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No one was going to give Trot Nixon a speeding ticket. Not for the inspirational leader of the Boston Red Sox, the left-handed outfielder with the dirty uniform and the grinder spirit who became a fan favorite for wanting to win just a little bit more than most. His country was under attack, his wife […]

The team that finally won the World Series for Boston, for the first time in 86 years, was not a homegrown team, a product of a robust Red Sox farm system. Of the 25 players on the postseason roster, only two had come up in the system – Trot Nixon and Kevin Youkilis. Five were […]

On the evening of August 15, 2006, Nate Moulter and Mike Gavin arrived for work at Boston’s Fenway Park and started their evening by making a list of that day’s major league games with the uniform numbers of the starting pitchers. Then they turned to the main task of their job — posting information on […]

For reporters covering the Red Sox, the 2004 baseball season started in the earliest hours of October 17, 2003. That was when Boston suffered another in four-score and five years of excruciating defeats, a 6-5 loss to the Yankees on Aaron Boone’s game-ending and series-ending – Game Seven at that – home run in the […]

You can’t hit it if you can’t see it. Success in baseball requires good visual skills, including being able to see clearly. Many people need glasses or contact lenses. The most common reason for using them before age 40 is myopia (nearsightedness), which affects 20 to 30 percent of young adults in the United States.1,2 […]

This appendix accompanies the article “Player Win Averages” written by Pete Palmer and published in the Spring 2016 Baseball Research Journal. To scroll down to pitchers, click here.   Player Win Averages-Batters Player Games PW RW Barry Bonds 2986 120.3 123.2 Henry Aaron 3298 97.2 94.6 Willie Mays 2992 95.7 87.5 Mickey Mantle 2401 92.4 […]

Japanese star slugger Sadaharu Oh of the Yomiuri Giants. (Robert Fitts Collection)   During 1968, with the United States and much of the world in turmoil, the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals traveled to Japan to play baseball and sightsee. Sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun, they played 18 games over 33 days from October […]

The 13-year-old third baseman from Colorado, who identified his race as Hispanic American, didn’t look far from home when he named his favorite player, who also happened to be his favorite athlete and his hero: Colorado Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez. A 14-year-old Minnesotan, who proclaimed his primary position on his select baseball squad as third base, […]

George H. “Foghorn” Bradley, seated at left, with the Grafton Baseball Club in 1875. Touch three out of four, George. You’ll never hit a bigger triple in your life. (Courtesy of John Thorn)   Mike Timlin scurried toward the first-base line, scooped up Otis Nixon’s bunt, and tossed to a waiting Joe Carter at first […]

As 1869 was coming to a close, baseball and the nation at large were in the midst of rapid change. Americans still had the bloodstained fields of the Civil War fresh in their memories, and the horror of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on their minds. Reconstruction was ongoing, as attempts were made to restore a divided […]