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Records of home runs hit by batters have been a part of baseball information and statistics essentially from the beginning of the National League in 1876. It is true that this information was not of overwhelming interest to the public until the advent of Babe Ruth and the launching of the lively ball era in […]

A wag once wrote a history of the Philadelphia Phillies and entitled it “One Hundred Years in the Cellar.” He was not far off the mark. In fact, in the first seven decades after the Phillies entered the National League in 1883, save for two brief periods of success in the 1890s and the mid-teens […]

One of the theories advanced by opponents of the designated-hitter rule is that, because of the DH, major league baseball will never discover another Babe Ruth. That is, because pitchers in the American League, the minors and college ball have little or no opportunity to bat, we’ll never know how good a hitter the pitcher […]

In 1959, ace Pittsburgh Pirates fireman Roy Face set a major-league record by winning 18 games in relief against one loss. His .947 winning average also established the record for pitchers with at least 15 decisions. Face’s incredible numbers far exceeded those of the Pirates, who went 78–76 and finished fourth, nine games behind the […]

The rhetorical examples on the opposite page furnish a vivid indication of a social institution’s troubles escalating into a strident national issue. On April 1, 1972, major league baseball players embarked on an all-out strike against the 24 franchise owners over the matter of pension benefits. Before the strike was ended 13 days later, the […]

It is hard to imagine a more polarizing figure in Philadelphia sports history than Dick Allen. Countless gallons of ink have been spilled in furtherance of trying to capture and explain Allen’s stormy relationship with the Phillies and the city of Philadelphia during his 1963-69 tenure with the club. Much less focus has been given, […]

A boy on a pony, his glove hitched to his belt, emerges from the fields along Venezuela’s Oeste 1      highway and pauses while a cane truck lumbers by. A bus sweeps past, enveloping him in dust, but brakes for the slow-moving truck. The boy, with a whoop, gallops after the crawling caravan. Waving wildly, he […]

More than 35 years have passed since the re-introduction of Negro players into Organized Baseball after World War II. Before discussing how slow/fast that integration process was, let us backtrack several decades to the 19th century for a brief mention of blacks in that period. There were only two recognized blacks who played in the […]

This veteran observer saw his first big league game at old Columbia Park, Philadelphia, in 1904, and saw the Philadelphia Athletics win the game, 3-0, from the Detroit Tigers. It was the season before the immortal Ty Cobb played his first game in Detroit. But I saw Hall of Famer San Crawford and lesser Tigers […]

Ask any resident of Eau Claire if any Hall of Fame baseball players got their start in their Western Wisconsin city, and you will likely hear a story about Henry Aaron and his storybook 1952 season. Or you can view the bronze statue featuring the likeness of the young slugger, wearing his not so famous […]