Baseball in 25 Objects: tenth in this year’s series — We have come this far in the 25 Objects Series without featuring an item for Babe Ruth. I could display a bat, an autographed ball, a jersey, his locker at the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he was the Sultan of Swag as well as Swat, and thanks to his…

Baseball in 25 Objects: ninth in this year’s series — “Baseball is a funny game,” veteran managers and scribes liked to say, by which they meant it may be relied upon to toss up the strange, the odd, the unusual. But Joe Garagiola, Cardinals’ catcher and longtime broadcast man for NBC, knew that when child’s play became work for adults…

Baseball in 25 Objects: eighth in this year’s series — Wasn’t the Federal League an invention of Robert Coover for that novel about dice baseball? (No, that was the Universal Baseball Association.) The Feds were no fantasy, and they in fact became a nightmare for the National and American leagues, only recently at peace between themselves. The final real challenge…

Baseball in 25 Objects: seventh in this year’s series — Moe Berg was the most curious man I never met, though I feel I know him. My predecessor as MLB’s official historian, Jerome Holtzman, used to hang out with the vagabond scholar, lawyer, catcher, and spy and shared with me some of his exploits. The life story has been told…

Baseball in 25 Objects: sixth in this year’s series — A few days ago, David Wharton wrote a fine story for the Los Angeles Times, headlined “Why it takes so long for MLB to change rules: Battle between tradition and innovation.” He allowed me to opine, in his conclusion, about why old-school fans…

Baseball in 25 Objects: fifth in this year’s series — In 1939, for the first time, all players in Major League Baseball wore the same commemorative sleeve patch or “arm shield,” as it was then termed. The design of the patch changed, for reasons unknown, from a player looking very much like Joe DiMaggio to a more generic, cartoonish figure…

Baseball in 25 Objects: fourth in this year’s series — So many stories may lurk within a single object. It could be said that in this gilded trophy baseball from 1858 — an improbable survivor — the entire history of Major League Baseball may be foretold. The firsts that can be pinned to this object are: first all-star game; first…

Baseball in 25 Objects: Third in this year’s series — This coming week will mark the anniversary of the end of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-game streak ending at 2,130. On May 2, 1939, he informed Yankees manager Joe McCarthy that he would sit out that afternoon’s game in Detroit. He had played two days before, in New York against Washington, concluding…

A logical conundrum — This query came my way via an MLB colleague, who wished to know what season 2022 was in our game’s history. It was the 146th, he speculated. At first I agreed, but then….