Economics of MLB Ballparks

Several sources in the literature provide general and specific economic and financial data and basic sport statistics about each current and former Major League Baseball Ballpark (MLBB). These sources, as a group, include academic studies, articles in books, journals, magazines and newspapers, industry reports, and websites. With respect to MLBBs, authors focus on and analyze […]

3 Men Forged 2 Decades of Labor Peace

Sometime early in Bud Selig‘s celebration of baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement on Wednesday, he wondered if the two sides had needed to go through the pain of 1994 in order to achieve the peaceful — and very profitable — coexistence they enjoy today. It was almost certainly meant as a rhetorical question. Selig answered […]

Have-Nots Would Benefit From Realignment

It’s a known fact that attendance at the Toronto Blue Jays’ home games has been dwindling for some years, even more so in the last couple of years. Many reasons have been brought up to try to explain the situation but one thing is clear: lots of fans have lost any hope of watching a […]

Naming Wrongs

Shortly after I started working at the Hall of Fame library, I discovered a wonderful book published in the 1990s by Peter Filichia, titled Professional Baseball Franchises. It lists every minor-league team from the 1880s forward, including nicknames, league affiliations, classifications, renamings, and years of existence. It is indispensable for locating where people played, which […]

Selig, Owners Announce Re-Invention Of Sport

In a surprise announcement following the winter meetings attended by owners and generals managers, “Commissioner” Bud Selig declared his intention of re-inventing the sport known as baseball. “Let’s face it,” Selig told the press. “We’ve screwed this game up so thoroughly that it has almost no meaning for anyone any more. Fans don’t know what […]

The Pittsburgh Americans? It Almost Happened

Over the first 30 years of the modern era, Barney Dreyfuss’ Pittsburgh Pirates battled John McGraw’s New York Giants for National League supremacy, but had Ban Johnson gotten his wish, the Pirates might have been the class of the American League instead. On October 11, 1899 a group of executives from the Western League, including […]