Editor’s note: This article was selected as a recipient of the 2025 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.

On July 25, 1966, Casey Stengel and Ted Williams were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Although most observers likely assumed that Casey would steal the show, as he usually did, it was Williams who provided the audience with the indelible memory. He spoke fewer than 500 words, taking just three minutes, thanking people from his childhood all through his wonderful career. And in the middle of his speech, he said this:

The other day Willie Mays hit his 522nd home run. He has gone past me, and he’s pushing, and I say to him, ‘go get ‘em Willie.’ Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel, not just to be as good as someone else, but to be better than someone else. This is the nature of man and the name of the game, and I’ve always been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, to have struck out or hit a tape-measure home run. And I hope that someday the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol, to the great Negro players that are not here, only because they were not given a chance.1

These are some of the most famous words Williams ever spoke, and among the most impactful and memorable ever spoken at any of the dozens of Hall of Fame inductions. And, make no mistake, this was an extraordinary gesture.

“These were brave, eloquent words, spoken by a man who was in a position to know,” wrote Charles Livingston days later in the Louisville Defender. “A lesser man than Williams, preoccupied with his own hour of glory, would have completely forgotten or ignored other contemporary greats, particularly those of the Negro race. Ted, however, is no small man when it comes to accessing the worth of others.”2

Although I have found no evidence that Williams ever met Gibson, Ted and Satchel were quite friendly. Williams often told the story of seeing Paige pitch in San Diego when Ted was a boy, likely in the early 1930s. (When Paige finally was allowed to pitch in the American League, when he was in his 40s and Williams was the best hitter in the world, Ted managed just two singles in nine at bats against him.3) In 1956, when Paige was pitching for Triple-A Miami in the International League, writer Jimmy Burns ran into Williams at the All-Star Game in Washington. As Burns was walking away, Ted stopped him. “Be sure and give Satchel Paige my best regards when you get back to Miami.”4 Williams’ words in Cooperstown should not have been a total surprise because he had made related comments to The Sporting News in January when he was first elected. “I feel there should be no hard and fast rules that can’t be bent once in a while,” he said. “There’s one man who should be in and that’s Satchel Paige.”5

Still, Ted’s generous remarks have made me wonder about whether any others might have held similar views in 1966, how his remarks were received at the time, and why, if Williams’s words were so compelling and effective, did it take five more years for Paige to have his own moment on that grand baseball stage?

I focus on Paige, rather than some of his illustrious Black contemporaries, because most of the discussion at the time focused on him. He was by far the best-known Black player in white America during his Negro League career. But he was also the most prominent such player who went on to play in integrated leagues. In the 1950s, great players like Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Rube Foster, and Buck Leonard were either retired or deceased, while Paige was making All-Star teams for the Browns and winning 31 games in three years for Miami. More than one commentator would come away from a Paige outing and wonder, “Imagine how good he must have been.”6 Satchel Paige was the introductory course in white baseball fans’ appreciation of the Negro Leagues, while remaining a walking advertisement to their greatness.

Prior to Williams’ speech, at least one other prominent player had touted Paige for the Hall of Fame: Bob Feller, who did so in the runup to his own election to the Hall in 1962. In a first-person account for the Saturday Evening Post that January, Feller said: “I believe very strongly that there should be a niche for Satchel Paige. To be sure, his major league record doesn’t qualify him, but that was only because the old color line kept him out of the majors for so many years.”

“I barnstormed with Satch annually,” Feller continued, “starting back in ’37, when both of us could really hum that ball. Satch had a team of relatively untrained Negro players. My men bore down to see what they could do against the fabled Satch Paige. They couldn’t do much. By the time he came to the major leagues, Paige was getting by mostly on savvy. Still, nobody stopped Joe DiMaggio as cold as he did.”7 (To Feller’s point, DiMaggio hit .342 with 11 home runs off Feller, while he was 0-for-8 against Paige with three strikeouts.)

But Ted Williams’s public support of Paige predated Feller’s. He had lobbied for Paige way back in 1953. Williams was a captain in the US Marine Corps. While stationed at a base in El Toro, California, awaiting transport to Korea, he gave a far-ranging interview to the Army Times. Williams praised Paige as a brilliant pitcher, and expressed the hope that there could be a niche in the Hall of Fame for him.8

It is important to remember that at that time the Hall of Fame had been around barely 15 years, and Williams was not really concerned with (or maybe even aware of) the Hall’s rules and procedures. Paige was still an active pitcher, but so what? The way Williams saw it, Paige had been a great player for many years and what else really mattered?

Baseball writers were the principal voices in both shaping and reflecting public opinion on baseball segregation. To that end, there were voices in the Black press who had lamented from the Hall’s earliest days that their heroes were being left out. In January 1939, in a column outlining his hopes for the upcoming year, Art Carter in the Baltimore African-American included this wish: “Newspapermen forget prejudice and vote Rube Foster a niche in baseball’s Hall of Fame.”9

The Norfolk Journal and Guide wrote as early as 1942 that “Satchel Paige will hardly be among those granted a place in baseball’s coveted hall of fame, but both his ability and sportsmanship will find a place.”10 In 1947, upon the death of Josh Gibson, the Kansas City Call wrote: “He earned the right to a place in baseball’s Hall of Fame. His color alone can keep him out.”11 All three of these men—Foster, Paige, Gibson— were frequently cited as players who “would have” had Hall of Fame careers had they been allowed.

A shift in the dialogue took place about 1950, when serious writers began suggesting that these men did have Hall of Fame careers. The first such argument that I have seen was put forth by Joe Williams of the New York World Telegram and Sun in February 1950, when Paige had just been released by the Indians, seemingly ending his major-league career.

Come to think of it, why should old Satch be kept from the Hall simply because it takes so long to right an ancient social wrong? From now on he becomes … an automatic write-in on my ballot. In this way baseball, through the press box, can help make amends for the artistic recognition and fiscal rewards denied him down through the years when he was as good as any pitcher in the country. Possibly better.12

True to his word, Williams remained a tireless Paige advocate for the next 20 years.

Many in the Black press took up the cause, often making the case for Negro League stars generally, not just Paige. Joe Bostic wrote on this issue as early as 1951 in the New York Amsterdam News. “It’s high time that Sir James Crow be voted out of membership on the voting board for the Hall of Fame,” he wrote. “Either that or continue the glorification of the mediocre.”13 Like Joe Williams, Bostic beat this drum for years.14 Other vocal allies included Marty Richardson in the Cleveland Call,15 Russ Cowans in the Chicago Defender,16 and John Johnson in the Kansas City Call (“If there is no place there for him, then none are worthy”17).

White writers, who were more likely to be voters, also began writing articles advocating for Paige. Gordon Cobbledick of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer was making the case by 1952.18 The editor of the Detroit Times sounded the call soon after.19 Gayle Talbot of the Associated Press, read all over the country, weighed in for Paige in August that year.20 Harold Kaese in the Boston Globe, Dave Condon in the Chicago Sun-Times—syndicated writers with reaches that extended far beyond their local metro areas— wrote about Paige and the Hall often.

In November 1952, the National Sports Editors reported the results of a poll of their members on the question: “Should Satchel Paige Make the Baseball Hall of Fame?”21 The results (I have not found precise vote totals):

• 69% Should
• 13% Should Not
• 9% Undecided
• 9% No Opinion

Then and now a player needed 75% on the writer’s ballot to be inducted, so these results strongly suggest that Paige would have had a good shot at election as early as 1952, had he been eligible.

Was the Paige “campaign” touted or covered less in the white Southern papers? Undoubtedly, since the most prominent advocates were from the north—the Southern papers printed the columns that they chose to syndicate. But, while one can’t read every newspaper, I did find examples of pro-Paige arguments in Southern newspapers. For example, in August 1952 the Hattiesburg American ran an AP story from Talbot that began, “A movement is afoot to vote Satchel Paige, the practically ageless Negro pitcher, into baseball’s Hall of Fame, and after considerable thought we have decided it is the thing to do.” The story closed: “… Who can doubt what the man would have done 20–25 years ago if he had had the opportunity.”22

The poll cited above was touted in several Southern newspapers, including the Foley Onlooker, the Pascagoula Chronicle, and the Green County Democrat (Eutaw, AL). The Huntsville Times published Joe Williams regularly, including several columns on Paige. In early 1954, the Monroe Journal, from Monroeville, Alabama, published an editorial touting Paige for the Hall of Fame: “He has been a towering figure in the mythology of the game for a couple of decades, and he should not be left out of the Hall of Fame simply because the color of skin kept him out of the Majors.”23

Ed Fitzgerald was the longtime editor of SPORT, a highly respected national magazine unafraid to weigh in on racial matters. In the November 1952 issue, Fitzgerald wrote a three-page editorial asking his readers to contact their local baseball writer and urge a vote for Paige immediately. “There is no rule,” wrote Fitzgerald, “which would bar Satchel from membership because of his race or because of the relatively few seasons he has played in organized ball.”24

This last part might be a surprise. As of 1952, the only instructions on the writers’ ballot were that the player had to have played in the past 25 years, and that he had to be retired for at least one season.25 Paige would be eligible one year after he finally hung up his uniform. Many observers wanted the Hall of Fame to ignore even that requirement—the Hall was still very young, and certainly capable of modifying or waving the rules as it saw fit. “This is an exceptional case and should be treated as one,” wrote L.B. Davis in the Wichita Post-Observer. But Paige’s primary advocates, like Joe Williams, would often write that Paige’s largest obstacle might be that he was never going to stop pitching.27

In July 1953 the Hall of Fame board of directors enacted several procedural changes, including the creation of another version of what has come to be called the Veteran’s Committee. The latest VC was a group in charge of electing players, managers, and umpires who had finished their careers more than 25 years ago. More important to our story, the board also changed the eligibility for the writers’ ballot to require that a player be retired for five years, rather than just one.28

After the 1953 season Bill Veeck sold the Browns to a group who moved the team to Baltimore. One of the new owners’ first acts was to release Satchel Paige from his contract. Paige spent the next several years pitching and hoping for another shot at the big leagues. The closest he came was the three years he pitched, very well, for the Triple-A Miami Marlins, where observers continually made the case that he could help a big-league team. But as things stood in 1954, Satchel would become eligible for the Hall of Fame in 1959.

This remained the situation until July 1956, when the Hall board made additional rules changes, importantly one that required that any candidate have played parts of at least ten major league seasons.29 Unless he somehow signed up with a major league team and tacked on five more seasons of pitching, Paige’s candidacy was over barring special consideration. The ten-year rule applied to both the writers’ ballot and the Veterans group that was considering older players.

This changed the story considerably. Before the two rules changes (often called the “five-year rule” and the “ten-year rule”), the writers were in charge. All the columns urging that Paige be elected had been aimed at the BBWAA: “once he is eligible, please vote for Satchel.” The decision was no longer in the writer’s hands, it was in the hands of the Hall’s Board of Directors. Instead of “please vote for Satchel,” the message had become “please change the rules.”

So, who was the Board of Directors?

The Hall of Fame was and is run by people associated with or appointed by the Clark Foundation. Although the board of directors today is mainly made up of people from the baseball world, that was not always so. In 1958, for example, there were ten members of the board. Three were from major league baseball: the commissioner (Ford Frick), and the two league presidents (Warren Giles and Will Harridge). The other seven were Foundation people, many of them Cooperstown residents. The president was still Stephen C. Clark, who had founded the Hall of Fame in 1936. The vice president was Paul Kerr, who helped run the Hall for nearly 40 years, including 18 as president. Other directors included Stephen Clark Jr., James Bordley, Rowan Spraker, Howard C. Talbot, and Clyde S. Becker.30 Their names are less important than the point that the board was composed of mainly businessmen. To get Satchel Paige and other Negro Leaguers into the Hall of Fame, these are the men who needed to be convinced.

Ironically, Paige picked up perhaps his biggest endorsement just a few weeks after the 10-year-rule change. The Sporting News, the so-called “Bible of Baseball,” which had expressed skepticism about the talents of Black players as integration was unfolding, published a full-throated editorial in support of Paige’s election. “On the wall of the pantheon honoring the greatest players,” they wrote, “there should be room for the likeness and records of Leroy (Satchel) Paige.” The editorial was unsigned, but it would have come with the approval (perhaps even the authorship) of J.G. Taylor Spink, the publisher who enjoyed a close relationship with the Hall of Fame as chairman of the Veteran’s Committee.31

Joe Williams also had no intention of letting up. After Paige got back in the news for throwing a 1-hit shutout for Miami in August 1956, the writer got back to work. “Isn’t there anyone at all among the game’s leaders who will agree that in view of the prejudice which condemned him to a generation of skid-row baseball, that this incomparable artist is entitled to special consideration? To install Paige in the Hall by executive order—and without further delay—would constitute no more than a simple, belated recognition of a high talent. Atonement, there can never be.”32

Over the next several years, more writers joined the cause, urging someone, anyone, to right this wrong. “How would you like it if you were the world’s greatest tenor,” asked Jim Murray in 1964, “but had to stand outside the opera house with an organ grinder selling pencils, while a guy who couldn’t come within two octaves of you stood on stage receiving curtain calls and showers of money? … When you have imagined that, you are well into an understanding of ‘This is your life, Satchel Paige.’”33

Feller’s Saturday Evening Post column appeared in 1962, sparking new advocates: Jimmy Powers and Dick Young in the Daily News, Wells Twombly in the San Francisco Examiner, Stan Isaacs in Newsday. “Paige for the Hall” was not a fringe position; these were among the most popular and widely syndicated sports writers in the country. It appeared that a decided majority of baseball writers wanted Satchel to get a plaque.

The great Wendell Smith caught up with Paige in 1965 at a Harlem Globetrotters game; Satchel was touring with the team—speaking to the crowds at halftime and acting as a foil for some of their gags. In Smith’s glowing profile of the 58-year-old legend you can feel the author’s appreciation and joy, yes, but also frustration—after all these years, all Satch’s pitching, all Smith’s columns, his hero was still not adequately appreciated: “It is regrettable that such a human is not in the Hall of Fame.”34

That summer Paige was celebrated at Cleveland Stadium before an Indians-Yankees game to mark his induction into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame. There were 56,634 people in attendance, the largest Indians crowd in three years. Taking this as proof that he remained the people’s choice, the event stirred up more Satchel columns. Coincidence or not, Kansas City Athletics owner Charles Finley soon signed Paige to a major league contract. Paige pitched three innings in a game for Kansas City in September, facing ten batters. The 59-year-old gave up no runs and one hit, a double to Carl Yastrzemski.

The important question, by the time Ted Williams made his speech in July 1966, was this: Who was keeping Paige out? The short answer: the Hall of Fame board of directors. Specifically, there were two big obstacles. The first was Ford Frick, who was the commissioner of baseball through 1965, and a longtime member of the board even after he left his baseball post. Two years before Williams’s speech, Frick had said: “We can’t alter the rules for old Satchel. … If you make one exception, you have to make many.”35

The second, and more important, were the businessmen who ran the Hall of Fame. While the Hall’s board delegated the voting to the writers or a hand-picked committee, the board made and still makes the rules: Who votes? How often do they vote? Who is eligible this year, as opposed to next year? In 1953 and 1956, the board made changes to the eligibility rules that made it impossible for players who played most of their careers outside of the then-extant major leagues to make the Hall. The only mechanism available would have been some sort of special election, and the board had resisted such a step even in the face of years of pleading.

“Sure, Satchel has done a lot for the game,” Hall director Ken Smith said in 1964, “but he just doesn’t qualify for it on his major league record. We all love the guy, but it just wouldn’t be right to bend the rules.”36 The cruel irony that Paige had been denied the opportunity for twenty years and now was being punished for this denial was apparently lost on Smith and his fellow directors.

Within the world of baseball Paige had no greater friend than Bill Veeck. Veeck, as owner of the Cleveland Indians, signed Paige in 1948 when most thought he was too old, and was rewarded with a world championship the Indians almost certainly would not have otherwise won. Veeck signed Paige in 1951 when he owned the Browns, and signed him a third time in 1956 when he ran the Miami Marlins. On all three occasions Paige pitched very well for multiple seasons.

And Veeck advocated for Paige’s inclusion in the Hall of Fame often in interviews, speeches, and newspaper columns. “Why shouldn’t Paige be in the Hall of Fame?” Veeck asked in 1965. “Isn’t the Hall of Fame for all of baseball? Sometimes we forget that a lot of baseball is played in places other than the major leagues.”37

In August 1965, following a hip injury he had suffered in a fall, Casey Stengel retired as manager of the New York Mets.38 Although no great shakes with the Mets, his 10 pennants and 7 World Series titles with the Yankees made him an overwhelmingly deserving candidate for baseball’s Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the 75-year-old Casey was ineligible for immediate election since the rules required that he wait five years. So that was that.

Except that was not that. On December 2, the BBWAA sent a note to Hall president Paul Kerr, as follows: “The Baseball Writers Association has voted unanimously to recommend to the Hall of Fame Committee that it act immediately—and favorably—on the candidacy of Casey Stengel as a member of the Hall of Fame.” Many executives throughout the game publicly endorsed the sentiments.39

On December 9, longtime big league executive Branch Rickey passed away. There was no provision at the time for bestowing Hall of Fame honors on executives—this was something the Hall had dealt with as needed, but the last general manager inducted had been Ed Barrow back in 1953, before the current Veterans Committee process had been put in place. “It is not within my power to grant a dispensation,” said Kerr. “We can’t do a thing without changing the rules. If we don’t follow protocol, we invite chaos.”40

“If Stengel and Rickey are to be selected,” continued Kerr, “it will have to be by the Veterans’ Committee, which will have to change the present rules. The board of directors of the Hall of Fame has the right to revoke, alter, or amend any changes, but this has always been a formality.”41 This last part was at best misleading, at least as it relates to Negro Leagues players. Indeed, the Board had changed the rules to make their election impossible.

