Seamheads: Lynch: Interesting Research Finds

for the Tank McNamara of sports blogs to enjoy…

While doing research for a few book projects I’m working on, I came across some interesting and sometimes odd stories on and off the diamond. Here are a handful:

January 20, 1913: In an effort to shorten major league ball games, Detroit Tigers magnate Frank Navin suggested to the rules committee that the coaching boxes be moved back 10 feet.  Why?  Because catchers were wasting too much time trying to hide their signs from the opponent’s first and third base coaches.  Moving them back 10 feet would allow backstops to give their signs freely without fear of them being stolen, which would in turn speed up games.

June 7, 1913: According to Sporting Life, the New York Yankees became the first team on record that failed to win at least one home game before June.  A quick check of retrosheet.org shows that the Yanks lost their first 16 home contests before finally defeating the Chicago White Sox, 3-2, on June 7 (prior to that, they came closest to winning on May 24 when they tied the Boston Red Sox 3-3, so they actually had a 17-game home winless streak).

Once they realized how delicious home cooking could be, the Yankees went 26-31 at home the rest of the way.  Still not great, but much better than the .056 winning percentage they had during their winless streak.