The Hall of Fame Case for Doc Adams

Victory, it is said, has a thousand fathers.  Baseball, too. Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams is, for reasons passing understanding, without tangible recognition in Cooperstown, despite being a highly significant contributor to baseball’s genesis.  It is...

The Decade of Baseball Migration

The 1950s was a decade of change. Elvis Presley spearheaded the introduction of rock and roll, television replaced radio as the preferred mass medium for news and entertainment, and several baseball teams migrated westward—way westward for two teams, mid-westward for...

Harold Parrott: The Lord of Public Relations

In the 2013 movie 42, T.R. Knight plays Harold Parrott, the publicity chief for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Parrott, a former sports writer, was well suited for the task of handling his former brethren from the press box.  He knew their pressures, their deadlines, and...

How Did the Giants Win the Pennant, Anyway?

1951 was supposed to be the Dodgers’ year, a vengeance-filled riposte of burgeoning against the baseball fates that determined the previous year’s National League pennant go to the Philadelphia Phillies on the last day of the 1950 season.  The paradigm repeated as...