So, on January 30, 1966, the Veterans Committee indeed changed their rules to (a) waive the five-year rule for anyone who retired after the age of 65, which took care of Stengel, and (b) added executives to the list of eligible candidates, which took care of Rickey. Easy-peasy. Stengel was elected on March 8, and Rickey a year later. The haste with which these eligibility problems were resolved for these two obviously deserving candidates, when contrasted with the stonewalls constructed for Paige, is remarkable.

At least a few writers made the connection, including A.S. “Doc” Young: “But now that the committee has proven that it is swayed by human, as well as artistic, considerations—a hip fracture forced the great Casey to quit managing—let us hope, let us pray, that it can do something about Satchel Paige.”

“For sheer artistry and sheer fun, not to mention his overlooked mental genius, no man was ever superior to Leroy (Satchel) Paige,” Young added. “The game has never known a more valuable goodwill ambassador.”42

That July, Stengel and Ted Williams had their big day in Cooperstown, and Williams made the speech that began our story. Doc Young lamented that he had not been present, as Williams was a man he had admired for many years. “I wish I had been there to glory in that moment,” he wrote. “To walk up to my boyhood batting hero and say, ‘you’re the greatest. You’ve got soul.’”43 Many other stalwarts in the Black press agreed, gushing over Williams for his courage and humanity. The Los Angeles Sentinel, for example, wrote: “If Satchel Paige never makes it into the Hall of Fame, a spot he richly deserves, it must make him glow inside to know that Ted Williams knows he belongs there.”44 The Michigan Chronicle wrote that “Of Williams’s many fine moments in baseball, this acceptance speech was perhaps his finest.”45 This might have read like hyperbole in 1966, but not so much today.

It is not obvious whether more writers got on board after Williams’s speech since so many were already there. If there was a shift in the debate it was in its tone, suggesting Williams might have emboldened some of them. While many of the pro-Paige voices, certainly including Ted’s, had previously been understated, many columnists became decidedly more aggressive. Whereas Joe Williams felt the need to recite some of Paige’s qualifications a decade earlier, the need for that seemed to have passed. No one was debating whether Paige was an all-time great pitcher any longer. “He is a walking reproof to the game whenever he turns up,” wrote Jim Murray. “It is hard to see how anyone in the Hall of Fame can avoid wincing when they see him coming. I hope they at least have the decency to hide their plaques.”46

By 1966, Paige’s pitching career had mostly come to an end (though he might not have admitted it). With more time on his hands, and the outcry over his continued shunning by the Hall of Fame, Paige was often called upon the weigh in on the issue of the day.

• 1965: “Truly, I think I belong in the Hall of Fame. I don’t want to do no braggin’ on myself you understand, but all the big wheels call me the greatest that ever lived.”
• 1968: “They don’t say I’m not worthy. That’s the real test—if I’m worthy or not. Put it to a vote of the people and they’ll put me in there—you know that.”
• 1969: “The whole world wants me in it. But I didn’t play in the major leagues long enough— that’s how it’s wrote up, even though for years and years I was the world’s greatest pitcher. But I’m not saying they’d change the rules for me. Maybe someday before I die I could sorta sneak in. You know, for good conduct or something like that.”49

Dizzy Dean, like Bob Feller, had barnstormed with Paige for many years and knew him well. Dean had been praising Paige’s talents for many years and weighed in to Jet magazine in 1968: “I pitched about 12 years against Satchel from coast to coast. He is one of my finest friends—a guy I appreciate being with and playing against and associating with. I certainly think that if anybody belongs in the Hall Fame it is Satchel Paige. He was one of the outstanding pitchers of all times and a guy who has given his life to baseball.”50

After years of stalemate, in July 1969 the baseball writers finally made a move to break the logjam, creating a committee of experts to recommend the induction of Negro League stars. The plan was announced by BBWAA president Dick Young during induction weekend for Stan Musial, Roy Campanella, Stan Coveleski, and Waite Hoyt. The plan had been proposed by Larry Claflin of Boston and passed overwhelmingly.51 This committee had no authority, but the writers were hoping to force the issue.

“Certainly no one questions the credentials of [the newest inductees],” said Young, “but there are questions to be asked. Why Waite Hoyt and Stan Coveleski, and not Satchel Paige? Why Roy Campanella and not Josh Gibson?” Campanella immediately volunteered to be part of the committee. Young pledged that the writers would work closely with commissioner Kuhn and Hall president Paul Kerr.52

Another key event in this story was the 1970 publication of Robert Peterson’s Only the Ball was White. Much more than a scholarly study of the Negro Leagues, the book made the case that the leagues were as good, as valuable, and as historically rich as any baseball that had ever been. The book opens with an excerpt from Ted Williams’s Cooperstown speech and closes with capsule biographies of several dozen Negro League stars. “So long as the museum excludes some of these greats,” wrote Peterson, “the notion that it represents the best in baseball is nonsense.”53

The Hall of Fame finally lifted a finger for the Negro Leaguers on February 1, 1971, when Kuhn and Kerr announced the formation of a special committee of ten Negro Leagues experts who would select one Negro League player per year. The honoree would get a plaque that would be hung in a special exhibit. The new committee most prominently included Campanella, Monte Irvin, Judy Johnson, Alex Pompez, Sam Lacy, and Wendell Smith.54

Alarmingly, no one was claiming that these honorees would be Hall of Fame members. “It was not their fault they didn’t play in the majors,” admitted Bowie Kuhn, before countermanding his own point. “We can’t make them real members because they don’t qualify under the rules.” Countered one writer: “So they will be set aside in a separate wing. Just as they were when they played. What an outright farce.”55

Surprising no one, Paige was the first selection just over a week later, on February 9. Hastily assembling for the press at Toots Shor’s restaurant in New York, Kuhn and Paige, who was accompanied by his wife LaHoma, each spoke briefly, and the press asked questions—most of them concerning the separate display. Where would it be? How would the plaques compare to the “real” plaques? Kuhn had no answers, and Paige seemed embarrassed. “Technically,” admitted Kuhn, “he’s not in the Hall of Fame. But I agree with those who say that the Hall of Fame is a state of mind and the important thing is how sports fans view Satchel Paige. I know how I view him.”56

Kuhn’s words satisfied no one, of course. Smith and Lacy, who had covered and celebrated the Negro Leagues their entire lives, put on a brave face and defended the plan. Smith suggested that this segregation could be temporary.57 For the time being, the acknowledgment of the greatness of players who had, after all, not played in the major leagues, was a fine compromise.

The reaction was unpleasant. Jim Murray, for one, was furious:

To have kept Satchel Paige from playing in the white leagues for 24 years, and then bar him from the Pearly Gates on the grounds that he didn’t play the required 10 years is a shocking bit of insolent cynicism, a disservice to America. What is this—1840? Either let him in the front of the Hall—or move the damn thing to Mississippi.58

“It’s not worth a hill of beans,” said a frustrated Jackie Robinson. “If it were me under those conditions, I’d prefer not to be in it. Rules have been changed before. You can change rules like you changed laws if the law’s unjust. Satch’s contributions deserve the Hall of Fame. Why does it have to be a special Black thing?”59

So, whose idea was this, and why didn’t they see all this anger coming?

In 1971 there were 14 men on the board of directors: eight baseball people (Ford Frick, the board chairman; commissioner Kuhn; league presidents Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney, ex-league presidents Warren Giles and Will Harridge; and executives Tom Yawkey and Bob Carpenter) and six Hall directors, local men who ran the Hall foundation.60 Ten votes were needed to change the rules. According to Dick Young, who spent two years fighting for this cause, the directors most adamant against admitting Negro Leaguers were Frick, Hall President Paul Kerr, and all the other Cooperstown people. Other than Frick, all the baseball people wanted full admittance for the Negro Leaguers.

“There were some pretty good shouting matches,” revealed Young, “involving directors of the Hall of Fame, Commissioner Kuhn and a representative of the BBWAA, the organization which had originated the drive.”61 Kuhn later told a similar story in Hardball, his memoir, agreeing that Frick and Kerr were the roadblocks, and adding the detail that the writer was Young himself. “Young was passionate and unrelenting in support of admitting Black players. Though I categorically agreed with his argument, I was offended by his rudeness to Frick.”62

Young also revealed that Hall officials had suggested that it would not merely have a separate wing, but it would have two ceremonies—with the Negro League induction happening on a different date. For their part, the writers threatened to break with Cooperstown and set up their own Hall.63

Kuhn claimed in Hardball that he had pushed for the wing compromise fully knowing that the public outcry would cause Kerr to cave in. This explanation might be self-serving, though it also might be true. Most of the criticism through the decades has been aimed at Kuhn, rather than the Hall, which is almost certainly backwards.

In early July, just a month before the induction, the Hall caved. Kuhn announced that Paige would be inducted as a full member, one of eight honorees. (The others were Dave Bancroft, Jake Beckley, Chick Hafey, Harry Hooper, Joe Kelley, Rube Marquard, and George Weiss.) “I didn’t have no kick or no say when they put me in that separate wing,” said Paige. “But getting into the real Hall of Fame is the greatest thing that ever happened to me in baseball.”64

On August 8, the day before his induction, Paige sat on the terrace at Cooperstown’s famed Otesaga Hotel and reflected on his long road. “Isn’t this something?” the great man asked. “Here I am, a guy who just loved baseball, still loves it. I played because it was all I ever wanted to do. I had no idea where it would take me—and it brought me here to the Hall of Fame.”65

“People ask me how I feel about all this. It’s the big day of my life, but it’s hard to talk about. I could play ball in a town but I couldn’t eat there. … But that didn’t bother me that much. I never had nothing but that. And I don’t want to stir up nothing now. I pure love baseball, and I don’t want to do nothing to hurt it.”66

The next day, Paige finally had his great moment on the steps of the Hall of Fame library. “I am the proudest man on earth today,” said Paige. “and my wife and sister and sister-in-law and my son all feel the same. It’s a wonderful day and one man who appreciates it is Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige…Since I’ve been here I’ve heard myself called some very nice names. And I can remember when some of the men in there called me some bad names when I used to pitch against them.”67

There were reportedly 3,000 people at the ceremony, mainly sprawled out in Cooper Park outside the library. There were three other inductees present (Hafey, Hooper, and Marquard), though Paige was surely the most famous and the most remembered. Bill Veeck made the trip, of course. “Satch is the reason I am here,” said Veeck. “You have to remember he supported us in several places. The least I can do is show here today.”68

Paige praised his old friend from the podium. “They wanted to run both Bill and me out of town in 1948,” he said. “There was a writer who even said I was too old to vote but I guess, Bill, I got us both off the hook today.”69

Among the less famous observers were 16 men who had traveled to Cooperstown for an additional purpose. These men would meet again the next day, Tuesday, August 10, in the Hall of Fame library to create the Society for American Baseball Research. The Negro Leagues Committee, one of SABR’s original research committees, was formed a few weeks later. 

MARK ARMOUR is a baseball researcher and writer living in Corvallis, Oregon. He founded SABR’s Baseball Biography Project and its Baseball Cards Committee.

NOTES

1 Drew Silva, “Throwback: Ted Williams’ Hall of Fame speech,” https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/throwback-ted-williams-hall-of-fame-speech.

2 Charles Livingston, “Williams Praises Negro Stars,” Louisville Defender, August 11, 1966, a8.

3 Roger Birtwell, “Ted Batted Only .091 vs. Boyhood Idol,” Boston Globe, July 26, 1966, 25.

4 Jimmy Burns, “Spotlighting Sports,” Miami Herald, August 9, 1956, 49.

5 Paul McFarlane, “Ted Unlocks Flood of Memories,” The Sporting News, February 5, 1966, 3–4.

6 For example, see Joe Williams, Pittsburgh Press, July 2, 1952, 22.

7 Bob Feller as told to Edward Linn, “The Trouble with the Hall of Fame,” Saturday Evening Post, January 27, 1962, 49. Feller has been criticized for suggesting in 1946 that he had seen few Negro League players who would succeed in the major leagues. His pessimism even extended to Jackie Robinson, who Feller believed was too muscle-bound to be able to hit fast pitching. Feller was inducted into the Hall of Fame with Robinson, and in the Saturday Evening Post Feller freely admitted— “It pains me to confess this”—his misjudgment.

8 Tom Scanlan, “Second Guess,” Army Times, January 27, 1953, 28.

9 Art Carter, “From the Bench,” Baltimore African-American, January 7, 1939, 7.

10 Peter Suskind, “’Satch’ Lets Himself Out,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 15, 1942, 14.

11 ANP, Kansas City Call, February 7, 1947.

12 Joe Williams, “Evans Says Groth Better Than DiMag,” Worcester Evening Gazette, February 13, 1950, 21.

13 Joe Bostic, “There Are Some Missing Names in the BB Hall of Fame,” New York Amsterdam News, February 10, 1951, 25.

14 For example, see “Hall of Fame Next Stop for Ageless Satchel Paige,” New York Age , July 5, 1952, 27.

15 Marty Richardson, Cleveland Call and Post, “Let’s Have Some Sports,” July 19, 1952, 7A.

16 Russ Cowans, “Paige Should Be In the Hall of Fame,” Chicago Defender, August 30, 1952, 16.

17 John I. Johnson, “Mighty Old Mound Master,” Kansas City Call, September 26, 1952, 10.

18 “Selkirk,” Milwaukee Journal, July 16, 1952, 37.

19 Bob Murphy, “Jerry McCarthy Has Great 2-Year-Old,” Detroit Times Extra, August 7, 1952.

20 Gayle Talbot, “Ageless Satchel Paige Gets Nomination for the Hall of Fame,” Abilene Reporter-News, August 18, 1952, 8.

21 Cy Rice, “National Sports Editors Poll,” Arkansas State Press, November 14, 1952, 4.

22 Gayle Talbot, “Sports Roundup,” Hattiesburg American, August 18, 1952, 9.

23 Buddy Chambers, “Speaking of Sports,” Monroe Journal, June 30, 1955.

24 Ed Fitzgerald, “Let’s Get Old Satch into the Hall of Fame!” SPORT, November 1962, 9.

25 Dan Daniel, “Terry, Dean Rapping on Door of Hall of Fame,” The Sporting News , February 6, 1952.

26. L. B. Davis, “Sports,” Wichita Post-Observer, August 14, 1953, 7.

27 Joe Williams, “Sports Comment,” Huntsville Times, January 18, 1953, 27.

28 Dan Daniel, “Pilots, Umps Get Shrine Recognition,” The Sporting News, August 5, 1953, 1.

29 Ray Gillespie, “Changes Adopted in Balloting Rules for the Hall of Fame,” The Sporting News, July 25, 1956, 2.

30 “Clark Heads Hall of Fame,” Oneonta Star, August 13, 1958, 13.

31 Editorial, The Sporting News, September 26, 1956, 12.

32 Joe Williams, “After Years and Years of Skid-row Baseball, Hall of Fame for Satchel,” Buffalo Evening News, August 21, 1956, 10.

33 Jim Murray, “Baseball’s Greatest?” San Jose News, June 22, 1964, 16.

34 Wendell Smith, “Satchel Paige Still a Man of the Road,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 9, 1965, 23.

35 Bob Sudyk, “Too Bad They Can’t Bend Rules for Satchel,” The Sporting News, December 19, 1964.

36 Sudyk.

37 Joe McGuff, “Paige Will Pitch In Finley’s Next Novelty Number,” The Sporting News, September 25, 1965, 23.

38 Bill Bishop, “Casey Stengel,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/casey-stengel/.

39 Clifford Kachline, “Give Ol’ Perfessor Hall of Fame Spot Now, Writers Urge,” The Sporting News, December 18, 1965, 12.

40 Oscar Kahan, “Will Rickey Be Barred from Shrine?” The Sporting News, December 25, 1965, 1.

41 Kahan.

42 A. S. Doc Young, “A Vote for Satch,” New York Amsterdam News, March 26, 1966, 33.

43 A. S. Doc Young, “I Had a Good Idea,” Chicago Daily Defender, August 10, 1966, 24.

44 BPJ, “Ted Makes Hall of Fame as a Real Human Being,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 11, 1966, B1.

45 Walter Hoye, “Ted Williams Says Paige and Gibson Were the Greatest,” Michigan Chronicle , August 20, 1966, A23.

46 Jim Murray, “Old Satchel Puts Baseball to Shame,” Detroit Free Press, February 5, 1966, 22.

47. Joe McGuff, “Paige Will Pitch in Finley’s Next Novelty Number,” The Sporting News , September 25, 1965, 23.

48. John Crittenden, “Marking a Ballot for Favorite Son,” Miami News, September 4, 1968, 29.

49 “The Great Satchel Paige: ‘New Generation Taking Over’,” Poughkeepsie Journal, March 30, 1969.

50 Robert E. Johnson, “Dizzy Dean Makes Pitch to Get ‘Satch’ Paige in Hall of Fame,” Jet, March 14, 1968, 52.

51 Dick Young, “Brooklyn Atmosphere at Hall of Fame Induction,” August 9, 1969, 5.

52 Young, “Brooklyn Atmosphere.”

53 Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 254.

54 “Place for Ex-Negro Stars in Shrine,” The Sporting News, February 13, 1971.

55 Wells Twombly, The Sporting News, February 20, 1971, 41.

56 Phil Pepe, “Old Satch Makes Hall of Fame, Natch,” Daily News, February 10, 1971, 55.

57 C. C. Johnson Spink, “we believe…,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1971, 17.

58 Jim Murray, “J. Crow Enters Baseball Heaven,” Boston Globe, February 15, 1971, 19.

59 Milton Gross, “Black Isn’t So Beautiful In Baseball Hall of Fame,” High Point Enterprise , February 9, 1971.

60 “Broeg succeeds Stockton on Cooperstown Group,” The Sporting News, August 28, 1971, 33.

