All About Baseball with Byron Copley

From 1871 to 1928, no Major League Baseball team featured numbers on the backs of their jerseys. This episode of All About Baseball discusses the origin of numbered jerseys and their impact on those who played and watched Major League Baseball. Originally, numbers were instituted as a means of identifying players. No one saw the reverberation of what numbered jerseys...

A home run in the 2026 ALCS by Tampa Bay Rays’ third baseman Junior Caminero spurned this episode. It prompted me to comment on the out-of-proportion manner in which many current MLB players “celebrate” home runs, triples, doubles, and even singles. I think that this lack of circumspection seeped into MLB “culture” around 20 years ago, when MLB players began to express “child...

This episode of All About Baseball exists because I met a man named Ed in an Italian restaurant.

Ed soon introduced me to Tim Manners, who, in collaboration with Hall of Fame pitcher Waite Hoyt, authored Hoyt’s memoir in 2024 — 40 years after Hoyt died in 1984. That is just the beginning of this captivating story, told by Tim in this interview.

Schoolboy, Th...

Detroit Tigers’ manager Mayo Smith moved Gold Glove center fielder Mickey Stanley to shortstop in the 1968 World Series, with only 68 innings at the position under his belt. Many sports writers, baseball people, and even members of the Tigers’ team initially questioned the move. This episode of All About Baseball presents the case that Smith’s choice to insert Stanley at shor...