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Like Steve Carlton, who won 27 of his team’s 59 victories in 1972, Theodore Breitenstein was a left-handed ace on a weak team. Breitenstein was credited with 43 percent of the St. Louis Browns’ victories from 1893 to 1896. In 21 seasons of professional baseball from 1891 to 1911, the durable southpaw won more than […]

It was Sunday, October 4, the last day of the 1891 season, when Charlie Comiskey, the St. Louis Browns’ first baseman and manager, let Theodore Breitenstein pitch the first game of a doubleheader against the Louisville Colonels in St. Louis. Breitenstein was a 22-year-old rookie, a little redhead from St. Louis. He stood 5-feet-9 and […]

SABR members have selected all-star fielding teams for each decade since 1900. Wary of the dangers lurking for the baseball researcher, they have not ventured into the poorly charted territory of the 19th century. But the urge to explore is irresistible to those willing to rush in where wise men fear to tread. The selections […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Winter 1985 (Vol. 4, No. 2).   J. Lee Richmond played four full seasons and parts of two others in baseball’s major leagues. Not a long career. Today, more than 100 years later, a check of his statistical record reveals little that would seem to […]

Coming off their fourth National League pennant of the decade and seventh overall, the Boston Beaneaters were not considered a lock for the 1898 championship. Baseball touts and prognosticators were divided as to whether the club was up to a repeat, or if Baltimore, which had upset Boston in the Temple Cup, or New York, […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 29 (2000).   Imagine if a young major-league pitcher, like Andy Pettitte of the Yankees, decided, for whatever reason, to become an outfielder in the year 2001. And imagine if he hit over .300 for the next five years, culminating in 2005 by winning […]