61 Dick Young, “Young Ideas,” Daily News, August 6, 1971, 107.

62 Bowie Kuhn, Hardball—The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York: Times Books, 1987), 110.

63 Young, “Young Ideas.”

64 UPI, “Satchel Paige Is Accorded Full Hall of Fame Honor,” Casper Star-Tribune, July 8, 1971, 16.

65 Dick Wade, “Satchel Looks Back,” Kansas City Star, August 9, 1971, 12.

66 Wade.

67 Bill Francis, “Paige’s Induction in 1971 Changed History,” Baseball Hall of Fame website, https://baseballhall.org/discover/baseball-history/paiges-induction-changed-history.

68 Dick Wade, “Paige Enters Hall,” Kansas City Star, August 10, 1971, 18.

69 UPI, “Satchel Paige Pays Tribute to Bill Veeck,” Lansing State Journal, August 10, 1971, 17.

Rachel Balkovec shattered a glass ceiling when she became the first woman to manage in affiliated baseball for the Tampa Tarpons. (Photo by Mark LoMoglio/ Tampa Tarpons)

Rachel Balkovec’s résumé includes several firsts: the first woman to serve as a strength and conditioning coordinator in affiliated baseball; the first woman to do so for a major-league team in Latin American baseball; the first woman hitting coach and All-Star Futures Game coach; and the first woman to manage an affiliated team. Today, she is the director of player development for the Miami Marlins.

Still in her 30s, Balkovec has accomplished all this on a foundation of family influences, mentors along the way, and the pivotal experiences that ignited her passion for baseball. She’s overcome barriers in a male-dominated sport, earning praise for her resilience and expertise.

CORNHUSKER STATE BEGINNINGS

Born on July 5, 1987, in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three sisters, Rachel Balkovec was raised by her parents, Jim and Bonnie, in a 1,500-square-foot house with dark shutters and a basketball hoop. Jim, a former customer service manager at American Airlines, would wake up at 3 o’clock every morning to be at the airport by 5 for the start of his shift. He only missed three days of work in his 35-year career. After Jim would return home, Bonnie, a former bookkeeper, would head out the door on her way to night classes. Bonnie would become the first person in her immediate family to earn a college diploma.1

Described by Rachel as “practical Midwesterner people,” Jim and Bonnie managed to fund a private education for all three of their girls, but designer clothes were out of the question. Rachel and her sisters would wear thrift-store outfits and regular tennis shoes.2 Jim and Bonnie ingrained in their daughters the principle that achieving their goals required a dedicated effort and constant hard work. Balkovec has echoed that sentiment over the years, saying that all her achievements can be traced back to the unwavering support and life lessons she received from her parents. She once told a room full of reporters, “My father and mother, they deserve an award. They literally raised three girls to be absolute hellions.”3

During a telephone interview I conducted with Balkovec in the spring of 2022 for the cover story of Inside Pitch Magazine, she emphasized the lasting influence her parents have had on her:

My parents grew up relatively poor and were both the first to go to college in their families. They set my sisters and I up for success by making us each get jobs when we were 14 (Rachel’s first job was at 14 working at a movie theater serving popcorn). We had to make our own money, pay for our own material possessions, and earn everything we received. They also made it known that at the end of the day, whatever we wanted in life was entirely up to us and the work ethic we put forth. This is a lesson, a mindset, that I carry with me every day, whether it is my job, my personal life, or even my own ambitions. Anything is possible with work.4

Stephanie Balkovec, Rachel’s older sister, told Fox Sports, “They wanted to make it so that their kids could be completely independent in the world—to be able to do literally anything and not need them [to do it].” Stephanie and Rachel had to purchase their cars from their parents with their own money and pay for the insurance.5

Balkovec also credits her resilient demeanor and “thick skin” to the influence of Jim and Bonnie. “I choose to make decisions that thicken my skin,” she told me in 2020, “but the only reason I have that decision-making process is because of what my parents taught me really, really young, and they set me up to make those decisions to go into tough situations and thrive in those situations.”

All three Balkovec sisters attended Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, where Rachel played basketball, soccer, and softball.6 Katie Pope, who met Balkovec in grade school, recounted in 2022 how being friends with Rachel always felt like having your own personal coach: “She saw more potential in me than I saw in myself. She motivated me, and if I’ve ever been doubtful of anything—career, boys—she was always a very strong sounding board. She’d whip me into shape and pick me back up.”7

Erin Hartigan, studio anchor for Bally Sports Southwest, met Balkovec in eighth grade. According to Hartigan, their relationship centered around holding one another accountable and pushing one another to be better. “You want to be on her team because she’s going to win,” said Hartigan, who was a softball teammate at Skutt Catholic. “She wants to win, but she also knows, ‘I’m going to kick your you-know-what.’”8

Hartigan remembers that even as a young child, it was clear that Balkovec was unique: “Even when she was in the eighth grade, she had this intensity. She was built differently. I knew then she was destined for big things. I don’t know if I anticipated her becoming the first female manager in baseball, but I’d tell you today I am not surprised.”9

As a high school athlete, Balkovec exhibited qualities of assertiveness and concentration, maintaining elevated standards for her softball teammates while setting even loftier goals for herself. According to coach Keith Engelkamp, “She was always driven and never, ever complained. She would go 100 percent until the coach said it was time to leave.”10 Recognizing her take-charge mindset, Engelkamp thought Balkovec would do well as a catcher, allowing her more control and more chances to engage with the ball.11

But Balkovec also had a bit of a temper and was known to throw her equipment. One game, Joe Negrete, an assistant coach for Skutt Catholic, berated her for throwing her helmet after she made an out. He yelled, “You don’t ever throw a helmet in my dugout ever again!” and removed Balkovec from the game. She never threw another helmet after that. Years later, Hartigan would describe Engelkamp, Negrete, and Larry King, another assistant coach at Skutt Catholic, as “pivotal” to the long-term development of both herself and Balkovec. The coaching staff would help the girls fine-tune their playing skills while teaching them to build trust, manage their passion and work ethic, and “slow down.”12

Roughly 15 years after graduating from Skutt Catholic, Balkovec was honored with the school’s 2019–20 Alumna of the Year award.13

COLLEGE YEARS

Balkovec began her college career at Creighton University, about 20 minutes from her home in Omaha. But her time there was brief. She developed a case of the yips—an abrupt and unexplainable loss of throwing accuracy. A transfer to the University of New Mexico wasn’t a cure, though, and after appearing in 13 games as a catcher in 2007 and two more in 2008, Balkovec arrived at the realization that she could be more valuable to the team off the field. She redirected her work ethic toward inspiring and motivating her teammates in the weight room.14

“I was an average softball player who really found solace and an ideal means to contribute in the weight room,” she told me for Inside Pitch Magazine. “That was my place to shine, work hard, and earn the respect of my teammates and coaches, which ultimately turned into a passion and later a career.” Balkovec attributes her eventual ascent in coaching to the strength coaches she worked for in college. These coaches demonstrated “what it meant to be a true coach, as opposed to just blowing a whistle and counting reps,” she said.15

Her tenure at the University of New Mexico introduced her to an industry that had previously been outside her scope: affiliated professional baseball.

Baseball was never on my radar until I went to the University of New Mexico and several of my friends on the baseball team got drafted. As I kept in touch with them, I began to understand the onion which is professional baseball. So, it wasn’t the sport itself that fueled my desire to work in professional baseball, it was actually the journey of the minor league baseball player: coming to terms with an organization, extended bus rides, limited access to weight rooms, pregame hot dogs, and many other everyday struggles that accompany minor leaguers. Pro baseball is such a unique business to me; it’s a never-ending jigsaw puzzle to solve.16

After graduating with a degree in exercise science in 2009, Balkovec relocated to Arizona to participate in an internship with API (Athletes’ Performance, now known as EXOS), then enrolled as a graduate student at Louisiana State University in 2010. She studied sport administration and was a graduate assistant strength and conditioning coach.17 In a 2022 interview with the LSU Media Center, Balkovec reminisced about her time in Baton Rouge.

“LSU was an absolutely critical point in my career when I learned about elite level standards in championship programs,” she said. “The coaches, players, and professors all played a huge role in developing a foundation on which to build a career in professional sports.”18 After graduation, she embarked on a journey to achieve what seemed nearly impossible at the time: securing a coaching position in affiliated professional baseball as a woman.19

WELCOME TO PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL—IS IT “RACHEL” OR “RAE?”

That journey began with an internship with the Johnson City (Tennessee) Cardinals, a St. Louis affiliate in the rookie-level Appalachian League, in 2012.

The differences between college and minor-league baseball were stark. “I went from 110% intensity to, like, not so intense, and very quiet [stadiums] and no fans,” she told NPR’s Only a Game. “And I would say 95% of the players I was working with did not speak English and don’t have any idea what SEC football or baseball or softball means. And they don’t care.”

After the season, Balkovec was named the 2012 Appalachian League Strength Coach of the Year.20 However, despite her summer success, she did not receive a job offer from the Cardinals or any other affiliated professional organization. While facing a seeming dead end, Balkovec accepted a front-office internship with Los Tigres Del Licey, a team in the Dominican Professional Baseball League.21

Following that experience, Balkovec engaged in additional volunteer intern roles as a strength and conditioning coach throughout 2013 and January 2014. She interned in the Arizona Fall League for the Chicago White Sox and on campus at Arizona State University. During that period, she was also a waitress, worked at Lululemon, and began taking classes on campus with the intent of pursuing a PhD in nutrition. When the Arizona Fall League ended, Balkovec returned to the White Sox in another volunteer capacity. At that point, she discontinued her coursework and temporarily stepped away from her academic career.

Balkovec pursued positions in pro baseball in the spring of 2014, only to face a stream of rejections. At the suggestion of her sister Stephanie, she changed the name on her résumé from Rachel to Rae, an experiment to gauge whether a gender-neutral name would impact her response rate. It did. Suddenly, “Rae” began receiving numerous callbacks from organizations about potential job opportunities. The way Balkovec figured it, “Yes, they will find out I am a woman, but if they talk to me, they’ll hear that I know what I’m talking about.”22

Unfortunately, she fell short of persuading teams to look past her sex. One caller said, “Can I speak to Rae?” to which Balkovec replied, “This is she.” After that, as Balkovec described to MLB.com years later, “There was an awkward pause on the other end of the line and he stuttered and said, ‘I’m sorry, I was calling about a job, and I just wanted to make sure I said your name correctly.’ He was just so surprised I was a girl.”23 He never called back.

“I never felt anger,” Balkovec told CBS News in 2020. “Necessary frustration and not understanding and ‘Give me a chance,’ like those were words that came. But not, like, anger. That was a lesson of, like, ‘Okay, look, if they’re not going to hire me because I’m a woman, I don’t wanna work for them anyway.’”24

With no prospects in affiliated baseball, Balkovec accepted a job at Cressey Sports Performance, a training facility in Hudson, Massachusetts.25 But before she could move there, the Cardinals offered her the role of minor-league strength and conditioning coordinator in February 2014. She was the first woman to work fulltime as a strength coach in affiliated pro ball.26 She said that when the Cardinals hired her, she only had $14 in her bank account and had to borrow from her parents to get to Florida for spring training.27

Early in the 2014 season, Balkovec told MLB.com, “I still have a lot to prove to everyone in this organization and to everyone in the field, but hopefully I’m making a good first impression. I hope I can do a good enough job here to open the door for other women who want to be involved in strength and conditioning.”28

The Cardinals dismissed questions about challenges Balkovec would present. “When you carry yourself the way Rachel does and you’re professional about the way you go about your daily work, it’s not a problem and it won’t be a problem,” said Oliver Marmol, who was managing the State College Spikes, the Cardinals affiliate in the Class A short-season New York-Penn League. He added:

Rachel has taken things to another level by building a curriculum around strength and conditioning and what the players need to know for certain exercises. Now there’s no excuse for the Latin guys to not be able to do an exercise the right way because they didn’t understand. Rachel cares about these guys as people, so they take an interest in learning the language and being able to communicate with her and do everything the right way. The effort she’s put in to teach them and to learn the language herself has been extraordinary.29

Cardinals head athletic trainer Greg Hauck also praised the hiring, saying the Cardinals had been impressed with Balkovec’s knowledge and thinking. “She would do the program but would take things a step further.” he said. “She started looking at how much the guys were running during games and a lot of other components, and no one had told her to do those things. She added onto her job duties, which was exciting to see.”30

Hundreds of applications had poured in for the job, but “Rachel stood out amongst them all,” said Hauck. “We took the best strength coach we interviewed, male or female.”

Despite being the only woman in an all-male environment, Balkovec felt confident that her career as a former collegiate athlete would help garner the respect of the players. “If they’re in a slump or on a roll, or if they’re feeling great or if their bodies hurt, those are all things I experienced in my own career,” she said. “And really, it just gives me a little street cred. I think the guys care more that I can throw a baseball than they do about what I can do in the weight room.”

Just as she had as an intern in Johnson City, Balkovec went beyond her role as a strength and conditioning coach. She took on extra responsibilities such as accompanying players on grocery shopping trips, educating them about how to read nutritional labels, and helping them with their English. She would play the role of older sister and mom. The players eventually started affectionately calling her “Raquelita.”31

HOUSTON AND LATIN AMERICA

After two years with the Cardinals, Balkovec moved to the Houston Astros as their Latin American Strength and Conditioning Coordinator in 2016, the first woman to hold such a job in affiliated baseball.32 Bill Firkus, the Astros director of sports medicine and performance, said gender did not factor into Balkovec’s hiring: “It was more we’re looking for a certain type of person—open-minded, forward-thinking, incredibly skilled, passionate to get better every day, and she fit the bill.”33 Balkovec’s increasing proficiency with Spanish, which she continued to learn on her own, caught the attention of assistant director of minor league operations Pete Putila. He commended Balkovec for her dedication to learning and her ability to foster team building and competition. “It was a unique challenge given that these players were from a different country speaking a different language,” he said. “I mean, she really took control there. The kids had fun, too. She just always expected excellence and found ways to get that from the players”34

Allen Rowin, director of minor league operations for the Astros, who was responsible for hiring Balkovec, echoed that sentiment. “You could look in the weight room and not tell the difference from her and other strength coaches,” he said. “She just happened to have a ponytail. She was doing the same mechanics, using the same plan as everybody else. She blended in with the guys, throwing with rehab assignments, running, stretching. No difference.”35

In 2018, Balkovec was promoted to strength and conditioning coach for the Corpus Christi Hooks, the Astros’ Double-A affiliate in the Texas League. “I was so fortunate to be with the Astros 2016 through 2018— maybe unfortunate, but fortunate in some ways,” she said at her introductory press conference as Tampa Tarpons manager in 2022, alluding to the Astros’ big-league sign-stealing scandal in 2017. “I was seeing them on the forefront of technology, just getting Trackman and Rapsodo. I was just baptized with fire. As a strength coach, I was managing eight different technologies in 2018. It was extremely helpful.”36

In addition to her primary role, Balkovec started collaborating with and learning from various hitting coaches within the organization.37 One of them was Dillon Lawson, who would go on to play a pivotal part in advancing Balkovec’s career trajectory. “Dillon took me under his wing, and I soon found myself partaking in hitting meetings, reading articles, and having extended conversations that helped fuel my interest in hitting,” she told me. “Dillon also set me on my path to go back to school to earn my second master’s degree, in addition to guiding me towards doing my own research on eye-tracking for hitters.”38

Balkovec enrolled at Vrije University in Amsterdam to pursue that second master’s, in human movement sciences. While there, she became an apprentice hitting coach for the Netherlands National Baseball and Softball programs.40

To fulfill her academic research obligations, Balkovec became a research and development intern at Driveline Baseball in Kent, Washington.41 Although she mostly studied gaze tracking for hitters, one of her biggest contributions came in Driveline’s motion capture lab. “We went from athletes throwing 5 to 7 mph lower to athletes [hitting personal records] in the lab,” said Driveline sports science manager Anthony Brady of Balkovec’s time in Kent. “Rachel was super adamant about setting the tone for the culture in the lab and getting everything out of the athletes.”42

Balkovec received her second master’s degree from Vrije University in 2019.

Rachel Balkovec spent two full seasons managing the Tarpons before taking a position in the Miami Marlins front office in 2024. (Photo by Mark LoMoglio / Tampa Tarpons)

WEARING PINSTRIPES

On November 22, 2019, after having lived in 15 cities and three countries over 12 years, Balkovec became the first female hitting coach in affiliated professional baseball when she signed on with the New York Yankees as a hitting coach for the organization’s rookie-level Gulf Coast League team in Tampa.43

Lawson, who was then working for the Yankees, dismissed any suggestion that Balkovec was merely a symbolic appointment. “She’s not a token hire. She never was a token hire. Whether she’s male or female, it doesn’t change the fact that she is a great coach,” he said. “Not everyone will understand this, but you wish everyone could.”44

The 2020 minor-league season was shut down during spring training because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Balkovec went to Australia and became a hitting coach for the Sydney Blue Sox of the Australian Baseball League.45 During her time with the Blue Sox, one of her players was Manny Ramirez. The Red Sox legend spoke highly of Balkovec. “Rachel has helped me a lot with training, lifting, hitting,” he said. “She’s smart, she’s a woman of integrity, she knows what she wants and she’s persistent. Rachel has a big future.”46

The minor leagues resumed operations in 2021, and Balkovec was the first woman named to coach in the Futures Game.47 The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown asked for her game-worn cap, which was put on display.

On January 9, 2022, the Yankees named Balkovec manager of the Tampa Tarpons of the Class A Florida State League.48 Another first was added to the list.

