The First Fan

William Howard Taft invented—unintentionally—the seventh inning stretch, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to continue Major League Baseball during World War II, and George W. Bush skyrocketed American morale after the 9/11 attacks...

The Black Sox: Fact vs. Fiction

Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book Eight Men Out provided the source material for the eponymous 1988 movie written and directed by John Sayles, who also played sportswriter Ring Lardner.  Starring Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, Bill Irwin, Gordon Clapp, Clifton James,...

Shoeless Joe Jackson’s Hometown

When the Greenville Drive ball club of the South Atlantic League takes the field, they continue a baseball legacy kindled, in part, by Greenville’s most famous resident.  Shoeless Joe Jackson. Sitting in South Carolina’s northwestern region, Greenville...

World’s Finest

Baseball’s history is highlighted by its heroes. Lou Gehrig revealed unimaginable courage in his “Luckiest Man” speech as he faced the debilitating, horrific, and fatal disease of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis that took his life nearly two years...