Alex Rodriguez Undeserving of Record Cleansing For PED Use

Alex Rodriguez should be stripped of the 190 home runs hit over several seasons as punishment for failing drug tests. That is what Chicago Tribune columnist Philip Hersh believes. Why? Using the precedent of the International Olympic Committee stripping athletes who failed drug tests of medals, Hersh suggests in order to show the gravity of […]

Eight Ball in the Hot Corner Pocket…and Other Research Nuggets

August 30, 1915: George “Buck” Weaver is most known for being banned from baseball for life for having guilty knowledge of the 1919 World Series fix, which resulted in the banishment of eight White Sox players, including “Shoeless Joe” Jackson.  But that wasn’t the first time Weaver had experienced problems due to gambling. According to […]

Gambling on the 1917 White Sox-Giants World Series

The recent New York Times article about speculation that the Cubs threw the 1918 World Series to the Red Sox brings up the broader issue of how deeply major league baseball was corrupted by gambling and a money culture in the 1910s. A while ago I looked up how the Chicago Tribune covered the end […]

John Thorn, New Official Baseball Historian of MLB, to Appear Monday on “What’s On Second” Podcast

I’m pleased to announce that my friend and colleague, John Thorn, who was recently named Major League Baseball’s Official Historian, will appear on “What’s On Second: The Seamheads.com Radio Hour” on Monday, March 7 at approximately 9:10 PM EST.  “What’s On Second” runs on Blog Talk Radio from 9:00-10:00 PM EST every Monday on the […]

Rare Baseball Bat Uncovered

On March 8, 2009 I posted an article on Seamheads titled “A Tribute to Billy Sullivan.” The article received a comment from Craig Brooks from the state of Oregon. He was looking for information about a curved bat that belonged to Billy Sullivan Sr., that he received from his grandfather in its original case. When […]

Is This the Last the Cubs Have Seen of Derrek Lee?

Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan mentions in his piece from yesterday’s paper that most people believe Derrek Lee will be playing elsewhere in 2011. Sullivan cites “his age, his numbers and the fact the Cubs need a left-handed power hitter and first base is the logical position for such a player.” When we last checked Kornheiser’s […]

The Looie (Aparicio) Curse

The news that Luis Aparicio has let the White Sox unretire his jersey, number 11, to let Omar Vizquel wear it in tribute to his Venezuelan predecessor called to mind the story of the Looie Curse, said to have been pronounced on the Sox by Aparicio in revenge for being traded to Baltimore in January […]

This Week in Baseball: 1928

This is part of a weekly series in which I describe what was happening in Major League Baseball each week of a randomly chosen year. This week’s article chronicles the goings on during the week of April 8-14, 1928.