Two Hall of Fame managers never played a single game in the major leagues: Joe McCarthy and Earl Weaver.

• McCarthy retired in 1950 with a lifetime .614 winning percentage (which was the all-time best at the time) with the Cubs (1926-30), Yankees (1931-1946), and Red Sox (1948-1950). He won pennants with Chicago in 1929 and New York in 1932, 1936-9, and 1941-3. He won the World Series in 1932, 1936-9, 1941, and 1943. His teams also finished second seven times (notably Boston in 1948 and 1949). He never finished out of the first division.
• Weaver's entire ML managerial career was spent with the Baltimore Orioles (1968-82 and 1985-6). His teams won four pennants (1969-71, 1979) and one World Series (1970). His winning percentage is .583. Unfortunately, Earl is better known for being ejected from more games than any manager in AL history – 97. (Bobby Cox now holds the ML mark.) Earl played for the New Orleans Pelicans before beginning his minor league managerial career in 1957.

On September 7, 1945, the Washington Senators defeated the St. Louis Browns 3-2 to stay 1.5 games behind the league-leading Detroit Tigers. George Case stole home for one Washington run. But even more remarkable was that the Senators Joe Kuhel hit an inside-the-park HR. Why was this so remarkable? It was the only HR the Senators hit in their home park, Griffith Stadium, all season. The park boasted these dimensions: 407' down the left field line, 421 to center, and 328 down the right field line but with a tall wall. Visiting teams hit a grand total of six HRs that season. The Senators, who finished one game behind the Tigers, ended the season with only 27 four-baggers. (This was not last in the league. That honor went to the White Sox with their 22 round-trippers.) 3B Harlond Clift led the team with 8 four-baggers. (In evaluating these woeful HR numbers, remember that 1945 was the last season before servicemen returned en masse to baseball.)

Another interesting feature of the Senator win is that it shared the sports page in the next day's Washington Post with two other news items.

• Long-time Senator hero Cecil Travis, recently discharged from the service, would return to his SS position. Unfortunately, Travis had suffered frostbite during the Battle of the Bulge and could not perform anywhere near his pre-service level. He retired in 1947. His WWII service probably cost him induction into the HOF.
• Nearby University of Maryland hired Lt. Cdr. Paul Bryant to coach its football team.

Gabby Street

The New York Times reported on August 22, 1908, that, the day before, Washington Nationals catcher Charles "Gabby" Street, to win a $500 bet, caught a baseball dropped from the observation window in the Washington Monument, 550' above the ground. According to the article, many catchers, including Paul Hines, Charley Snyder, and Buck Ewing, had tried in previous years but failed. It was estimated that the ball was traveling 140 feet per second when Street caught it on the thirteenth try. Most of the previous times, the breeze carried the ball too far from him. The dangerous experiment had received a permit from Col. Bromwell, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds. For the successful catch, Street broke the force of the ball by raising his arms and then easing down gradually. Still, the ball striking his mitt made a sound that could be heard hundreds of yards away. Gabby held the horsehide long enough to win the bet before rubbing his sore hands. He was able to catch Walter Johnson's 3-1 victory that afternoon over the Detroit Tigers. The article does not reveal who the bettor was. Street later managed the 1930 and 1931 Cardinals to the World Series, winning one.

The Times was unaware that 14 years earlier, August 24, 1894, Pop Shriver of the Chicago White Sox had caught a ball dropped from that same monument window. The person who dropped the ball was Shriver's teammate Clark Griffith. (Later the manager/owner of the Nationals, Clark managed the New York Highlanders in 1908 and therefore was not Street's accomplice.)

Similar stunts occurred in subsequent years.

• In 1914 Brooklyn C Wilbert Robinson was persuaded to try to catch a ball dropped from an airplane flying over the Dodgers' spring training camp. However, the pilot, Ruth Law, forgot to take a baseball aboard the flight. So she substituted a grapefruit! Robinson nevertheless caught the larger spheroid, despite being knocked down by the force.
• On April 1, 1930, the Cubs were in Los Angeles to play their Angels farm club. Before the game, a ball was dropped from a blimp flying over the field at an altitude of 800'. Future Hall of Fame C Gabby Hartnett caught that ball as well as a second one dropped shortly after the first. Gabby's feat still stands as the record for catching a ball dropped from the greatest height.

The St. Louis Browns were all set to move to Los Angeles for the 1942 season. Who could blame them for wanting to relocate?

The Major League Baseball owners were expected to approve the move at their Winter Meetings in Chicago on December 8. However, President Roosevelt declared war against Japan that very day after the Pearl Harbor attack the previous day. Because of the uncertainty created by the U.S.'s entry into World War II, the Browns' move was postponed.

The Sporting News, known as "The Bible of Baseball," wrote this in its December 18, 1941 issue:

Donald Barnes, president of the St. Louis Browns, may have been several years ahead of the times in his proposal that the franchise be moved to Los Angeles, but many in the majors will live to see the day when his idea ... will become a reality. Eventually, one of the major leagues is almost certain to include the California metropolis in its membership.

