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    Minnie Minoso’s appearance in three games for the White Sox in September 1976 at age 53 serves as a reminder that major league baseball has had some pretty old performers over the years. The only distinction Minoso gained in his brief stint was to be the oldest player to collect a hit in […]

In his autobiography, Reggie Jackson said that the championship Oakland Athletics “were the meanest junkyard dogs who ever played the game.”1 He believed that Charlie Finley’s legendary cheapness, which confronted them at every turn, made them tough and hungry. “We were like a pickup team from the baseball ghetto and nobody wanted to come into […]

 Minor-League Winter Meeting The prospect of war cast a long shadow over the National Association meeting for 1941. Europe and Asia had been mired in conflict for more than two years by this time, and just days after the meetings concluded, the United States would be forced to enter the second worldwide war of the […]

It was 1977 and I had never been to Connecticut before. I was impressed with the pine-studded hills and small ponds. They looked especially nice with the patches of snow on the ground. What do I know about Al Schacht? I asked myself. He was born November 11, 1892 in New York City. He pitched […]

It was a hot summer day in 1897 when hundreds of fans of the Federalsburg Club in Maryland gathered for a game. This small town of barely a thousand people was proud of their team. Little did they know that three of the young teenagers taking the field for them that day would soon be […]

Tony Pena sat alone on the top of the dugout steps, his legs sprawled in front of him. He tucked the gold chains around his neck under his jersey and fastened the clasps on his shinguards. After staring at the dirt for a moment, Pena snapped to his feet. Peering into the dugout, he smiled […]

The 1955 crop of baseball “bonus babies” included Massachusetts native Tom Gastall, born on June 13, 1932, in Fall River, to Thomas and Concetta Gastall. (A “bonus baby” rule was first implemented by the major leagues in 1947, intended to restrict the inflated offers made by wealthy club owners seeking to monopolize the best young […]

    Baseball is not only a “game of inches”, a thesis propounded by some mathematical phrase-maker, but it is also a game governed by inflexible rules. Throughout the history of the game, baseball’s lengthy code has caused or at least contributed to some of the most bizarre situations imaginable. Baseball has produced such oddities […]

Old Rube Marquard (he was 90 when he went to his last reward) was firmly convinced that the record keepers had it all wrong. The way he saw it he won 20 straight games in 1912, not the 19 he is credited with in all the books. And Rube could, on occasion, be quite persuasive. […]

Inevitably, the deeds done in ball parks receive more publicity than the stadia themselves.   Comiskey Park is where Luke Appling and Bill Pierce went to greatness and Chick Gandil to infamy, but the architect’s name is all but unknown.  This is lamentable, for the park has long been admired for its spaciousness and symmetry, and […]