The Outsider Baseball Notebook

At long last, the Outsider Baseball Notebook makes a surprise appearance. Today’s guest is Von Spalding, an independent researcher from Georgia. Von and I have been working together on the 4,000 Professional Hit Club (which I presented at this year’s SABR Convention) but his research on international leaderboards goes far deeper than that. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Von.Darowski.com has links to everything related to the 4,000 Professional Hit Club, including a spreadsheet where you can

Today’s guest is Bill Staples, Jr. Bill is a baseball historian and author in Arizona. I met Bill through my 25th Infantry research. His post on the series between the 25th Infantry and Casey Stengel’s traveling all-star team was a huge help when writing my Heavy Johnson and Dobie Moore bios.I highly recommend that you watch the YouTube video instead. Bill provided some excellent slides that I think you’ll really enjoy. YouTube Link Here is a list of relevant links: Bill’s Blog (zenimura.com)

Today's guest is Jorge Colón Delgado, the Official Historian of the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball League and General Coordinator of the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball Hall of Fame. Jorge and I first started working together on the Negro Leaguers in Puerto Rico live webinar series. I have learned so much about the incredible melting pot that the Puerto Rican league was. Many of the very best players on the planet traveled to the island in the Winter to continue playing (and to continue making

Today’s guest is author Phil S. Dixon. Phil has written several books on the Negro Leagues and interviewed hundreds of Negro League veterans and their families. One of Phil’s books in particular has been inspirational to me: Wilber “Bullet” Rogan and the Kansas City Monarchs. In telling Rogan’s story, Dixon recounts his years in the military with the 25th Infantry Wreckers (my current area of focus in my research). One of Phil’s interviews was with William “BIg C” Johnson, a teammate of Rogan’s on

The first episode of The Outsider Baseball Notebook is with Scott Simkus, author of Outsider Baseball: The Weird World of Hardball on the Fringe, 1876–1950 (2014, Chicago Review Press). Scott is a contributor to the Seamheads Negro League Database and was a consultant on the Strat-O-Matic Negro League Stars card set. We talk about how Scott became interested in outsider baseball and how that led to him writing the definitive book on the topic. We discuss my primary area of interest these days: the