By the time the war ends, the airplane will be developed to such an extent that transporting an entire club from other major league cities by air will present no more of a problem than moving them by trains does today. ... The shift will not come next year, or, very likely, the year after. However, it can be put down in the future book that Los Angeles will be in the big leagues within less than a decade ...

The editor was off by seven years in his estimate – the Dodgers and Giants didn't move to the West Coast until 1958. However, his prediction is amazingly prescient.

Stuck in St. Louis, the Browns won their only AL pennant in 1944, thanks in part to the diluted talent pool created by the War. They were defeated by their Sportsman Park tenants, the Cardinals, in six games in the World Series. The franchise was eventually moved to Baltimore after the 1953 season.

Only two players in MLB history have pitched more than 100 games and collected more than 1,500 hits. One, obviously, is Babe Ruth. The other, not so obviously, is Cy Seymour.

Cy (short for "Cylcone," the nickname given him by NY sportswriters) played for the New York Giants (1896-1900 and 1906-1910), Baltimore Orioles (1901-2), Cincinnati Reds (1902-06), and Boston Braves (1913). (The Orioles were a charter franchise of the American League before being replaced by the New York Hilltoppers in 1903.) Cy pitched for the Giants at the beginning of his career, compiling a record of 61-56 over five seasons. The lefty won 25 games in 1898 with an ERA of 3.18 for a seventh-place team. He also led the NL in strikeouts-per-nine-innings in three successive seasons (1897-1899). He threw a fastball, what some called the best curve in the league, and a screwball. However, he had a reputation as a "balloonist" or "aerialist" because he suddenly got excited and wild during games. He led the NL in walks from 1897-9. He played a few games in the OF during these years but, after he hit .327 in 1899 and .300 in 1900, there was serious discussion about moving him full-time to the OF. Also three consecutive years of 268+ innings took its toll on his arm. He threw only 53 innings in 1900.

Cy Seymour

When he jumped to Baltimore of the new American League in 1901 to get away from the Giants tyrannical owner Andrew Freedman, Seymour became a full-time OF for the rest of his career. His finest season was 1905 when he led the NL in batting average (.377), hits (219), total bases (325), slugging % (.559), on-base percentage (retroactively calculated as .988), doubles (40), triples (21), and RBI (121). For his career, he batted .303 with 1723 hits, 799 RBI, and 52 HR.

Here is the breakdown of professional baseball players in the United States by country of origin (as of May 2007).

• United States 57.0%
• Dominican Republic 21.4%
• Venezuela 11.8%
• Puerto Rico 2.0%
• Mexico 1.4%
• Canada 1.3%
• Others 5.1%

The white baseball is as American as apple pie and has stood the test of time. However, in 1938 Larry MacPhail, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, suggested yellow baseballs which were actually used on August 2 in a game at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 6-2 in the first game of a doubleheader. The teams reverted to white balls in the nightcap which Brooklyn also won, 9-3.

In 1939, the yellow ball was used in three more Dodger games. The Cardinals were again the opposition in two of them, winning 12-0 on July 23 at Ebbets Field (again in the first game of a Sunday DH with the second game played with white balls) and 5-2 July 31 at Sportsman's Park. The Bums defeated the Chicago Cubs 10-4 in the other game on September 14 at Wrigley Field (same MO, first game of DH). After that, the ball was never used again.

Fast forward to 1973. Charley Finley, owner of the Oakland A's, experimented with an orange baseball during spring training, claiming hitters could see it better. An orange ball was also used at the Houston Astrodome when it first opened to see if it reduced the glare of the lights. The orange ball never made it into a regular season game in either league.

We know that many of the players have been juiced. But what about the baseballs themselves?

An article in Wired magazine reveals some of the behind-the-scenes testing that goes on at the Baseball Research Center at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Twice a year since 2000, Professor James Sherwood and his cohorts certify the balls used in Major League games. At the start of each season and again just before the start of the World Series, Rawlings sends 72-to-96 balls from their warehouse. Sherwood's team weighs and measures each spheroid. They also fire two dozen balls at a slab of ash (the wood used in most bats) to record the rebound speed.

Although most pitchers can hurl the horsehide at 90 mph, MLB decrees that the baseballs to be tested must be propelled at only 58 mph and rebound within a range that was set decades ago. Frustrated by the restrictions, Sherwood says 58 mph is not fast enough to accurately determine a ball's liveliness. "Their testing window is too big. I don't know why it was ever set that wide. A ball testing at the high end could travel as much as 50 feet father than one falling on the low end." 50 feet, of course, would make a big difference in the number of home runs.

The Center has machines and instruments that could bring the testing procedures into the 21st century. But MLB doesn't like change. Sherwood estimates that MLB hasn't changed the ball design since Babe Ruth played.

The Center runs additional tests on the balls using more modern equipment and may someday present the findings to MLB. "Maybe they'll change their minds." The author of the article concludes, "Sure they will. Right after the Cubs win the World Series."