The 1981 Topps baseball set holds a special place in hobby history. It arrived at a pivotal moment: 1981 was the first year in decades that Topps faced real competition, as Fleer and Donruss both launched sets the same year, ending Topps’ long monopoly on the baseball card market. For collectors, that makes the 1981 … Read more
Earned run average, or ERA, is the classic measure of a pitcher’s dominance: the average number of earned runs they allow per nine innings. The lower the number, the better, and the lowest figures in baseball history belong to some of the most legendary arms the game has ever seen. But asking for the “lowest … Read more
The All-Star break marks the unofficial halfway point of the Major League Baseball season, and every July it doubles as a checkpoint for the game’s biggest power hitters. A monster first half can put a slugger on pace for a historic season, and the question fans ask every summer is the same: who has hit … Read more
Striking out 20 batters in a single game is one of the rarest feats in all of baseball, rarer, in fact, than a perfect game. It has happened in a nine-inning game only a handful of times in over a century of major-league play, and the names attached to it read like a pitching hall … Read more
There is a special kind of engineering magic in watching a stadium roof glide open before a game, transforming an enclosed arena into an open-air ballpark in a matter of minutes. Retractable-roof stadiums offer the best of both worlds: shelter from rain, snow, and brutal heat when needed, and the classic open-sky experience when the … Read more
The pristine emerald grass, the perfectly manicured infield dirt, the crisp chalk lines: a Major League Baseball field is a work of art, and the people who create it are the groundskeepers. It is one of the most skilled and least visible jobs in the sport, demanding expertise in turfgrass science, agronomy, and split-second weather … Read more
Sports agents occupy one of the most misunderstood jobs in the industry. Pop culture, from “Jerry Maguire” to “Ballers,” paints them as fast-talking dealmakers raking in fortunes, and at the very top, that is true. But for most agents, the reality is far more modest and far more variable, because a sports agent’s income is … Read more
They cannot show their faces, they sweat through every game inside a giant foam costume, and most fans never learn their names. But the people inside professional sports mascot suits have one of the most surprising jobs in the business, and some of them earn salaries that would make a lot of fans jealous. So … Read more
Every fall, one player rises above the rest on baseball’s biggest stage. The World Series MVP award, officially the Willie Mays Award since 2017, goes to the player who shines brightest in the Fall Classic, and the list of winners is a roll call of October legends: clutch hitters, dominant aces, and the occasional unlikely … Read more
The fastest pitch in MLB history is Aroldis Chapman’s 105.8 mph fastball thrown on September 24, 2010, while pitching for the Cincinnati Reds against the San Diego Padres. That pitch holds the Guinness World Record and remains the official fastest pitch in baseball history. But Chapman’s record only tells half the story. Statcast (the modern … Read more