Balkovec told The Athletic that vice president of player development Kevin Reese had approached her in December 2021. “Reese said that you don’t have to be a defensive specialist to be a manager right now,” Balkovec said. “Let’s open our minds to what a manager really is: a leader. When he described it like that, I immediately opened my mind to it. I think this is actually a better role for me than a hitting coach. I don’t lose sleep over mechanics. I lose sleep over culture.”49

Reese described the decision as a no-brainer. “The feedback was always positive on Rachel,” he said. “Everybody was on board. This is about her qualifications and her ability to lead.”50

Balkovec would soon garner acclaim from the likes of Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone, commissioner Rob Manfred, and tennis legend Billie Jean King, who tweeted, “History made in baseball!”51

After that tweet, Balkovec joked, “Okay, I can die now. My career’s over.”52

At her introductory press conference as Tarpons manager, a Zoom call with 112 media correspondents online, Balkovec described her journey as “the American dream.” She said the initial word that crossed her mind upon getting the job was “gratitude.” As one might suspect, she reiterated her gratitude to her parents, saying they “raised me to be a competitive athlete, not a woman or a man, but just to be competitive and capable and aggressive.” When asked about the sexist blowback that would likely follow her hiring, Balkovec said, “Three years ago, I was sleeping on a mattress that I had pulled out of a dumpster in Amsterdam. If you know yourself and you know where you came from, it doesn’t really matter.”

As the season began, Balkovec said her style would revolve around establishing elevated and clear expectations, embracing honesty and straightforwardness, and ensuring that every day holds significance. She told the University of New Mexico alumni publication Mirage Magazine, “My goal is really to know the names of the girlfriends, the dogs, the families of all the players. My goal is to develop them as young men and young people who have an immense amount of pressure on them. My goal is to support the coaches that are on the staff.”53

Balkovec told ESPN that she spent the months leading up to her managerial debut meticulously learning the rule book, and she didn’t shy away from saying she felt nervous. “I’m going to make mistakes, and they’re going to go on Twitter,” she said. “People are like, ‘Do you struggle with imposter syndrome?’ And I’m like, ‘Every f—ing day.’ You know why? Because I put myself in stressful situations. I’ve been nervous my whole life, in a good way.…If you’re not nervous about what you’re doing, then you’re just comfortable.”54

MANAGING THE TARPONS

Balkovec made her managerial debut on April 8, 2022, at Joker Marchant Stadium, home of the Lakeland Flying Tigers, a Detroit affiliate. Before the game, after signing numerous autographs, Balkovec said:

It’s been 10 years of just working to this point. … I was blatantly discriminated against back then. Some people say not to say that, but it’s just part of what has happened, and I think it’s important to say because it lets you know how much change has happened. So, blatant discrimination, that was 2010-ish, and now here we are 12 years later and I’m sitting here at a press conference as a manager.55

Though the spotlight was clearly on her, Balkovec said she didn’t feel as though she were making history. “I feel like the Yankees are making history,” she said. As Balkovec—the visiting manager—ran onto to the field toward the first-base coaching box in the top of the second inning, a chant resonated throughout the crowd of nearly 3,000: “Let’s go, Rachel!” That night, Balkovec would secure her inaugural victory as manager.

After the game, Jasson Dominguez, the Yankees’ top prospect at the time, talked about how much the game meant to him. “It was an honor to play in the game and I feel very humbled,” he said. “We just wanted to get that first win out of the way to give her some confidence in her new role and it was important to get that done today. I will never forget this day.”

Balkovec was presented with the game ball following the last out. But she had to give up her Tarpons jersey and hat. They too were en route to the Hall of Fame for public display.56

Before departing from the stadium, Balkovec stood in the outfield and absorbed the surroundings. “On one level this is drawing young people to the game, female or male, but this moment transcends sports,” she said. “They may not know about minor-league baseball, but they showed up for this moment. Sports always brings so many people together from different backgrounds and, in my case, a different gender. And once you’re together in that same room, you realize you’re all just human beings and you’re going after the same thing.”57

The Tarpons ended the year with a record of 61–67 (.477), finishing fifth in the six-team Florida State League West Division.58 As of August 2024, four Tarpons from Balkovec’s inaugural season have gone on to play in the major leagues, not counting the six big-leaguers she managed while they were on injury rehab assignments.59

In 2023, the Tarpons were 61–69 and finished last in their division.60 In one of many signs of the changes in baseball, Balkovec was thrown out of a June game by a female umpire, Isabella Robb, herself a trailblazer, one of only two women umpiring in the minor leagues in 2023.61 Balkovec’s two-year record in Tampa: 122–136.

As that second season neared its conclusion, Balkovec reflected on her journey, describing it as a “whirlwind” that sometimes felt slow and at others seemed to fly by. She noted that her two years in Tampa had been as much about strengthening previous lessons on leadership as they’d been about gaining new insights:

I had somebody ask me at the beginning of the year if I’m a player’s manager, and I thought for a second and I said “No, I’m not.” I think that my job at the lower levels is to really keep these guys accountable and keep them looking at what they can do to get better, and not taking their side as much. … Relentless accountability for the guys is really the best thing for them. Never feels good in the moment, probably not for me or for them. I don’t like to always be (the) bad cop, but I think it’s just what they might thank me for 10 years from now.62

A MOVE UP TO MIAMI

On January 9, 2024, the Associated Press reported that Balkovec would be leaving the Yankees organization to become the director of player development for the Miami Marlins, where new president of baseball operations Peter Bendix was reshaping the organization’s front office.63 Prior to bringing Balkovec on board, Bendix had hired former Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler as assistant general manager and Vinesh Kanthan, former assistant director of baseball operations for the Texas Rangers, as director of baseball operations.64 In his report on Balkovec’s hiring, which the organization did not announce until a week after the news broke, Jeff Passan of ESPN observed that Balkovec would have “arguably the second-most-taxing job in the organization behind Bendix’s. Farm directors oversee more than 150 players and dozens of managers and coaches.”65

“There’s a lot of us kind of starting fresh and new,” Balkovec told Kyle Sielaff and Stephen Strom of the Marlins Radio Network. “It’s all kind of a really blank slate for us personally, of kind of getting a fresh perspective on what’s going on inside the organization and where it could possibly go.”66

Balkovec emphasized the importance of being in the moment, controlling the controllables, and setting small goals. For example, she imagined telling a player, “‘Hey, 16-year-old Latin American player, your goal is to make it in the big leagues!’ That can be seven years from now. That can get really easily lost and forgotten about, and you can lose motivation. But, if I give you a small goal, right now, to accomplish that’s a part of that process, then you’re going to be much more likely to see that right in front of your face and to really push for it.”67

HANDLING CRITICISM

The interviews I have conducted with Balkovec in recent years, which would invariably become valuable learning experiences for me, have often centered around coping with criticism and navigating rejection. During a 2020 interview, I asked her how she manages when people make offensive remarks. She said:

I just feel bad for them. This is an unpopular opinion, but I do not believe that anyone bullies you; I believe you allow yourself to be bullied. Now, I would like to add, when you are an 11-year-old child in middle school, it is much more difficult to handle bullying. I was bullied all the way through high school, but luckily, when I was younger, my parents told me, “OK, you are being bullied, now what are you going to do about it?” My parents did not go to the principal to aid in my defense. They told me to handle the situation, which is exactly what I did. I learned how to stand up for myself in the face of bullying. Now, this is obviously not the case in all situations. There are some situations no child should have to go through, I completely understand that. However, for most of your average run-of-the-mill bullying, we need to take it upon ourselves to make our kids tougher and we need to make adults tougher as well to handle such bullying.68

She said she’s able to brush off any offensive criticism because it’s happened before and will happen again. “I can either choose to let that into my head, or I can look at them and think, ‘Wow, that’s really sad. I hope you do not have a daughter, I hope you do not have a wife, I hope you do not have a sister and I hope you do not have a mother, because that is embarrassing.’”69

Balkovec even goes so far as to say she’s “glad” for the discrimination she’s endured over the years. “This is a little counterintuitive,” she told GoLobos.com, “but I’m glad I was discriminated against. By the time I was full time, I had done multiple internships. I was super prepared. I’m glad my path was difficult, and it still serves me to this day.” She says that within five minutes of her entering a room, her presence and confident bilingual communication make any lingering prejudice disappear. “The players I’ve worked with, whether they like me or not, whether they agree with what I’m saying or not, they do respect me,” she said. “They recognize my passion, my hard work, and my expertise.”70

Player development departments have significantly expanded in recent years, with teams now employing roles that were fringe or nonexistent a decade ago, such as performance science, behavioral science, and baseball innovation. Teams are increasingly open to hiring specialists who are not former players. With the coaching landscape at all levels of professional baseball now far more expansive, Balkovec and other women have been given opportunities to demonstrate that their skills and knowledge can help organizations thrive.

BEYOND MANAGING AND BEYOND BASEBALL

When Balkovec was managing the Tarpons, she told The Athletic that the role would be a stepping stone toward her ultimate aspiration of becoming a general manager:

When you think about bridging the gap between being a minor-league hitting coach and general manager—that’s a pretty big gap. For a while I thought I needed to become a scout because, like, that’s what GMs do. But I love the coaching aspect and developing personal relationships with people. And when you say relationships, that usually means one person, but I love orchestrating a group of human beings and putting them together to do really difficult tasks, which is hard to do.71

Beyond the diamond and outside of the executive offices, Balkovec aims to serve as an inspiration, especially to young women and fathers with daughters. “I want to be a visible idea for young women,” she said. “I want to be out there. It’s something I’m very passionate about.”72

She talked about that during our telephone interview in 2020: “Hitting a baseball is the least of my concerns,” she said. “I am more concerned with: Did I make a man grow into a better father? A better husband? Did I make an impact on how dads view their daughters? How did I positively impact the community? That is what matters to me, that is what makes me happy.”73

Balkovec followed through on this sentiment during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, she created a GoFundMe called “Humans for Humans During COVID,” pledging to donate $5 of her own money daily while requesting a $10 minimum donation for every podcast and interview she did.74 When asked about this by WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, Balkovec said, “After we were sent home, I just kind of felt helpless, and I was like, ‘Wait, I’m not helpless. I can do something.’”75 She would end up raising over $6,000.76

After years of resilience and battle scars, Balkovec has emerged as a beacon of hope and inspiration on the baseball field and off, serving as a role model particularly for women in male-dominated fields, but also people from all walks of life.

BARRETT SNYDER holds an MS in Sports Management and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Drexel University. He is currently enrolled at West Chester University studying Exercise Science with a concentration in Sports Psychology.

NOTES

1 Elizabeth Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager Rachel Balkovec Has Worked Her Entire Life for This Moment,” ESPN, April 8, 2022, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33691782/new-york-yankees-minor-league-manager-rachel-balkovec-worked-entire-life-moment.

2 Merrill.

3 Anna Katherine Clemmons, “Title IX Stories: Yankees’ Class-A Manager Rachel Balkovec Never Gave up Quest,” Fox Sports, June 22, 2022, https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/tile-ix-stories-yankees-class-a-manager-rachel-balkovec-never-gave-up-quest; Barrett Snyder, “Cover Interview: Rachel Balkovec, New York Yankees,” Inside Pitch Magazine, March/April 2022, https://www.abca.org/magazine/magazine/2022-2-March_April_Cover_Interview_Rachel_Balkovec.aspx; Leslie Linthicum, “Former Lobo catcher climbs the MLB ladder,” Mirage Magazine, May 2, 2022, https://mirage.unm.edu/big-league/.

4 Snyder, “Cover Interview: Rachel Balkovec.”

5 Clemmons, “Title IX Stories.”

6 “2019–2020 Alumna of the Year: Rachel Balkovec ’05,” SKUTT Catholic, https://skuttcatholic.com/alumna-of-the-year-2020/.

7 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager Rachel Balkovec.”

8 Merrill.

9 Mac Engel, “How Erin Hartigan and Rachel Balkovec realized dreams with Bally Sports and NY Yankees,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 8, 2022, https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article260196760.html.

10 Lindsay Berra, “Cards Have Pioneer in Female Strength Coach Balkovec,” MLB.com, May 30, 2014, https://www.mlb.com/news/cards-have-pioneer-in-female-strength-coach-rachel-balkovec/c-77462528.

11 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager Rachel Balkovec.”

12 Engel, “How Erin Hartigan and Rachel Balkovec realized dreams.”

13 “2019–2020 Alumna of the Year.”

14 “Former Lobo Rachel Balkovec Makes History as First Female Minor League Manager,” GoLobos.com, January 11, 2022, https://golobos.com/news/2022/01/10/former-lobo-rachel-balkovec-makes-history-as-first-female-minor-league-manager/; Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager Rachel Balkovec.”

15 Snyder, “Cover Interview.”

16 Snyder, “Cover Interview.”

17 Tiona Donadio, “Rachel Balkovec Becomes First Female Minor League Manager,” Game Haus, January 14, 2022, https://thegamehaus.com/mlb/rachel-balkovec-first-female-minor-league-manager/2022/01/14/; Rachel Holland, “LSU Grad Rachel Balkovec Named Minor League Baseball Manager,” LSU Media Center, January 21, 2022, https://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2022/01/21balkovectarpons.rh.php; “About,” RachelBalkovec.com, https://www.rachelbalkovec.com/about.

18 Holland, “LSU Grad Rachel Balkovec.”

19 Alex Schroeder, “How Rachel Balkovec Made Baseball History,” WBUR, May 22, 2020, https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2020/05/22/rachel-balkovec-yankees-coach-mlb.

20 Schroeder.

21 Berra, “Cards Have Pioneer.”

22 Clemmons, “Title IX Stories.”

23 Berra. “Cards Have Pioneer.”

24 “First female Yankees hitting coach describes her long journey to the top,” CBS News, March 7, 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rachel-balkovec-first-female-yankees-hitting-coach-describes-her-long-journey-to-the-top/.

25 Clemmons, “Title IX Stories.”

26 Berra, “Cards Have Pioneer.”

27 Ken Davidoff. “Rachel Balkovec is only just beginning with historic Yankees job,” New York Post, January 14, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/01/12/rachel-balkovec-is-only-just-beginning-with-yankees-job/.

28 Berra, “Cards Have Pioneer.”

29 Berra.

30 Berra.

31 Berra.

32 Brian McTaggart, “Astros’ strength coach blazing trail as female,” MLB.com, February 27, 2016, https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-rachel-balkovec-breaking-down-barriers-c165143530; Nicole Brodeur, “How a West Seattle woman is making history with the New York Yankees,” Seattle Times, January 7, 2020, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/i-have-to-do-this-west-seattle-woman-helps-major-league-baseball-players-to-keep-their-eyes-on-the-ball/.

33 McTaggart. “Astros’ Strength Coach.”

34 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager.”

35 Adam Winkler, “Astros executive who hired Rachel Balkovec says her skill set was always there,” ABC13 Eyewitness News, January 14, 2022, https://abc13.com/first-female-manager-in-minors-rachel-balkovec-low-a-tampa-tarpons-new-york-yankees/11465008/.

36 Matt Young, “What Rachel Balkovec said about the Astros in her introductory press conference,” Chron, January 13, 2022, https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Rachel-Balkovec-Astros-Yankees-manager-first-woman-16770307.php.

37 Schroeder, “How Rachel Balkovec Made Baseball History.”

38 Snyder, “Cover Interview.”

39 Brodeur, “How a West Seattle woman is making history.”

40 “Rachel Balkovec Becomes First Female Manager in Affiliated Pro Baseball,” FloSoftball, January 12, 2022, https://www.flosoftball.com/articles/7334157-rachel-balkovec-becomes-first-female-manager-in-affiliated-pro-baseball.

41 Rob Terranova, “Yanks’ Balkovec sees dual responsibility,” MiLB.com, January 20, 2020, https://www.milb.com/news/q-a-with-new-york-yankees-hitting-instructor-rachel-balkovec-312444932.

42 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager.”

43 George A. King III, “Yankees hire Rachel Balkovec as minor league hitting coach,” New York Post, November 23, 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/11/23/yankees-hire-rachel-balkovec-as-minor-league-hitting-coach/; Bryan Hoch, “Rachel Balkovec tabbed Low-A Skipper,” MLB.com, January 12, 2022, https://www.mlb.com/news/rachel-balkovec-to-manage-yankees-low-a-team.

44 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager.”

45 “New York Yankees name Rachel Balkovec manager of the Tampa Tarpons,” Yes Network, January 11, 2022, https://www.yesnetwork.com/news/new-york-yankees-name-rachel-balkovec-manager-of-the-tampa-tarpons.

46 Christian Nicolussi, “How Sydney’s hitting coach smashed through US baseball’s glass ceiling,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 18, 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/sport/how-sydney-s-hitting-coach-smashed-through-us-baseball-s-glass-ceiling-20201217-p56ogp.html.

47 Michael Guzman. “Rachel Balkovec makes futures game history,” MLB.com, July 11, 2021, https://www.mlb.com/news/rachel-balkovec-futures-game-history.

48 Nick Selbe, “Report: Yankees to Hire Rachel Balkovec as First-Ever Female Manager in Minor Leagues,” Sports Illustrated, January 9, 2022, https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/01/10/yankees-hiring-rachel-balkovec-first-ever-woman-manager-minor-leagues.

49 Lindsey Adler, “How Yankees’ Rachel Balkovec became baseball’s first female manager: ‘It’s a credit to her,” The Athletic, January 12, 2022, https://theathletic.com/3067563/2022/01/12/how-yankees-rachel-balkovec-became-baseballs-first-female-manager-its-a-credit-to-her/.

