytical Looks at the Game We Love The Twisting Model and Ted Williams’s Science of Hitting by Takeyuki Inohiza The Best Shortened-Season Hitting Performance in Major League History by David Nemec Was There a Seven Way Game? Seven Ways of Reaching First Base by Paul Hertz The Three, or Was it Two, .400 Hitters of 1922 by Brian Marshall What Do Your Fans Want?: Attendance Correlations with Performance, Ticket Prices, and Payroll Factors by Ben Langhorst Do Fans Prefer Homegrown Players? An Analysis of MLB Attendance, 1976–2012 by Russell Ormiston 2014 Chadwick Honorees Mark Armour by Rob Neyer Ernie Lanigan by Lyle Spatz Marc Okkonen by Dan Levitt Cory Schwartz by Christina Kahrl John C. Tattersall by John Thorn

Volume 43, Issue 1

Baseball Research Journal

God is Alive and Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers does not have all the answers needed to make sense of the 20th century and beyond, but with tongue only partly in cheek the book claims to find some solace in a kid's game played by adults. "Grampa, how did you know it was God playing third base for the Appleton Papermakers?" "Because He could perform miracles." "What miracles could He perform?" "He could hit Lowell Grosskopf's curveball." "That doesn't sound like a miracle to me." "That's because you never tried to hit Lowell Grosskopf's curveball."

God Is Alive and Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers

Abut Wilson

Luz Stella wanted the world to be a better place. When she found it to be otherwise, she did not hesitate to do all in her power to change it. Bismark Pacheco was there to do his part-to save the world, and to save Luz Stella. Or was it the other way around? When Pacheco loses his passport in a desperate deep water escape from a Cape Canaveral Cruise ship, the two seek help in Birmingham from their old friend Wilson Abut. The former quarterback, now a journalist, stirs the pot with his column Abut To You. Bubba Driver, the mammoth defensive tackle, runs interference. Eighty-year-old Dr. Helene Stern dodges terrorists who would destroy her Health First Clinic, and provides comfort to Siboney, the Latin beauty and unapologetic revolutionary. All are arrayed against the steely-eyed Bobby Sanchez who wants to bring down anything and anyone who would stand for an orderly world. This is Luz Stella's Tale.

A Bismark Pacheco Mystery

Luz Stella's Tale

In the 1950s, racial loathing is rearing its ugly head and the country is a miasma of hatred. The White Citizens Councils and the Ku Klux Klan are enraged by the United States Supreme Court ruling that schools must be desegregated. Alabama is a boiling pot of dissension and distrust, and fear plagues this southern state as never before. In Max Blue's controversial and poignant tale, four different points of view are expressed. Witnessed by four individuals is the country's painful process of overcoming stereotypes, and racial division. In the end, the civil rights movement forever changed the mindset and political atmosphere of the United States of America. Shorty Spooner is a son born from a Creek Indian mother and a racist, violent father, and his aspirations will lead him to the highest office in the country

Shorty Spooner

Higher Ed is six feet nine inch Edward Appleton, president of Lawt Sidney - an anagram for Walt Disney - University. Among the seven Sidney U. board members are Grumpy Marcus Elay (Yale spelled backwards), Feliz Gonzalez, a crane operator on the San Diego docks, and Doc Rivera, head Veterinarian at the Tijuana Bull Ring. Higher Ed has his hands full dealing with, among other things, Deans such as Dangerous Dan Stonewood who recites Robert Service ballads, like The Shooting of Dan McGrew, in his head during faculty meetings. But besides all the satirical zaniness, the novel Higher Ed offers thoughts on some serious issues facing modern society, including, extramarital affairs, scientific fraud, and bioethical questions relating to abortion, euthanasia, and aging.

Higher Ed

Bismark Pacheco, descended from the Bri Bri Indians, and trained as a guerilla fighter in the Nicaraguan civil war by operatives of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, goes to work for the Costa Rican Ministry of Justice after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Pacheco soon becomes the premier crime detective in the land. Pacheco’s fame is so great, and his reputation so secure that he is hailed as a national hero by campesinos throughout the hills and valleys of the troubled but striving country.Inspector Pacheco is called to investigate a murder at the Center for Tropical Agriculture (The CAT) on the Atlantic slope of Costa Rica where he finds an international web of intrigue that tests the limits of his skills. The trail leads through a baseball factory, into the green hills and high meadows of a dormant tropical volcano, through the luxuriant vegetation of a valley where tropical fruits and nuts abound, where sugarcane, bananas, coffee, and cocoa grow the year round, and where exotic and colorful birds are distracted by the nectar of ever present gardenia, bougainvillea, and orchid.In this idyllic setting, where Toucan-Grackle fights top the disturbance list, eight more violent deaths are recorded as Pacheco’s investigation proceeds, and Pacheco himself is threatened. Pacheco contemplates the comfort of frontier justice when he weighs his knowledge of the Costa Rican court system against the depth of the villainy he uncovers.

Max Blue

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