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Baseball traveled through rough waters beginning in the late 1960s, as it navigated increasing player unrest and the growing power of their union. Court cases, strikes, hearings, lawsuits — it was challenging to follow baseball in this period without a law degree. The off-field headliners — Curt Flood, Bowie Kuhn, Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith, Charlie […]

Willie Mays hit 22 home runs in extra innings, tops among all major leaguers, and four more than the second batter on the list. When you rank in the top 10 home-run hitters of all time, it’s not surprising that you would also rank high among those who hit home runs in extra innings. As of […]

The 2011 Winter Meetings took place in Dallas from December 5 to 8 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel. This was the sixth time the hotel had hosted baseball’s Winter Meetings, with previous meetings taking place in 1980, 1987, 1994, 2000, and 2005. Located in the design district of downtown Dallas, the hotel is in the […]

Silas Kenneth Johnson was born in Danway, Illinois on Friday, October 5, 1906. He shared his strong Norwegian heritage with older brother Alvin. Their parents, Nels and Tillie Johnson, added two more male siblings—Jesse and Tilman—to the family roster soon after Si was born. The clan soon migrated to the small town of Marseilles, Illinois, […]

Jean Faut, a child of the mid-1920s, was destined to become one of two All-American Girls Base Ball League players to earn MVP honors twice.  She noted that during the Depression and the beginning of World War II, there wasn’t much for kids to do in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, except play ball or go swimming […]

A no-hitter turns a pitcher into an instant celebrity in the baseball world. Regardless of what he did before or what he does after, he’ll always be a member of an elite group, a fraternal brotherhood that links Cy Young and Nolan Ryan with the likes of Jose Jimenez, Mike Warren, and Bobo Holloman. What […]

Catchers have always put their bodies on the line. But early efforts to protect themselves met with a lot of flak.

If you had asked fans prior to the 1969 baseball season which scenario was more likely—man landing on the moon or the New York Mets wining the world championship—they would probably have been hard-pressed to choose, both being equally improbable. Casey Stengel, original Mets manager and overseer of the ugliest launching of a franchise in […]

My home town of Virginia, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range, is best known for its iron ore and as the home of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company, for a time the largest white pine sawmill in the world. Sadly, growing up I had no knowledge of Virginia’s rich baseball past. It was […]

All batters think it’s great to hit a home run. They think it’s even better to hit one as a pinch hitter. And when the bases are loaded and you’re called off the bench to deliver — and you do! There’s hardly anything to match the emotional impact of a pinch grand slam! Here’s a […]