50 Linthicum, “Former Lobo Catcher Climbs the MLB Ladder.”

51 Brendan Kuty, “Yankees introduce Rachel Balkovec as 1st woman manager: 7 takeaways,” NJ.com, January 12, 2022, https://www.nj.com/yankees/2022/01/yankees-introduce-rachel-balkovec-as-1st-woman-manager-7-takeaways.html; Associated Press, “Rachel Balkovec looks forward to breaking barrier as hitting coach,” Chicago Tribune, December 11, 2019, https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/national-sports/sns-mlb-yankees-rachel-balkovec-hitting-coach-20191211-ic32fojcvvfzhez2qbd6lwwtx4-story.html; Olivia Wotherspoon, “Rachel Balkovec Becomes First-Ever Female Minor League Manager,” The Owl Feed, February 1, 2022, https://theowlfeed.com/8878/sports/rachel-balkovec-becomes-first-ever-female-minor-league-manager/.

52 Adam Wells, “Rachel Balkovec Discusses Billie Jean King Interaction After Being Hired by Yankees,” Bleacher Report, January 12, 2022, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10023617-rachel-balkovec-discusses-billie-jean-king-interaction-after-being-hired-by-yankees.

53 Linthicum, “Former Lobo Catcher Climbs the MLB Ladder.”

54 Merrill, “New York Yankees Minor League Manager.”

55 Mark Didtler, “Rachel Balkovec cheered, wins debut managing Yanks affiliate,” AP News, April 9, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/mlb-business-sports-baseball-lakeland-3fdb8e38d132d9aef2a2ea65dfaabfdc.

56 Didtler; Holly Cain. “Rachel Bakovec is managing just fine, thank you,” OSDBSports, April 12, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20220412180606/https://www.osdbsports.com/editorials/rachel-bakovec-managing-just-fine-thank-you.

57 Cain.

58 “2022 Florida State League,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=96464f9a.

59 “2022 Tampa Tarpons,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=8b39a9c4.

60 “2023 Florida State League,” Baseball Reference https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?id=5da9dd89.

61 Associated Press, “Yankees Minor League Manager Rachel Balkovec Ejected from Game by Female Umpire,” Toronto Star, July 1, 2023, https://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/milb/yankees-minor-league-manager-rachel-balkovec-ejected-from-game-by-female-umpire/article_e48dab77-c8e5-5a40-bac5-2346b149d53b.html.

62 Didtler, “Yankees minor league manager Rachel Balkovec wrapping up second season with Single-A Tampa,” Local10.com, September 7, 2023, https://www.local10.com/sports/2023/09/07/yankees-minor-league-manager-rachel-balkovec-wrapping-up-second-season-with-single-a-tampa/.

63 Alanis Thames, “Miami Marlins in agreement to hire Rachel Balkovec as director of player development, AP source says,” January 9, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/marlins-rachel-balkovec-05ee0f4743d1442ff8b5197a581442c3. Balkovec was not the first female farm director/director of player development to be hired by an MLB organization. The Astros hired Sara Goodrum, who had been hitting coordinator for the Milwaukee Brewers, as farm director in February 2022. Goodrum occupied that role in both 2022 and 2023.

64 Christina De Nicola, “Front-Office hires Kanthan, Kapler debut at WM,” December 4, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/marlins-hire-vinesh-kanthan-as-director-of-baseball-operations.

65 Jeff Passan, “Marlins Hire Trailblazer Rachel Balkovec as Farm Director, Sources Say,” ESPN, January 9, 2024, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39273180/marlins-hire-trailblazer-balkovec-farm-director-sources-say.

66 Laura Georgia, “As director of player development, Balkovec speaks on Marlins’ culture and expectations,” Fish on First, May 9, 2024, https://fishonfirst.com/news-rumors/miami-marlins/rachel-balkovec-player-development-culture/.

67 Georgia.

68 Rachel Balkovec, interview by Barrett Snyder.

69 Balkovec.

70 Linthicum, “Former Lobo Catcher Climbs the MLB Ladder.”

71 Adler, “How Yankees’ Rachel Balkovec.”

72 Linthicum, “Former Lobo Catcher Climbs the MLB Ladder.”

73 Rachel Balkovec, interview by Barrett Snyder.

74 Rachel Balkovec, “Humans for Humans During COVID,” GoFundMe, Accessed August 25, 2024, https://www.gofundme.com/f/humans-for-humans-during-covid.

75 Schroeder, “How Rachel Balkovec Made Baseball History.”

76 Balkovec, “Humans for Humans During COVID.”

Gavy Cravath led the National League in home runs six times in seven seasons. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

What more is there to say about Clifford Carlton “Gavy” “Cactus” Cravath, the enigmatic Deadball Era slugger relegated to the dustbin of baseball history by George Herman Ruth? How about this: He was likely the first player to hit 200 home runs in affiliated baseball. Babe Ruth was, of course, the first to 200 homers in the majors (and first to 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700), but Cravath, whose 20-year career was split almost evenly between the majors and minors, was almost certainly the first to reach 200 counting all leagues. His numbers are there in the record book—119 homers in the majors, 107 in the minors, and seven in the 1903 “independent” Pacific Coast League.

Yet this accomplishment has seldom been acknowledged—at least not for the past 100 years. In August 1920, The Sporting News asserted that Cravath’s career home run total, which it reckoned at 218, “still holds out a challenge to the Babe.”1 (Babe met the challenge late in the 1923 season, just months after Cravath retired.)2

Cravath’s 233 homers, 210 of them collected in the pre-1920 Deadball Era, should cement his status as the greatest home-run hitter before Ruth. It puts him well ahead of Roger Connor, the Hall of Fame nineteenth century slugger whose 138 big-league blasts are often cited as the pre-Ruth standard; adding his known minor league homers only gets Connor to 148.

And it begs the question, why the heck isn’t Cravath in the Hall of Fame already? As with many things Gavy (nearly always spelled Gavvy by the press, but Cravath himself preferred a single “v”) the question spurs debate.3 Let’s start with some facts in Cravath’s favor.

• He dominated the home-run category as no player before him.
• He set the twentieth century single-season homer mark in the majors (24 in 1915), nearly matched the minors mark with 29 in 1911 (Ping Bodie had 30 in 1910), held the twentieth century’s career homer mark before Ruth, and was the big bat on Philadelphia’s first and only National League pennant winner in a 67-year span.
• He led the National League in home runs six times and the majors four times. Counting the American Association, he won eight home run titles in 10 seasons and missed making it 10 straight by just four homers.4 From 1912 through 1919 he led all of major league baseball in home runs (116) and RBIs (665) and led the National League in total bases, slugging average, and on-base plus slugging average (OPS).

Even in Ruth’s breakout year of 1919, an aging Cravath’s performance was notable. His National League-leading 12 home runs were a distant second to Babe’s record-shattering 29, but were compiled in only 214 at-bats. Applying Cravath’s homer percentage to the same number of plate appearances as Ruth would’ve had the leaderboard at Ruth 29, Cravath 25, everyone else 10 or fewer.

As Ruth was en route to hitting an astronomical 54 homers in 1920, The Sporting News trumpeted Cravath as “the real champion” but conceded, “The Babe may in time make even Cravath’s record look sick.”5 In the era of the lively ball, it didn’t take long.

Yet Cravath also showed what he, too, could do with the live ball. As a 40-year-old playing manager for the Pacific Coast League’s Salt Lake City Bees in 1921 and 41-year-old pinch hitter for the American Association’s Minneapolis Millers in 1922, he posted modern-style power numbers: 22 home runs in 431 at-bats, a .316 batting average, and .527 slugging average.

Modern metrics also put Cravath in exclusive company. His ballpark-adjusted 151 OPS+ (meaning no Baker Bowl distortion, which will be addressed shortly) places him 38th all-time (tied with Honus Wagner and ahead of most Hall of Famers), and 14th among players from age 31 (ranking between Willie Mays and Hank Aaron). His OPS+ for 1912–19 leads all National Leaguers and trails only Ty Cobb, Ruth, Tris Speaker, and Joe Jackson. He twice led National League position players (excluding pitchers) in Wins Above Replacement (WAR). His Offensive Wins Above Replacement (oWAR) of 28.7 from 1912–17 is best in the league.

Baseball historian and statistical analyst Bill James has ranked Cravath as the third-greatest right fielder from age 32–36, after Ruth and Aaron.6 So the question becomes, why isn’t Cravath better appreciated?

Here are the main arguments made against him, which we’ll address in turn:

• He spent too much time in the minors.
• His first big-league trial was a flop.
• He hit a lot of cheap homers at Baker Bowl.
• He seldom homered on the road.
• He bombed in his only World Series.
• He was a one-dimensional player: couldn’t field, couldn’t run.

SPENT TOO MUCH TIME IN THE MINORS

Cravath had a truncated major-league career. He didn’t make it to the majors until he was 27 and initially failed to catch on, returning to the minors and not becoming a big-league regular until he was 31. His big-league numbers, including WAR of 33, are impressive for being compiled in the equivalent of only eight seasons, but fall short of the usual Hall of Fame standards. But Cravath’s prolonged time in the minors is a reflection of how baseball operated in the early 1900s, not a verdict on his ability.

The minors weren’t “minor league” as the term applies today. Stringent draft rules, the majors’ Northeast US orientation, and competitive salaries kept many talented players in the minors for much or all of their careers. The Midwest-situated American Association, where Cravath thrived, was particularly strong, with rosters dominated by major leaguers on the way up or down.7 The high stature of minor league ball was reflected in the iconic T206 series of tobacco cards, issued from 1909 to 1911. A fourth of the entire set, 134 cards, depicts minor leaguers—among them “Cravath, Minneapolis.”8

“On the whole the leading clubs of the American Association could give battle on even terms to the second division teams of the majors,” Baseball Magazine editor F.C. Lane wrote in 1914.9 A newspaper story reporting on Cravath’s 1912 signing with the Phillies observed that “outside of the major leagues the American Association boasts of the best twirlers in the land.”10

If the Pacific Coast League, where Cravath spent five formative and productive seasons, had not yet earned its reputation as “the third major league,” it was already a respected feeder of West Coast talent to the “eastern” leagues. Cravath’s teammates on the Los Angeles Angels included past, present, and future major league stars in Dummy Hoy, Frank Chance, Hal Chase, and Fred Snodgrass.

Cravath’s major league record is missing what was arguably his peak: 1910 and 1911, when at ages 29 and 30 he tore up the American Association. “No one can tell me that I wasn’t hitting well enough for a berth in the majors at that time,” Cravath recounted for Baseball Magazine in 1918. “I know I was. I was hitting then better than I can now…I finally managed to slug my way back into the Majors, but three years were gone.”11

Big league teams wanted him, but draft rules bound him to Minneapolis. American Association clubs, Lane wrote, “have frequently, in pursuit of their own best business interests, found it advisable to smother talent which would have found a freer expression in the very highest circuits of the country, as in the case of Cravath.”12

FIRST BIG-LEAGUE TRIAL WAS A FLOP

Cravath entered the majors in 1908, fresh from being chosen his PCL team’s Most Valuable Player.13 Fourteen months later he was back in the minors. In 94 games with the Boston Red Sox in 1908 he batted .256 with a single home run. In 22 games for the Chicago White Sox and Washington Nationals in the spring of 1909 he batted .161.

Even Cravath admirer Lane declared, “He was the property of three American League clubs in succession…failing to make good in every case.” Nearly 90 years later Bill James rendered the same verdict: “He failed trials with Boston, Washington, and Chicago in the American League due to illness, injuries, and competition from other new acquisitions like Tris Speaker and Clyde Milan.”14 Cravath himself expressed disappointment with his performance, blaming it in part on not being played regularly.15

But look again: If his wasn’t a stellar debut, in the context of the Deadball Era it was still a solid rookie showing. Cravath’s 1908 batting average was 17 points higher than the league average. He hit 11 triples to go with the one homer. His .737 OPS was a significant 139 points above the league average and second-highest on the Red Sox. Despite playing only part-time, he compiled 1.7 WAR, fourth-best among Boston non-pitchers.

His brief stint with Chicago, often described as a “slow start,” contained hidden gems: 19 walks in 19 games, a robust .406 on-base percentage, and one of only four home runs the White Sox would hit all year. “That dreadful and historic bat of Cravath’s is still pulling the Sox out of tight places,” the Los Angeles Herald reported in early May. “It isn’t so much the hitting he is doing as the opponents’ fear of what he might do. Consequently, the pitchers keep passing him…”16

The newspaper expressed disbelief when White Sox owner Charles Comiskey shipped him to Washington in a multi-player trade: “That Cravy, stick marvel that he is, should be let go by Comiskey, when the Windy City papers have been filled with wonderful accounts of his timely hitting and steadiness, and one scribe even went so far as to remark that ‘Cravath can hold center garden for the rest of his life if he desires,’ comes as a shock to his friends and admirers in Los Angeles…Cravath may give Comiskey cause for regret that he let him go, for the stocky slugger seems ripe for sensational performance.”17

It’s debatable whether Cravath’s return to the minors after a 15-day, three-game stop in Washington was even a demotion. The Nationals were on their way to 110 losses and manager Joe Cantillon was on his way out. But Cantillon owned a piece of the Minneapolis Millers, which were operated by his brother Mike. In a blatant but legal conflict of interest, Joe sent Washington players to Minneapolis to help Mike assemble an American Association powerhouse. The next season, Joe took over as the Millers manager and won three straight championships.18

“When I went to Washington the club was in sad shape,” Cravath told Lane. “[Joe Cantillon] told me from the first that he intended to take me to Minneapolis with him.”19

Cravath’s 1909 AA season was solid, 1910 and 1911 were spectacular. He led the league in homers, doubles, hits, and total bases both seasons. Cravath, a right-handed batter, is said to have honed an opposite-field stroke to take advantage of his home Nicollet Park’s short right field and high fence—a configuration uncannily similar to that of Baker Bowl, which he was soon to master.20

In the 1912 pre-season several big-league teams vied for Cravath, including the White Sox, apparently undeterred by his supposedly disappointing 1909 audition.21 The ensuing skirmish required the intervention of the National Commission, which seized upon an apparent clerical error to free Cravath from his Millers contract and award him to the Phillies.22

This time he was in the majors to stay.

CHEAP HOMERS IN BAKER BOWL

A disproportionate 78% of Cravath’s major league homers, including all 19 of his major league-leading 1914 clouts, were hit in his “cigar box” home ballpark.23 But was Cravath lucky or was he opportunistic? From 1912 through 1919 he hit a fifth of the Baker Bowl homers with less than a twentieth of the plate appearances. Cravath hit 60% as many homers as all visiting teams put together. About half of his shots went over Baker Bowl’s 40-foot right-field wall, a mere 279½ feet down the line and about 320 feet in the power alley.24 That was an inviting target for left-handed batters but required opposite-field power from Cravath.

He bristled at the critics: “If I could drop a lot of home runs over that fence there was nothing to prevent a good many other sluggers who have been on the club the past many years from doing the same,” Cravath said. He added, “That right-field fence isn’t always a friend…I have hit that fence a good many times with a long drive that would have kept on going for a triple or a home run.”25

SELDOM HOMERED ON THE ROAD

This is a corollary to the above argument: Take away Baker Bowl, you take away Cravath’s power. Indeed, he only hit 26 road homers. But that figure, paltry as it looks, typifies sluggers of the 1910s (Ruth excepted). Cravath’s percentage of road homers to plate appearances slightly trails Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb, roughly matches Frank Schulte, and exceeds Home Run Baker, Heinie Zimmerman, Larry Doyle and teammates Fred Luderus and Sherry Magee.

And note that Cobb hit 46 inside-the-park homers, a whopping 39% of his career total; Cravath only hit four. Perhaps big parks benefited the fleet-footed Ty as much as a small park helped Gavy.

BOMBED IN HIS ONLY WORLD SERIES

One postseason shouldn’t define a career. But the 1915 World Series was indeed a disappointment for the record-setting home run champ. Cravath in 16 at-bats managed only two hits and no homers and struck out six times as the Phillies fell to the Boston Red Sox in five games. In the first inning of the final contest he came to bat with the bases loaded and none out and grounded into a pitcher-to-catcher-to-first double play. (Later accounts would even claim that Cravath pulled a “boner” by bunting on a full count, a description unsupported by contemporaneous newspaper stories.)26

Cravath’s struggles—reporters’ creative epithets for him included “fat baboon,” “rich-hued lemon,”27 and “a plain bust”28—were contrasted with the stellar all-around play of Boston outfielders Harry Hooper and Duffy Lewis, who between them hit three homers in Baker Bowl.29 Phillies manager Pat Moran came to Cravath’s defense, telling the Washington Times that his slugger “was all crippled up, and I know lots of ball players that would not have even attempted to play with their legs in the condition Gavvy’s [sic] are.”30

Still Cravath displayed his power, but this time in the wrong ballpark: the new, cavernous Braves Field, where the Red Sox moved their World Series home games because it had more seats than Fenway Park. “Cravath got three blows that in Philadelphia would have been home runs,” Grantland Rice wrote.31 William A. Phelon seconded the observation: “Cravath, single-handed, would have won the series at almost any other ballyard in the land, for three of his gigantic flies were pulled down by the Boston outfielders so far from home that they were sure home runs on other grounds.”32 By contrast, Hooper and Lewis’ homers didn’t even make it out of Baker Bowl—they landed in the temporary outfield seats.33

Nor was Cravath entirely unproductive: His hits were a double and a triple and he drove in the go-ahead run in the Phillies’ lone victory. The Red Sox respected the right-handed-batting Cravath to the end, keeping their brilliant young southpaw Babe Ruth off the mound.34

A ONE-DIMENSIONAL PLAYER

Cravath was slow. He admitted as much.35 But he wasn’t Ernie-Lombardi slow–he averaged almost 10 triples and 10 stolen bases a year. In his early PCL days he might even have been fast, as evidenced by 183 stolen bases over five seasons. A simple explanation for his lack of speed is that by the time he got to Philadelphia he was 31, already aging in baseball years.

