Silver Bats and Automobiles: The Hotly Competitive, Sometimes Ignoble Pursuit of the Major League Batting Championship

Almost from professional baseball's birth more than 130 years ago, the batting championship has been one of the sport's most highly coveted awards. Since 1949, the Louisville Slugger company has presented the man with the highest batting average at season's end with the Silver Bat Award, a regulation-sized metal bat plated in sterling silver with the winner's name and average engraved upon it. Throughout the years, heated battles for the Silver Bat Award have featured unusual machinations by players, managers, and entire teams, including allegations of cheating, bribery, deliberate misplays, and questionable strategies, and, in one especially bitter campaign, charges of racism. Here are the stories behind these races.