For baseball fans, 1908 is a year to remember. That September, in a pennant race that has not been replicated since, four teams in the American League were separated by a only few percentage points. For three teams in the National League, the race to the World Series was even...

Historically, the popular fascination with American Indian baseball players in the Major Leagues has contained an underlying strain of bigotry. Recently, however, sportswriters have been enthralled by the development toward stardom of three such baseball players—Kyle Lohse, Jacoby Ellsbury and Joba Chamberlain. And today researchers and fans can trace the...