In the field he wasn’t Dick-Stuart bad. He threw well, three times leading National League outfielders in assists. In 1913 Baseball Magazine described him as “an earnest and industrious worker” in the field.36 But most contemporary accounts disparage his fielding.37 That aligns with his -9.5 Defensive WAR (dWAR).

Yet how much should those shortcomings count against him? The Hall of Fame includes other sluggers who didn’t run or field well—Ralph Kiner, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Thome, and “Big Papi” David Ortiz to name a few. They’re honored for what they could do, not for what they couldn’t.

But unlike them, Cravath played before his time— a long-ball hitter in a low-scoring era that lionized speed and defense and measured offense almost exclusively by batting average. Today he’s lost in time—too ancient to interest most baseball fans, captured only in a few black-and-white photographs and tethered to shoulder-shrugging dead-ball stats.

Historians and statisticians have tools to rectify misperceptions. The more we study Cravath, the better his chance to someday make the Hall.

CONCLUSION

Even though advanced metrics were many years away, some peers intuited that Cravath’s value wasn’t being accurately gauged. Prescient articles in Baseball Magazine featured Cravath as Exhibit A for why the game needed a better offensive statistic than batting average. “Jake Daubert, reckoned on any sane basis, is not equal to that of Cactus Cravath by a very wide margin. In fact, the two are not in the same class,” Lane wrote in 1916. “And yet, according to the present system, Daubert is the better batter of the two. It is grotesqueries such as this that bring the whole foundation of baseball statistics into disrepute.”38

Lane, anticipating Bill James’ Runs Created formula, proffered a system that gave weighted run values to singles, doubles, triples, and homers and used it to show that Cravath was 42% more productive than Daubert in 1915, even though Daubert had out-hit Cravath .301 to .285.39 (Lane’s formula holds up well: More than a century later, Baseball Reference’s Runs Created per Game measure, (RC/G), gives Cravath a 52% advantage).

John J. Ward wrote in 1918 that Cravath “has suffered more than any other player now in baseball from the absurdity of a system which gives a batter as much credit for a scratch single as for a home run with three men on bases…Long considered by the pitchers the most dangerous hitter in his circuit, he has never yet received the recognition which is his due or the proper rewards to which his talents have entitled him.”40

Ward said that in a “system built upon total bases” the .280-hitting Cravath topped Edd Roush, Zack Wheat, Heinie Groh and every other .300-hitting National Leaguer in 1917.41 Ward’s “system” would later have a name: slugging average.

Cravath argued his case colorfully: “Short singles are like left-hand jabs in the boxing ring, but a home run is a knock-out punch…Some players steal bases with hook slides and speed. I steal bases with my bat.”42

But it took Ruth to make home runs the coin of the baseball realm. The game moved on from Cravath and Cravath moved on from baseball. He returned home to Laguna Beach, California, invested in real estate, enjoyed fishing and lawn bowling, and, despite the lack of a law degree, spent decades as the elected justice of the peace. When he died in 1963 at age 82 some locals were surprised to learn that Judge Cravath had once been a baseball star.43

The Hall of Fame has no plaque for Cravath, but it does have a file on him that includes a questionnaire he filled out many years after his last game. One of the questions was, “If you had it all to do over, would you play professional baseball?” Cravath’s terse response knocked it out of the park: “At present prices yes.”44 

RICK REIFF is Editor at Large of the Orange County (California) Business Journal. He lives in Gavy Cravath’s hometown of Laguna Beach, roots for and suffers with the American League franchises in Chicago, Cleveland, and Anaheim, and cherishes his 1959 Topps Keystone Combo (Fox-Aparicio) baseball card. He has written thousands of news stories. This is his first article for SABR.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Baseball Reference’s databases and their Stathead research engine, which were used extensively for statistics in this article. Also thanks to William Victor, who crunched some of the numbers. And thanks to SABR’s online newspaper archives, the Library of Congress’ digitized newspapers, and the Giamatti Research Center of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Laguna Beach Historical Society for most of the news and magazine citations.

NOTES

1 “Here’s the Real ‘Champion,’” The Sporting News, August 19, 1920, 3. The article credited Cravath with seven more home runs at that point in his career than does Baseball Reference.

2 According to Baseball Reference, Ruth hit his 234th professional home run on September 13, 1923. Cravath’s career total was 233.

3 Sportswriters seem to have universally preferred “Gavvy,” but it is well documented that Cravath always spelled his nickname “Gavy,” including in his signature as a judge in Orange County.

4 Baseball Reference. Cravath was one shy of the National League home run crown in 1916 and three short in 1912.

5 “Here’s the Real ‘Champion,’” The Sporting News.

6 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 807.

7 Baseball-Reference. One-time major leaguers comprise roughly three-fourths of 1910 American Association rosters.

8 “1909–11 White Border T206 Guide,” Throwback Sports Cards, https://www.throwbacksportscards.com/1909-11-t206-tobacco-baseball-card-set.

9 F.C. Lane, “Cactus Cravath, the Man Who Started Late,” Baseball Magazine, June, 1914, 32.

10 “Western Phenom Signs with Phils,” 1912, unidentified newspaper clip in the Gavvy Cravath player file, Giamatti Research Center, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, NY.

11 “Cactus” Cravath, “What the Batting Records Have Cost Me,” Baseball Magazine, July, 1918.

12 Lane, “Cactus Cravath,” 32

13 Although some references, including obits, state that Cravath won the PCL MVP Award, the award was not first given until 1927.

14 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract, 807.

15 Lane, “Cactus Cravath,” 28.

16 A.E. Dunning, “Timely Topics,” Los Angeles Herald, May 4, 1909, 4.

17 A.E. Dunning, “Timely Topics,” Los Angeles Herald, May 17, 1909, 6.

18 Terry Bohn, “Joe Cantillon,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/joe-cantillon/.

19 Lane, “Cactus Cravath,” 28.

20 Bill Swank, “Gavy Cravath,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/gavy-cravath/.

21 Ernest J. Lanigan, “Gavvy Might Break Home Run Mark If Played More,” undated newspaper clipping, Gavvy Cravath player file, Giamatti Research Center; “Outfielder Cravath Is Awarded to Phillies,” undated newspaper clipping, Gavvy Cravath player file, Giamatti Research Center.

22 “Outfielder Cravath Is Awarded to Phillies.”

23 “Baker Bowl was often described as ‘tiny’ and frequently laughed at as a ‘cigar box’ or ‘band box.’” Lost Ballparks, Lawrence S. Ritter, 1992, 10.

24 Accounts vary of Baker Bowl’s precise dimensions in the 1910s, but there is agreement that the distances to right field and right-center field were short and the fence/wall was high.

25 Cactus Cravath, “The Secret of Home Run Hitting,” Baseball Magazine, July, 1917.

26 In December 1915, Baseball Magazine ’s Wm. A. Phelon described the play as a bunt. In the December 2, 1926, The Sporting News’ Jim Nasium (pen name of Edgar Forrest Wolfe) said it was a bunt and one of the “historical boners of baseball.” The Sporting News even mentioned the episode in its June 8, 1963, obituary of Cravath, adding that it was manager Pat Moran who called for the surprise play. But not a single game-day story examined for this article mentioned a bunt. It was described as “an easy grounder” by the New York Tribune, “a bounder” by the New York Evening World and Washington (DC) Evening Star, “Cravath rolled to Foster” by the Richmond Times Dispatch, “a flabby little hopper” by the New York Sun, and “hit to the pitcher” by the Washington Times.

27 Wm. A. Phelon, “How I Picked the Loser,” Baseball Magazine, December, 1915.

28 William B. Hanna, “Red Sox Earn 1915 Baseball Championship,” The (New York) Sun, October 14, 1915, 10.

29 Phelon, “How I Picked the Loser.”

30 Pat Moran, “Manager of Phillies Admits He is Disappointed,” Washington Times , October 14, 1915, 13.

31 Grantland Rice, Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, October 14, 1915, 11.

32 Phelon, “How I Picked the Loser.”

33 Phelon, “How I Picked the Loser.”

34 Swank.

35 “You know, I am not much of a base runner. They call me leaden footed, and I admit it.” F.C. Lane, 1914, 108.

36 “The All-American Baseball Club,” Baseball Magazine, December, 1913.

37 One of many examples: “His fielding and his base running have never been above mediocrity.” F.C. Lane, 1914, 116.

38 F.C. Lane, “Why the System of Batting Averages Should Be Changed,” Baseball Magazine , March, 1916.

39 Lane, “Batting Averages,” 1916.

40 John J. Ward, “The Proposed Reform in Batting Records,” Baseball Magazine, July, 1918.

41 Ward.

42 Lane, “Cactus Cravath,” 31.

43 Swank.

44 Gavvy Cravath player file, Giamatti Research Center. The center said the undated questionnaire is from the early 1960s.

One of baseball’s highest-regarded feats is the cycle: “A single, double, triple, and home run (not necessarily in that order) hit by a player in the same game.”1 In the history of major league baseball (1876–2023) there have been 351 documented regular-season cycles, including seven in the Negro Leagues.2 The distribution of the starting defensive positions of the players who achieved these cycles is provided in Table 1.

No starting pitcher has ever achieved the feat.3 With the notable exception of Shohei Ohtani, pitchers have rarely batted since 1973 in the AL and since 2022 in the NL. Thus, the feat of achieving a cycle is limited to non-pitchers, and the cycle has become a de facto “Batter’s Cycle” (BC). What about pitchers? How about a cycle exclusively for pitchers?

The three principal goals of the research described in this article are:

1. Devise a viable definition for a Pitcher’s Cycle that is equivalent to the Batter’s Cycle.
2. Compile a list of all Pitcher’s Cycles from 1893 forward.
3. Highlight the special features and characteristics of the various Pitcher’s Cycles.

To pursue the first objective, I looked up various definitions for the word “cycle.” I wanted to adhere to the basic definition of a cycle, “a sequence of a recurring succession of events or phenomena,” and create an equivalent to the batter’s cycle: a series of pitching achievements commensurate to a batter collecting the series of types of safe hit.4 A batter’s primary objective is to get on base, which he can achieve entirely by himself by getting a safe hit, of which there are the four types. A pitcher’s primary objective is to retire the batter, which he can do entirely by himself by striking out the batter, who occupies one of the nine positions in the batting order.5

Since a regulation baseball game consists of nine innings, a seemingly reasonable cycle would require the pitcher to strike out at least one batter in each inning. However, this definition has a couple issues. First, not all games last nine innings. Some are shortened due to weather, some go into extra innings, and some forego the bottom of the ninth because the home team is ahead. This variability would lead to different categories of Pitcher’s Cycles, such as a six-inning PC or a seven-inning PC. Second, a player could achieve a PC by striking out a few players multiple times. While striking out at least one batter in each inning of a regulation nine-inning game is a noteworthy accomplishment, it doesn’t merit the same level of regard accorded to the BC.

Since there are nine different players in the batting lineup, a reasonable cycle would be for the pitcher to strike out each of the opposing batters at least once in a game. One difficulty with this idea is that a player could be replaced before the pitcher had a chance to face him. To address this circumstance, the concept can be modified slightly: the pitcher must strike out at least one batter from each of the nine recurring batting slots. This would still require the hurler to fan at least nine different batters in the same game. And since, in a regulation nine-inning game, the batting order recurs at least three times, adherence to the basic definition of a cycle is achieved. Furthermore, in striking out at least one player from each of the nine batting slots, the pitcher achieves a complete set (series) of strikeout victims.

Thus, my definition of a Pitcher’s Cycle: “The series of at least one player from each of the nine repeating batting slots (not necessarily in order) struck out by one pitcher in the same game.”

My definition of a Pitcher’s Cycle essentially paraphrases The Dickson Baseball Dictionary definition of a Batter’s Cycle.6 Similarly, while a batter hits for his cycle, a pitcher hurls for his cycle. A batter collects specific hits for his cycle while a pitcher collects specific strikeouts for his cycle. While the Pitcher’s Cycle requires a player to pitch at least three innings, it does not require the player to be a starting pitcher. Moreover, just like there is no limit to the number of plate appearances it takes a player to achieve the Batter’s Cycle, there is no limit to the number of innings it takes a player to achieve the Pitcher’s Cycle.7

With a viable definition of a Pitcher’s Cycle in place, the next step was identifying the players who accomplished the feat. The 1893 season was chosen as the starting point because that was the first year for the current 60’ 6″ distance between the pitcher’s rubber and home plate.

RESEARCH PROCEDURE

Since a player needs a minimum of nine strikeouts to accomplish the Pitcher’s Cycle, I started by generating a list of pitchers who amassed at least 9 strikeouts in an “ML” game. “ML” is enclosed in quotation marks to indicate that only the National, American, and Federal Leagues were considered for the research described in this article. My research on Pitcher’s Cycles achieved in the Negro Leagues has been initiated and the results will be disseminated as soon as possible.

For the 1893–1900 period, I utilized the game-by-game pitching statistics provided in the ICI (Information Concepts Incorporated) sheets, digitized versions of which were graciously provided to me by Retrosheet’s Dave Smith. For the 1901–2023 period, I used Baseball Reference’s indispensable Stathead search engine. I queried for pitchers with nine or more strikeouts, then examined the box score and play-by-play to ascertain the batting order of the victims.

There are 87 games from the 1901–1915 period for which the box scores omit strikeout information about the batters. Fortunately, Jonathan Frankel has done some phenomenal research on strikeouts for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He graciously provided information that filled many of the gaps.8 Nonetheless, 54 games remain for which it has not yet been determined whether the pitcher achieved a Pitcher’s Cycle. See Supplement A below for pertinent information for these 54 games. Finally, John Rickert graciously wrote a computer program using the Retrosheet database to confirm the validity of my methodology for the 1901–2023 seasons.9

RESULTS

From 1893 to 2023, there were (at least) 483 Pitcher’s Cycles by 276 different players, along with 316 Batter’s Cycles by 279 different players.10 Despite a difference of 167, the two sums are in the same ballpark and have the same order of magnitude. Table 2 provides a decade-by-decade comparison and Figure 1 provides a graphical comparison of the corresponding cumulative numbers.

Table 2 shows that the bulk of the 167-cycle difference has occurred in the last few decades; starting in 1990 and picking up speed in 2010. Thus, while the number of Batter’s Cycles was greater than the number of Pitcher’s Cycles for nearly every decade up to the 1940s, the situation has been reversed since the 1950s. The total number of Pitcher’s Cycles surpassed the total number of Batter’s Cycles during the 1990s. From 1949 to 2019, home runs increased by 81.3% while strikeouts increased by 139.9%.11 Pitchers are throwing harder and batters are focused on exit velocity and launch angles. These changes unavoidably lead to more strikeouts and more Pitcher’s Cycles.

(Click image to enlarge)

Because the Pitcher’s Cycle is a new concept, it features several aspects that merit exposition, such as a team-by-team summary of PCs, the chronology of the career leaders, and postseason PCs. These topics and others are covered in the Appendix and Supplement below.12 The remainder of this article will focus on these four topics:

1. Relief Pitcher’s Cycles
2. Perfect Pitcher’s Cycles
3. Super Pitcher’s Cycles
4. The only major-league player with both a Batter’s Cycle and a Pitcher’s Cycle

1. RELIEF PITCHER’S CYCLES

As seen in Table 3, Six of the players who achieved a Pitcher’s Cycle did so in relief. Also, as described in Appendix G, Jesse Barnes earned a relief PC in the 1921 World Series.

Rube Marquard took over for Christy Mathewson after the first inning. Big Six pitched an uneventful first inning, but in the bottom of the frame, the Giants scored 13 runs. “Having the game on ice, [manager John] McGraw made several changes in his lineup. He took Mathewson out of the box, so as to save him for another game and he put Marquard in the box.”13 Marquard carved out his Pitcher’s Cycle as the Giants emerged victorious, 19–5. Mathewson was credited with the win and Marquard was retroactively credited with a save.14

Gene Conley essentially pitched a complete game that he did not start. Starter Seth Morehead got rocked by the Cubs in the first frame, allowing a single to leadoff batter Tony Taylor, hitting the next batter, George Altman, walking the third batter, Lee Walls, and surrendering a bases-clearing double to clean-up hitter Ernie Banks. Conley came in from the bullpen at this point. The fireman got next batter, Bobby Thomson, to fly out, but then yielded an RBI triple to John Goryl before striking out Alvin Dark and Cal Neeman. Conley pitched rest of game, striking out 11 and blanking the Cubs for nine innings (a full-route pseudo-shutout).15 Unfortunately, the Phillies were unable to overcome the first-inning deficit, losing 4–3. Morehead was charged with the loss. “Gene Conley pitched nine shutout innings for the Philadelphia Phillies today,” wrote the Associated Press, “but had nothing to show for his efforts except self-satisfaction. In all, he fanned 11, two shy of the club record held by Ray Benge, Robin Roberts, and Jack Sanford, and whiffed every Cub in the starting lineup at least once. Conley, now figured to move into the Phils starting rotation, was obviously pleased with his performance. ‘I’m ready now,’ he said after the game. ‘This is just what I needed. I’m ready for whatever the skipper (Eddie Sawyer) wants me to do, starting or relieving.’”16

Dave Hillman, who started for the Cubs in Conley’s relief Pitcher’s Cycle, achieved his own relief PC just a few weeks later. In an “It’s-déjà-vu-all-over-again” twist, Seth Morehead, who had been traded from the Phillies to the Cubs on May 12, was once again the starting pitcher. Morehead walked Dodgers leadoff batter Junior Gilliam and gave up a single to Charlie Neal before he struck out Don Demeter. He then intentionally walked Gil Hodges immediately before Rip Repulski smashed a bases-clearing double. After walking Dick Gray, he was replaced by Hillman. Hillman threw a wild pitch to Johnny Roseboro, then walked him intentionally. Hillman then got things under control by striking out pinch hitter Duke Snider and opposing pitcher Stan Williams. Hillman pitched brilliantly for 72⁄3 innings to complete the bottom of the eighth. In the top of the ninth, the Cubs rallied for a pair of runs to take a 7–5 lead. In the bottom of the ninth, Hillman walked Snider to lead off the inning. Don Elston was then summoned from the bullpen and retired the next three batters to secure the triumph for Chicago. Elston was rewarded (retroactively) with a save and Hillman was awarded the W, a nice complement to his second Pitcher’s Cycle. He earned the first as a starting pitcher in 1958.

