A couple questions I have never taken the time to research, and that might make a nice little historical piece like this:

Why did the differences in pitching styles between the AL & NL happen, and why do they continue today given interleague play?

Maybe you just know the answers…

I was gonna comment the same thing! That writer would’ve had me laughing a good bit, offering those sort of recaps.

Don’t know if it’d be a little much to read that style repeatedly, but I like it!

Browning was the first winner of SABR’s 19th Century Overlooked Baseball Legend Project in 2009 – passing Deacon White with the last ballot cast.

Here is the results for 2012: http://sabr.org/latest/sabr-42-bill-dahlen-selected-overlooked-19th-century-baseball-legend-2012

Von Borries P. American Gladiator: The Life and Times of Pete Browning. Bangor, ME: Booklocker.com, Inc., 2007.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/182728470

I read the wiki entry for him and one thing I’d note that it mentioned was the following:

Other aspects of Browning’s game were less polished; he has usually been regarded as one of the worst fielders in major league history, although some recent assessments have begun to question that view. (Notably AMERICAN GLADIATOR, his first biography, which recounted numerous “web gems” by Browning from the beginning of his career to the very end. The revised assessment is that when Browning was sober and/or not suffering from the effects of the mastoiditis, he was a superb outfielder.)

After being used primarily as an infielder in his first three seasons, playing every position except catcher over that span, he was shifted to the outfield on a permanent basis in 1885. While the inferior equipment of the time is somewhat of a mitigating factor, Browning’s playing record presented various evidence against any hidden defensive prowess. So did his unusual habit of playing the infield while standing on one leg, which he claimed to have adopted in order to avoid collisions with other players; however, some sources have noted that his probable rationale was to gain an advantage against baserunners he could not hear by aiming one leg toward them, and that he continued to do so in the outfield because he couldn’t hear his teammates on either side.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH2006/JSH3301/jsh3301w.pdf