Today’s fans may associate baseball research with cutting edge analytics. But long before data-driven tools like Statcast and FanGraphs, university students were conducting research about baseball.
About three years ago, I came across a 1988 article published by the Society for American Baseball Research. Written by a historian of Cuban baseball named Peter C. Bjarkman, it highlighted several academic dissertations, noting that they “provide a fruitful scholarly resource … yet at the same time represent one of the least explored sources.”
The baseball fan in me immediately wanted to know how many other dissertations existed, and which topics they covered. But after digging around, I realized that no such list existed. So the academic librarian in me decided to compile it for future researchers.
I ended up locating more than 850 dissertations and theses written by students between 1908 and 2024 from nearly 300 universities, and compiled the data, which appears in a recent issue of the Baseball Research Journal.
I was impressed by how many students across so many disciplines found a way to connect their area of study to baseball. It has been eye-opening to read about the game from the perspectives of business, communication, history, music, physics, psychology and more.
The new catalog is full of curiosities, but here’s a sampling of five that showcase the range and creativity of baseball scholarship:
1. “Smoking and Its Effects Upon Base Ball Pitching”
Hughie Jennings, manager of the Detroit Tigers from 1907 to 1920, once observed that “the use of tobacco in any form … has a very bad effect upon athletes.”
In 1916, William A. Lang, a student at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School – now Springfield College in Massachusetts – attempted to provide some scientific evidence, though his methods lacked the rigor of today’s scientific research.
He had 12 players perform a series of pitching activities. During a break between round one and round two, they smoked either one cigar, two cigars or no cigars. Pitching accuracy decreased noticeably after smoking, while accuracy increased after a break with no smoking.
Several participants, especially those who were not smokers before, dropped out of the study after becoming sick. Even so, many professional baseball players smoked cigarettes into the 1970s, while the more discreet practice of chewing tobacco persisted longer.
Gary Leonard/Corbis via Getty Images
2. “An Historical Dictionary of Baseball Terminology”
As baseball writing expanded in the 1890s, newspaper reporters tried to come up with creative ways to avoid repeating common words.
In 1939, Edward J. Nichols, an English student at Penn State, noticed how many terms had carried over into everyday speech, many of which are still in use today: There are “hit-and-run” accidents, “pinch hitters” who swoop in to offer a helping hand, and big successes are described as “home runs.”
Nichols compiled a list of well over 1,000 baseball-related terms and definitions, and the dates of earliest known use.
Many are still used today:
- At Bat (1861)
- Backstop (1887)
- Bean Ball (1912)
- Clean up Hitter (1907)
- In the Hole (1937)
- Whiff (1881)
Other words and phrases are no longer commonly used:
- Balldom (1905) was used to describe the world of baseball
- Bingle (1902) was a term for a safely batted ball
- Bird Cage (1906) was slang for a catcher’s mask
- Egg Feast (1891) described a scoreless game
- Ice Wagon (1908) was an exceedingly slow runner
- Pill (1906) was simple slang for the baseball itself
- Tissue Paper Tom (1937) for a player who is easily injured
- Unbutton the Shirt (1937) meant preparing to take a big swing
3. “The Sporting Spirit: Perceptions in Philatelic Art Iconography and Sports Philately, 1896–1974”
In 1991, an Ohio State University physical education student named Myrtis Herndon compiled a comprehensive catalog of international sports-related postage stamps.
Post of Ajman/Wikimedia Commons
The first to feature baseball appeared in 1934 and was issued in the Philippines, where the sport had been introduced under American colonial rule.
In 1969, the United Arab Emirates – then known as the Trucial States – produced a series of stamps, aimed primarily at global collectors, of iconic artists, musicians and athletes, including six Major League Baseball Hall of Famers. A 1971 set, which appears to have been produced by the kingdom of Ras Al Khaimah, highlighted the baseball diplomacy between the U.S. and Japan.
Taiwan issued several stamps in the early 1970s to celebrate the country’s string of Little League World Series championships. Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, San Marino and Venezuela also produced baseball-themed stamps at various points.
4. “The Aerodynamics of the Knuckleball Pitch”
Michael Morrissey, a mechanical engineering student at Marquette University in 2009, noticed that while others had written about the movement of pitches like curveballs, research was lacking when it came to knuckleballs.
Very few pitchers can successfully throw this pitch, which requires a special grip that significantly reduces the spin of the ball, making it difficult to hit.
Morrissey’s thesis includes a history of the knuckleball, an interview with All-Star knuckleballer R.A. Dickey and experiments to better understand the pitch’s strange, unpredictable movement. He used a series of sophisticated techniques and instruments – including a wind tunnel, a helium bubble generator and high-speed camera – to observe its lift, rotation and velocity, among other forces.
5. “From the Hammond Organ to ‘Sweet Caroline’: The Historical Evolution of Baseball’s Sonic Environment”
In his 2012 dissertation, Matthew Mihalka, a music student at the University of Minnesota, described the sounds of the ballpark from the game’s earliest days to the modern era.
Before loudspeakers, fans could see live musicians, military bands and even Broadway acts at the ballpark.
Organ music became one of the sport’s defining sounds in the 20th century. The first organ appeared in 1941 at Wrigley Field. More stadiums added the instrument after the invention of the Hammond electric organ and following improvements to stadium public address systems.
Organs reached their peak in the 1960s, but some live organists still carry on this baseball tradition. While the organists usually remain in the background, at least one was ejected from a game for playing “Three Blind Mice” in response to an umpire’s call.
Mihalka profiles several of baseball’s most prominent ballpark organists, including Gladys Goodding, who worked the keys and pedals for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1942 to 1957, and Nancy Faust, who was the organist for the Chicago White Sox from 1970 to 2010.
While recorded music largely dominates the ballpark soundscape today, audience participation and communal singing have long made up another important element of the baseball experience, with fans regularly belting out “Sweet Caroline” in Boston, “Here Comes the King” in St. Louis and the “Beer Barrel Polka” in Milwaukee.
The full list of dissertations and theses is free to access – a resource for casual fans and researchers alike who want to learn more about the game.