Dick Radatz earned his Pitcher’s Cycle in an ideal payback manner. Radatz, nicknamed “The Monster,” achieved his PC in a duel of relief pitchers at Tiger Stadium on June 11, 1963. Going into the bottom of the seventh, the BoSox clung to a 3–2 lead. Southpaw Wilbur Wood was on the hump for the Red Sox. Don Wert led off with a single and Dick McAuliffe sacrificed him to second. With Tigers starter Jim Bunning due up, Detroit manager Bob Scheffing called on the right-handed Bill Freehan to pinch hit. Boston Manager Johnny Pesky countered by calling on the Monster, a right-hander. Scheffing went to his bench again, summoning left-swinging Whitey Herzog to bat for Freehan. Radatz proceeded to strike out Herzog before passing Jake Wood. That brought up Bubba Phillips, a right-handed batter, and more managerial chess. Scheffing called on the left-handed batting Bill Bruton to pinch-hit for Phillips. Pesky stood pat with Radatz. Bruton delivered a single to knock in Wert with the tying run, which was officially charged to Wood. Radatz induced a groundout from Al Kaline to end the inning. While Radatz was not charged with Wert’s run, he was retroactively charged with a blown save. The game remained knotted going into the top of the 15th inning, at which point the Red Sox took a 7–3 lead. In the last of the 15th, the Monster struck out pinch-hitter Frank Kostro and got Jake Wood to pop out, bringing up Bill Bruton. As it had happened, Bruton’s number-two spot was the only strikeout Radatz needed. He simultaneously secured the victory and the PC: a Walk-off Strikeout Pitcher’s Cycle.

Randy Johnson got his record-breaking eighth NL Pitcher’s Cycle in a bizarre relief role against the Padres on July 19, 2001. The night before, Arizona’s starting pitcher, Curt Schilling, had set down the first six batters in order. The D-backs had pushed across a run to provide a 1–0 lead going into the top of the third. With the bases empty and nobody out, Schilling was in the batter’s box. The count was 0-and-2. “Transformer Explosion Suspends Padres Game” was the headline in the next day’s newspaper story.17 After a delay of over an hour, the backup lighting was deemed inadequate and the game was suspended, to be completed the next day as the first game of a “doubleheader.” Upon resumption the next day, Brian Anderson replaced Schilling in the batter’s box; he struck out looking and the strikeout was charged to Schilling. Johnson replaced Anderson in the Arizona lineup and nearly tossed a perfect game. He walked just one batter and gave up one hit, a harmless single. He struck out 16. After the game, Johnson said, “By no means do I go out and try to strike people out. It’s probably one of the hardest things to do, especially against major league hitters. But I got in a groove. [Catcher] Damian [Miller] made some big blocks when I threw my breaking ball in the dirt.”18 Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly jokingly added, “He may be the best long man, huh.”

Tyler Alexander established an amazing relief-pitcher record in the first game of a doubleheader at Comerica Park. With each game scheduled for seven innings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alexander entered in the top of third with the Reds leading his Tigers, 3–0. Nick Castellanos had just hit a homer off starting pitcher Rony Garcia. Alexander struck out the next three batters in succession: Mike Moustakas (five pitches, swinging), Eugenio Suarez (three pitches, looking), and Jesse Winker (three pitches, swinging). In the top of the fourth, Alexander struck out the side: Nick Senzel (four pitches, swinging), Josh VanMeter (three pitches, looking), and Freddy Galvis (eight pitches, swinging). Alexander did it again in the fifth: Tucker Barnhart (four pitches, looking), Shogo Akiyama (four pitches, looking), and Castellanos (five pitches, swinging). The Detroit Free Press wrote, “Nine men up. Nine men down [via strikeouts]. It tied an American League record, set by the Tigers’ Doug Fister against the Royals on September 27, 2012. Alexander’s reaction—somewhere between ‘meh’ and ‘whatever’—was perhaps as bewildering as his pitches. ‘I don’t know about special,’ he said. ‘I normally don’t try to strike people out. But I would say that after about the fifth strikeout I was trying to strike people out. I don’t know about special. We were just trying to get outs and keep us in it. It’s surprising, I guess,’ he said. ‘I normally do throw a lot of strikes, and when I miss, I miss over the plate. I made a big focus on missing down. I didn’t have very many bad misses and the mistakes I made were in the dirt so it gave me a chance for them to swing at it.’ Alexander wasn’t aware of the record until it was announced in the [virtually empty] stadium after he struck out Castellanos to end the fifth inning.”19 In the top of the sixth, Alexander terminated his string of strikeouts by hitting Moustakas.

2. PERFECT PITCHER’S CYCLES

When a pitcher strikes out nine batters in succession, he automatically achieves a Pitcher’s Cycle, as just described. Such a feat is herewith dubbed a Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle.20 Table 4 shows the 13 documented Perfect Pitcher’s Cycles. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw one each. So far there have been 11 in the twenty-first century. Nice snippets about each of the Perfect Pitcher’s Cycles are available in an article on MLB.com.21 For four (or five) of the players, the Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle was the only PC they achieved in their big-league careers. Mickey Welch and Pablo López achieved their Perfect Pitcher Cycles at the beginning of the game, while Tom Seaver ended the game with his. For Welch’s 1884 Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle, the distance from the front of the pitcher’s box to home plate was only 50 feet.

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3. SUPER PITCHER’S CYCLES

As mentioned previously, striking out at least one batter in each inning of a nine-inning game is a noteworthy accomplishment, though it doesn’t quite measure up to the Batter’s Cycle. However, combining that achievement with a Pitcher’s Cycle affords an impressive feat herewith termed a “Super Pitcher’s Cycle.”22 To earn credit for a Super Pitcher’s Cycle, the player must strike out at least one batter in each of nine consecutive innings and at least one batter from each of the nine batting slots. A complete game is not required, so he could be removed after striking out a batter in the ninth inning or enter with an out already recorded in the first. The Super Pitcher’s Cycle has been achieved 31 times by 23 players. Tables 5a and 5b present the pertinent details for the players who achieved a Super Pitcher’s Cycle.

Four of those pitchers did not hurl complete games: Johnny Allen (1934), Mike Flanagan (1978), Nolan Ryan (1986), and Randy Johnson (2001). Allen struck out Eric McNair for the second out in the ninth inning, but injured his arm in the process and had to leave the game. Flanagan was replaced by Don Stanhouse to start the 10th inning with the score tied, 2–2. Ryan was relieved in the 10th inning with two runners on and one out in a scoreless game. Johnson was replaced to begin the 10th inning with the score tied, 1–1. Five players achieved multiple Super Pitcher’s Cycles: Sandy Koufax (2), Tom Seaver (2), Ryan (4), Roger Clemens (3), and Pedro Martinez (2). Bill Hallahan achieved the first Super PC (1931). It was the only PC in his career. Vince Velasquez earned the most recent Super PC in 2015. Perhaps the most phenomenal Super PC was accomplished by Nolan Ryan. The Express struck out at least one batter in each of the 11 innings he pitched en route to a 19-K Super PC performance. In spite of this stellar complete-game effort, he lost the game, 1–0. Finally, as described in Appendix G, Bob Gibson accomplished a Super Pitcher’s Cycle in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.

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4. THE ONLY PLAYER WITH BOTH A BATTER’S CYCLE AND A PITCHER’S CYCLE: SHOHEI OHTANI

Shohei Ohtani has achieved one Batter’s Cycle (thus far) in his major-league career, on June 13, 2019, at Tropicana Field versus the Tampa Bay Rays. Batting third as the Angels’ designated hitter, Ohtani slugged a three-run homer off Ryan Yarborough in the first inning, doubled off him in the third, and tripled off him in the fifth. He singled off Hunter Wood in the seventh. Fittingly, the Angels won the game, 5–3, thanks in part to the four runs Ohtani produced. In the batting cage before his final at bat, Ohtani expressed to infielder David Fletcher that more than anything he wanted to increase the Angels’ tenuous two-run lead. “I went and saw him in the cage and said, ‘all you need is a single,’” Fletcher said. “He was like, ‘No, I want another homer.’ I don’t think he was trying to hit a single. He was definitely trying to hit another homer if you watch the at bat. But I’m glad he got the single.”23

After the game Ohtani said through a translator, “You need some power to hit the home run, some speed to accomplish a triple. To be able to do that at the major league level is going to lead to a lot of confidence. The important thing now is to try to continue this tomorrow.” He then added, “I wasn’t necessarily trying to hit a single. I was just trying to get on base, whether it was a base on balls or any other way because it was still a close game.”24 Responding to a postgame question about being the first Japanese player to hit for the cycle, Ohtani said, “Simply very happy to accomplish this. There’s been so many great Japanese players that have come before me. Being the first one to accomplish it [makes me] really happy and makes for a lot of confidence down the road.”25

Ohtani has achieved two Pitcher’s Cycles (thus far) in his major-league career. The first came on April 20, 2022, at Minute Maid Park against the Houston Astros. Ohtani struck out a dozen over six innings. In the first, he fanned leadoff batter Jeremy Pena (slot one) and Michael Brantley (two). In the second he whiffed clean-up hitter Yordan Alvarez (four). He struck out the side in the third and fourth: Niko Goodrum (seven), Jason Castro (eight), and Jose Siri (nine), Pena, Brantley, and Alex Bregman (three). Alvarez flied out in the fifth, snapping Ohtani’s string of six consecutive strikeouts. Ohtani then resumed his strikeout clinic by fanning Kyle Tucker (five) and Yuri Gurriel (six), giving him the Pitcher’s Cycle. Also of significance, Ohtani had retired each of the first 15 batters; he was hurling a perfect game. In the sixth, he fanned leadoff batter Goodrum for his 12th strikeout, but Castro lined a single to center, breaking up the perfecto. Ohtani closed out the frame with a popout, a walk, and a groundout. “Ohtani threw 81 pitches [55 strikes] on a night [Angels manager Joe] Maddon had said he would be limited to 85. But, Maddon said after the game that he would not have pulled him with a perfect game intact regardless of the pitch count. ‘There’s no number,’ Maddon said. ‘He was going to pitch a perfect game. I’m not going to get in the way of a player’s greatness—ever.’ Ohtani was asked if he was thinking about the perfect game. ‘I was aware of it, but I knew the pitch count was getting up there, and I was thinking I wouldn’t be able to finish it,’ he said. Ohtani was also the designated hitter, batting leadoff for the Angels. Facing Jake Odorizzi, he started the game by drawing a base on balls, and, as the Angels proceeded to bat around, he also clouted a two-RBI double off Blake Taylor. In the third, facing Cristian Javier, he lined out to third base. In the top of the sixth, again squaring off against Javier, he bunted for a single. After leaving the mound, Ohtani flied out to left in the bottom of the eighth. The final result was a 6–0 triumph for the Angels, with Ohtani as the winning pitcher. “Ohtani was asked if it was his top performance in the majors. ‘It could be,’ he said with a smile in Japanese through a translator.” He had achieved the Pitcher’s Cycle and was halfway to a Batter’s Cycle.

Ohtani’s second PC came on May 3, 2023, at Busch Stadium. He hurled the first five innings, striking out 13 Cardinals. In the bottom of the first, he fanned leadoff batter Lars Nootbaar (slot one), Paul Goldschmidt (two), and Wilson Contreras (five). He also gave up a homer to Nolan Gorman. Ohtani whiffed three batters in the second: Dylan Carlson (seven), Brendan Donovan (eight), and Tommy Edman (nine). In the third inning he atoned for the homer he yielded by striking out Gorman (three) and Nootbaar. In the fourth, Ohtani struck out Alec Burleson (six) and Donovan, but he was touched for three runs on two doubles and another home run (by Carlson). In the fifth, he struck out three: Nootbaar (for the third time), Goldschmidt (for the second time), and Nolan Arenado (four), giving him the Pitcher’s Cycle. At the end of five innings, the Angels trailed, 4–3. Ohtani had thrown 97 pitches while striking out 13 batters. His 13th strikeout was the 500th of his career, putting him in select company: in major-league history, only he and Babe Ruth have accumulated 500 strikeouts and 100 home runs.27

Wrote Rhett Bollinger, “Ohtani had a strange start outside of his strikeout total, however, as he allowed four extra-base hits, walked a batter, hit another and threw two wild pitches. So while it was special for Ohtani to reach yet another milestone, he was frustrated he only made it through five frames. ‘I gave up a couple homers and I wanted to get through six or seven innings, minimum,’ Ohtani said through interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. ‘So more than the strikeouts, I’m just disappointed I couldn’t pitch deeper in the game.’”28 Ohtani made three plate appearances as the pitcher. He singled in the first, then again in the third, driving in a run to give the Angels a 2–1 lead. He popped out in the fifth. Ohtani had two plate appearances as the DH. He grounded out in the seventh and doubled in the ninth, eventually coming around to score the go-ahead run.

SUMMARY

A viable definition of a Pitcher’s Cycle has been devised to characterize a feat commensurate with the Batter’s Cycle. From 1893 to 2023, there were 483 Pitcher’s Cycles, achieved by 276 different pitchers. At present, Randy Johnson holds the career records for the most Pitcher’s Cycles in the major leagues (21) and the National League (11). He shares the American League record (10) with Chris Sale. Because of the huge increase in strikeouts during the past few decades, Pitcher’s Cycles have become more frequent than Batter’s Cycles, perhaps dimming the luster of the PC. From 1893 to 1949 (57 seasons), there were 113 BCs and 41 PCs, a difference of negative 72. From 1950 to 1999 (50 seasons), the corresponding numbers were 105 and 185, a difference of positive 80. From 2000 to 2023 (only 24 seasons), the corresponding numbers are 98 and 257, a difference of positive 159. Of the 13 Perfect Pitcher’s Cycles, 11 were achieved since 2007. Super Pitcher’s Cycles have been accomplished 31 times by 23 pitchers; Nolan Ryan holds the record with four Super PCs. Shohei Ohtani is the only player in history with both a Batter’s Cycle and a Pitcher’s Cycle.

DISCUSSION

The most important question is whether the Pitcher’s Cycle, as defined here, is as noteworthy a feat as the Batter’s Cycle. Table 6 lists some typical single-game batter’s feats, along with (in my opinion) commensurate feats for pitchers.29

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Based on the information provided in Table 6, I contend that the answer is a resounding yes! The Pitcher’s Cycle is a noteworthy feat, just as the Batter’s Cycle is. Significantly, the Pitcher’s Cycle and the Batter’s Cycle are accomplishments achieved—entirely by the player himself—via skill. However, it would be fair to describe both the Pitcher’s Cycle and the Batter’s Cycle as quirky or fluky.

With regard to skill, achieving the Batter’s Cycle requires the batter to employ each of the three keystone skills of offense: collecting four hits in a game requires hitting for average, collecting three extra-base hits requires hitting for power, and hitting a double and a triple requires speed. However, the requirement of collecting each of the four types of hits in one game imparts quirkiness and/or flukiness to the Batter’s Cycle. A player can use expertise to specifically try for a single by bunting or employing the Willie Keeler approach of hitting ’em where they ain’t. Similarly, a player can swing for the fences to purposely try for a home run. However, doubles and especially triples are not likely to be achieved by a player trying to specifically hit them on purpose. Thus, while each individual type of base hit requires skill, assembling the complete series involves some luck. To wit, when Rod Carew achieved his Batter’s Cycle on May 20, 1970, he told reporters, “Lots of luck. That’s it, lots of luck.”30 At least two players, Kelly Gruber and Jeff Frye, eschewed a sure extra-base hit by “skillfully” stopping at first base complete the Batter’s Cycle with a single.31

Achieving the Pitcher’s Cycle also requires skill. Strikeouts are valued especially because they preclude balls in play that could result in an error or an out that allows an existing base runner to advance. There are different types of hitters, such as free swingers, go-with-the-pitch hitters, high-ball hitters, and so on. As with the Batter’s Cycle, while skill is needed to strike out any one batter, striking out at least one batter from each batting slot requires some luck. To illustrate this, let’s consider these two games:

• September 21, 1954, (2nd) at Fenway Park: Frank Sullivan of the Boston Red Sox emerged with a 4–3 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics. He surrendered eight hits and issued three walks in 81⁄3 innings before being relieved. He allowed two earned runs on solo homers by Jim Finigan and Bill Renna. He struck out nine batters, one from each slot, earning the Pitcher’s Cycle. After the game, Sullivan said, “I wasn’t pitching right. My back is killing me. I hope I didn’t hurt myself.”
• May 11, 2016, at Nationals Park: Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals emerged with a 3–2 victory over the Detroit Tigers. He threw a complete game, walking none and scattering six hits. Both runs were earned, coming on solo homers by Jose Iglesias and J.D. Martinez. Scherzer struck out 20 batters, at least one in each inning, but, he did not earn the Pitcher’s Cycle. He failed to strike out Victor Martinez, the clean-up hitter, who went 3-for-4 with three singles and a groundout. After the game Scherzer said, “There’s something [special] about 20. Tonight was an emotional game, facing a former team and all those guys I have so much respect for. And so to have a game like this against that caliber of hitter on their side, it really puts a feather in my cap.” Going into the ninth inning, Scherzer had already set down 18 batters on strikes, giving him the chance to tie Tom Cheney’s single-game record of 21 strikeouts. “It crossed my mind,” said Scherzer. “I was thinking of all the different scenarios in an 0–2 count that I could do to be able to get that last strikeout.” Instead, James McCann ended the game by grounding into a 5–4 force out. Nonetheless, Scherzer’s 20 K’s equaled the record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game, shared by Roger Clemens (1986 and 1996), Kerry Wood (1998), and Randy Johnson (2001). “That’s some serious company,” said Scherzer. “It won’t sink in right now, but it’s an amazing accomplishment. Had to go through some tough, tough hitters there with Miggy [Miguel Cabrera], J.D., and Victor, and all those guys over there. Those guys are unbelievable and they gave me a heck of time tonight.”33

While Scherzer turned in a phenomenally skillful performance, he was not fortunate enough to achieve the Pitcher’s Cycle. It would have marked the fourth PC of his career (he currently has eight). Sullivan turned in an acceptably skillful performance while fortunately accomplishing his first and only PC.

