Search Results

The public accent on youth in recent years has had little effect upon major league baseball. Clubs have been restricted from signing young stars until they are out of high school, and this reduces the ranks of fuzzy-faced youngsters on Big League rosters. The youngest player in 1972, for example, was Rowland Office, outfielder for […]

What player in major league history, while participating in no more than half his team’s scheduled games, posted the most outstanding overall hitting performance?

  When he stepped on the mound at Municipal Stadium to face the hometown Waterbury Giants on September 3, 1967, Dick Such of the York White Roses carried the burden of an 0–16 record. It was his last chance that season to snap his winless streak. The 6-foot-4 right-hander got off to a rocky start […]

Joe Torre’s frustrating 1975 season was “highlighted” by the July 21 game against the Astros where he grounded into four consecutive double plays. Batting ahead of him was Felix Millan, who had 4 singles, but was wiped out each time Tone hit the ball. For Torre, it was a National League record for grounding into […]

In 1994, Dave Eskenazi traveled to Yoncalla, Oregon, to visit one of the Pacific Coast League’s all-time great pitchers, Harold “Hal” Turpin. As a ninety-first-birthday present, Eskenazi handed Turpin a packet of letters written to him by some of his former Seattle Rainiers teammates.1 A quiet, reserved man who shunned publicity, Turpin was visibly touched […]

Move over, Charlie Finley and Bill Veeck – the old Browns’ owner was baseball’s first great promoter. And move over George Steinbrenner – Von der Ahe was a meddler supreme.   PERHAPS THE GREATEST DAY of Chris Von der Ahe’s life occurred in the spring of 1882, when he dedicated his new Sportsman’s Park on […]

AN AMERICAN LEAGUE BIRTHDAY On January 10, 1918, The Sporting News published an article tucked away on page five celebrating the American League’s birthday. “If you are a believer in the Darwinian theory of evolution, then January 2 should be a day of interest to you for it marks the ‘birth of the American League,’ […]

If Bob Sheppard, longtime public address announcer for the New York Yankees, was class personified, Tex Rickards, who held a similar slot with Dem Bums, reflected the spirit of the “woiking” class Brooklynite.1 And while Robert Merrill, the classy Metropolitan Opera baritone, often sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at Yankee Stadium, at Ebbets Field the […]

Vida Blue lost two consecutive 1-0 games in 1971 and fans wondered why those Oakland batters couldn’t get this great pitcher some runs. Walter Johnson had this same problem a half century ago, but it wasn’t for just two games, or two seasons, but for 20 years. Johnson, in the course of his career, participated […]

One could make a case that, between 1941 and 1953, the Montréal Royals were the gold standard for minor-league teams in North America. After becoming part of the Brooklyn Dodgers chain in 1939,1 they followed much the same path as their parent club, going from perpetual also-rans to perennial contenders. In those 13 seasons, they […]