The first use of the word “cycle” to describe a player collecting a single, double, triple, and home run in one game was in 1921; after 70 cycles had already been achieved: “George Sisler on August 13 [1921] hit the cycle by getting on [via] a single, double, triple, and home run, and by getting an extra double in the same game.”34 Furthermore, as Mike Huber and Allison Davidson subsequently reported, the term did not again appear in print over the next 10 years, during which time another 22 cycles were achieved. According to Huber and Davidson, “By 1938, it seems that the phrase [“hitting for the cycle”] to describe this rare event was indeed commonplace.”35 So while nowadays regarded as a prestigious feat, the Batter’s Cycle had an induction period of roughly 60 years. The Pitcher’s Cycle, if also eventually deemed a prestigious feat by baseball fans, might follow a similar course. 

HERM KRABBENHOFT is a retired chemist (PhD, University of Michigan, 1974) and author of Leadoff Batters of Major League Baseball (McFarland, 2001). Among various baseball research topics he has pioneered are: Ultimate Grand Slam Homers, Consecutive Games On Base Safely (CGOBS) Streaks, Quasi-Cycles, Imperfect Perfectos, Downtown Golden Sombreros, Pitcher’s Cycles. Krabbenhoft has received three SABR Research Awards (1992, 1996, 2013).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With grateful appreciation, I heartily thank all the people who have contributed to Baseball Reference and Retrosheet, thereby making their websites phenomenal baseball-research-enabling vehicles. Special thanks are gratefully extended to John Rickert for graciously writing a computer program using the Retrosheet database to generate a complete list of players who achieved the Pitcher’s Cycle during the 1901–2023 period, thereby confirming my hands-on research and ensuring that the players who achieved the Pitcher’s Cycle were identified. It is a pleasure to again thank Jonathan Frankel for providing his superb strikeout research to me. I thank Dave Smith (Retrosheet) for kindly providing digitized versions of the ICI sheets for the 1893–1900 seasons. I also thank Rick Schabowski for providing game accounts in the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel for the Milwaukee-vs-Detroit game on July 03, 1901. I thank Cliff Blau for providing me with “batters struck out” details from the New York Evening Telegram for two 1899 games. I thank Matt Spitz for coining the term “Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle.” I thank Patrick Todgham for dubbing the term “Super Pitcher’s Cycle.” I thank Pete Palmer for his guidance on strikeouts statistics and the “large lead rule” (note 14). I thank Kevin Johnson and Tom Thress for providing the pertinent information the seven players from the Negro Leagues who achieved Batter’s Cycles. I thank Steve Hirdt, Jeff Robbins, and Gary Stone, for especially helpful discussions.

DEDICATION

I enthusiastically and appreciatively dedicate this article to Dixie Tourangeau, my friend and baseball research colleague. Thanks so much for all the superb research help you’ve provided to me over the past so-many years and for all of the good times we’ve enjoyed at Fenway and the various SABR Convention ballparks.

NOTES

1 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 237.

2 (a) “Hit for the Cycle,” Baseball Almanac, accessed October 3, 2023, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/Major_League_Baseball_Players_to_hit_for_the_cycle.shtml. (b) According Retrosheet’s list of cycles, https://www.retrosheet.org/cycles_chron.htm, George Hall hit for the cycle on June 19, 1876. (c) Baseball Almanac’s list includes a postseason cycle by Brock Holt, on October 8, 2018, which gives the grand total of 344 cycles. (d) According to information provided by Tom Thress of Retrosheet and Kevin Johnson of Seamheads, seven verified cycles were achieved in the Negro Leagues. According to Johnson, another 12 “known” Negro League cycles are awaiting corroboration by balanced box scores. Email exchanges with Kevin Johnson and Tom Thress, July 04-07, 2024; discussion with Kevin Johnson, August 10, 2024.

3 Jimmy Ryan of the White Stockings completed his July 28, 1888, cycle as a pitcher after having started the game as Chicago’s center fielder. Ryan, who was the leadoff hitter for the White Stockings, singled to open the game in the first inning. He followed with a triple in the top of the second inning. In the bottom of the second, with the Wolverines leading, 7–4, Ryan switched positions with Chicago’s starting hurler, Mark Baldwin; the bases were loaded with two outs. Ryan struck out the first batter he faced, Count Campau, to retire the side. Ryan remained on the mound for the rest of the game. In the fourth inning, Ryan walloped a 2-run homer. In the fifth frame he added another triple to his batting line. In the seventh, he reached on a fielding error by the left fielder (“a rattling liner that was too hot for Twitchell’s hands”). In what turned out to be his final plate appearance, in the eighth, Ryan clouted a double, giving him the cycle. Thus, for the entire game, Ryan collected a single and a triple while he was Chicago’s center fielder, and a homer, triple, and double while he was a relief pitcher. His pitching line was 7.1 innings, 10 runs allowed on 9 hits (including one homer), four strikeouts, two walks, one hit batter, and two wild pitches. The White Stockings emerged victorious, 21–17. Complete details of Ryan’s accomplishments are given in the following newspaper accounts: (a) “Home Runs All Around,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1888, 14; (b) “They Hit the Ball Hard,” The (Chicago) Inter Ocean, July 29, 1888, 2; (c) “Sluggers Outslugged,” Detroit Free Press, July 29, 1888, 4; (d) “Was Waterloo Thus?,” Detroit News, July 29, 1888, 8.

4 “Cycle Definition & Meaning,” Merriam-Webster, accessed August 26, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cycle.

5 Although the catcher must hold on to the third strike to actually retire the batter, the pitcher alone is credited with a strikeout.

6 Dickson, 237.

7 Thus, accomplishing the Pitcher’s Cycle by hurling in extra innings is fully acceptable. For example, two of the players who have hit for the Batter’s Cycle since 1893 achieved their cycle-clinching hit in the 14th inning. George Brett (double in his seventh plate appearance on May 28, 1979) and Jay Buhner (triple in his seventh plate appearance on June 23, 1993).

8 Jonathan Frankel, email exchanges, September 4–October 5, 2023, and January 2–4, 2024.

9 John Rickert, email exchanges, October 12–November 21, 2023.

10 A chronological register of the 483 Pitcher’s Cycles is provided on a decade-by-decade basis in Supplement B.

11 Herm Krabbenhoft, “Going Downtown with a Golden Sombrero— Combining Baseball’s Best and Worst True Outcomes,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2023, Volume 52, Number 2, 55.

12 See appendices and supplements below.

13 (a) “Did Anyone See Bresnahan’s Goat?,” The (New York) World, Evening Edition, May 13, 1911, 1. (b) “Giants In Run Cataclysm,” The (New York) Sun, May 14, 1911, 13. (c) “Bang! Slam! Went Giants,” New York Daily Tribune, May 14, 1911, 10.

14 That Mathewson is credited with being the winning pitcher is a consequence of “the large lead rule.” Pete Palmer, email correspondence, November 2, 2023: “If you leave the game with a large lead, you can get the win because the manager is saving you for the next game. I don’t know when that practice was in effect. There were no [official] rules for ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ pitchers until 1950.” See also: (a) Frank Vacarro, “Origin of the Modern Pitching Win,” Baseball Research Journal (Volume 42, Number 1, Spring 2013) 50; (b) Frank J. Williams, “All the Record Books Are Wrong,” The National Pastime, 1982, 50; (c) Joe Wayman, “The Matty-Alex Tie,” Baseball Research Journal (Number 24, 1995), 25.

15 Allen Lewis, “Cubs’ 4 in 1st Defeat Phils Despite Relief by Conley,” Philadelphia Inquirer , May 03, 1959, S1.

16 “Gene Conley Ready To Take Over As Starter For Phils,” Danville (Virginia) Register , D1.

17 “Transformer explosion suspends Padres game,” The (Palm Springs, California) Desert Sun, July 19, 2001, D4.

18 Richard Obert, “Big Unit K’s 16 to finish suspended game,” Arizona Republic, July 20, 2001, D1.

19 Carlos Monarrez, “Swift Wiffs,” Detroit Free Press, August 03, 2020, B1.

20 The origin of “Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle” is as follows: I attended the September 10, 2023, Giants-Rockies game at Oracle Park with three friends. I cheered for every Colorado batter Keaton Winn struck out. While I was scoring the game, I explained my Pitcher’s Cycle research to my friends and was carefully charting each K that Winn achieved. When Winn struck out Austin Wynns to end the fifth inning, I enthusiastically exclaimed that Winn just needed to K two more batting slots, two and six, to accomplish the Pitcher’s Cycle. A couple of Giants fans seated in front of me asked what I was talking about. I gave a brief account of my research project and, to provide some perspective, I mentioned that Nolan Ryan had 12 Pitcher’s Cycles and that Randy Johnson had 18 through the 2001 season, the most recent season I had completed at the time. I also mentioned that there were 13 pitchers who had struck out at least 9 batters in a row and that, therefore, they had automatically achieved the Pitcher’s Cycle. One of them responded matter-of-factly, “So they had perfect cycles.” I replied, “Yeah! That’s cool! A Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle! What a neat way to express that! I got his name—Matt Spitz— and said I would give him credit for coming up with the term. Thanks, Matt! As it turned out, Winn did not strike out the second-slot batter, Ezequiel Tovar),in the sixth. Similarly, Winn did not have the opportunity to strike out the sixth-slot batter, Hunter Goodman, as the Giants brought in a relief pitcher in the seventh inning.

21 Matt Kelly and Sarah Langs, “Most Consecutive Strikeouts by a Pitcher,” MLB.com, April 10, 2023, accessed October 30, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/most-consecutive-strikeouts-by-pitcher-in-game. For additional information about Mickey Welch’s Perfect Pitcher’s Cycle, see: (a) Harry Simmons, “An Overlooked Feat,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1941, 6; (b) George Buckley, “Why Did Mickey Smile?” Baseball Research Journal (Volume 11, 1982), 127.

22 The origin of the “Super Pitcher’s Cycle” is as follows: At a hot stove league discussion on December 3, 2023, at the Cambridge Common & Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA, the topic of Pitcher’s Cycles came up, along with the feat of a pitcher striking out at least one batter in each inning of a nine-inning game. I mentioned that while there were nearly 500 PCs, there were only 30-some instances where the PC player also struck out at least one batter in each inning (of a nine-inning game). Patrick Todgham then said, “Those should be called ‘Super Pitcher’s Cycles.’” I agreed and said I would give him credit for the term. Thanks, Patrick!

23 Maria Torres, “A night to remember for Ohtani,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2019, D1.

24 “Angels’ Ohtani first Japanese player to hit for cycle,” Associated Press, June 13, 2019, accessed November 5, 2023, https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/triad/ap-top-news/2019/06/14/angels-ohtani-first-japanese-player-to-hit-for-cycle0.

25 J. Scott Shaffer, “June 13, 2019: Shohei Ohtani becomes first Japanese player to hit for cycle,” SABR Games Project, accessed November 5, 2023, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-13-2019-shohei-ohtani-becomes-first-japanese-player-to-hit-for-the-cycle/.

26 Kristie Rieken, “‘Virtuoso’ Ohtani Mows Down Astros,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2022, B10.

27 Lynn Worthy, “Gallegos coughs up late lead, Cards lose,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 4, 2023, page B1.

28 Rhett Bollinger, “Make room for Shohei! Ohtani joins Babe in another club,” MLB.com, May 3, 2023, accessed October 23, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-joins-babe-ruth-in-500-strikeout-100-home-run-club?game_pk=718320.

29 Stathead.com. Other sources consulted: (a) Seymour Siwoff, The Elias Book of Baseball Records (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 237; (b) The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Baseball Records (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Fenn/McClelland & Stewart, 2013), 132; (c) Lyle Spatz, Editor, The SABR Baseball List & Record Book (New York: Scribner, 2007), 191; (d) Joseph Dittmar, Baseball Records Registry (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1997); (e) Joseph L. Reichler, Revised by Ken Samelson, The Great All-Time Baseball Record Book (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), 181; (f) David Nemec, Great Baseball Feats, Facts, & Firsts (New York: NAL Penguin,Inc., 1987), 237.

30 (a) “Royals’ Metro in Awe as Carew Keeps Hitting,” (Saint Cloud, Minnesota) Daily Times, May 21, 1970, 29; (b) Tom Briere, “Twins Win 7th Straight,” (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, May 21, 1970, 31. See also: Herm Krabbenhoft, “From Kralick to Lopez and Carew to Polanco— Interesting Aspects of the Pitcher’s Cycles and Batter’s Cycles Achieved by Minnesota Twins Players,” The National Pastime, 2024, 60.

31 Herm Krabbenhoft, “When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It,” Baseball Research Journal (Volume 47, Number 1, Spring 2018) 72.

32 Hy Hurwitz, “Hy and Inside,” Boston Globe, September 22, 1954, 8.

33 Ian Quillen, “Nats top Tigers 3-2,” The Park City Daily News (Bowling Green, KY), May 12, 2016, C8.

34 (a) Herm Krabbenhoft, “Quasi-Cycles—Better Than Cycles?,” Baseball Research Journal (Volume 46, Number 2, Fall 2017) 107; (b) Chuck McGill, email correspondence, June 1, 2017; (c) From the Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee, August 21,1921, 12) was the following news item: “George Sisler on August 13 hit the cycle by getting on a single, double, triple, and home run, and by getting an extra double in the same game.” (d) The Dickson Baseball Dictionary cites a 1933 Washington Post article as the first to use the term “cycle”: Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (New York: W,W, Norton & Company, New York, 2009) 237. (e) In this issue, John Racanelli reports an earlier date: June 10, 1920. John Racanelli, “Desperately Seeking Singles,” Baseball Research Journal 53, no. 2, (Fall 2024) 46.

35 Michael Huber and Allison Davidson, “Origin of the Phrase ‘Hitting for the Cycle’ and An Approach to How Cycles Occur,” Baseball Research Journal (Volume 47, Number 1, Spring 2018) 112.

APPENDICES

• Appendix A: Each Franchise’s First and Most-Recent Pitcher’s Cycle
• Appendix B: Franchise-Record Holders
• Appendix C: The Chronology of the Career Leaders
• Appendix D: The All-Time Top-10
• Appendix E: Extra-Inning Pitcher’s Cycles
• Appendix F: Pitcher’s Cycles in Consecutive Games
• Appendix G: Postseason Pitcher’s Cycles

SUPPLEMENTS 

The Supplements for this article provide the following (click on a link below to scroll down to that section):

• Supplement A: Pitchers With Nine or More Strikeouts in a Game and Incomplete “Batters Struck Out” Statistics
• Supplement B: Chronological Register of Players Who Achieved a Pitcher’s Cycle (1893–2023)
• Supplement C: Alphabetical Register of Players Who Achieved a Pitcher’s Cycle (1893–2023)
• Supplement D: Team-by-Team Registers of Players Who Achieved Pitcher’s Cycles

Supplement A — Pitchers with Nine or More Strikeouts and Incomplete Statistics

Table SA-1. NL and AL Pitchers (1894–1903)

Table SA-2. NL and AL Pitchers (1904–1905)

Table SA-3. NL and AL Pitchers (1905–1907)

Table SA-4. NL and AL Pitchers (1907–1911)

Table SA-5. Federal League Pitchers with Nine or More Strikeouts and Incomplete Statistics

Supplement B — Chronological Register of Players With a Pitcher’s Cycle (1893–2023)

Table SB-1. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1893–1909)

Notes: (1) Entries in the OPP column with an asterisk indicate the game was played at the opponent’s ballpark. (2) The Batters column gives the number of different batters the pitcher struck out. (3) The parenthetical entries in the Batters column give the batters in the starting lineup who were not struck out by the pitcher. Thus, for Bob Ewing, the entry “9 (X: 9-2)” indicates that Ewing struck out 9 different batters and that one batter in the starting lineup was not struck out; that batter occupied the #9 slot in the batting order and had 2 plate appearances against the pitcher. (4) Entries in the IP column bracketed with asterisks indicates the pitcher pitched a complete game.

Table SB-2. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1910–1919)

Table SB-3. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1920–1929)

Table SB-4. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1930–1939)

Table SB-5. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1940–1949)

Table SB-6. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1950–1959)

Table SB-7a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1960–1966)

Table SB-7b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1967–1969)

Table SB-8a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1970–1972)

Table SB-8b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1973–1979)

Table SB-9a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1980–1986)

Table SB-9b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1987–1989)

Table SB-10a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1990–1994)

Table SB-10b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1995–1997)

Table SB-10c. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (1998–1999)

Table SB-11a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2000–2002)

Table SB-11b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2003–2005)

Table SB-11c. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2006–2009)

Table SB-12a. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2010–2012)

Table SB-12b. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2013–2014)

Table SB-12c. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2015–2016)

Table SB-12d. Players Who Accomplished a Pitcher’s Cycle (2017-2018)