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Mike Piazza of the New York Mets and Ivan Rodriguez of the Florida Marlins, each selected to the All-Star Game ten times, are generally acknowledged to be today’s best catchers. Both of them seem to be on the road to baseball’s Hall of Fame. One question we might ask about Piazza and Rodriguez is: Have […]

The only player to appear in every inning of all nineteen World Series games played by the Washington Senators was born in Salem, New Jersey, on October 16, 1900. Rigorous farm work had matured Leon Allen Goslin into a muscular 185-pound young man, standing just a half-inch shy of six feet. His early pitching exploits […]

Willie Mays with Brent Kallestad, at Tallahassee on February 26, 2006 following a Black History Month celebration. Mays was among several sports celebrities to visit that day as guests of former Governor Jeb Bush. (Brent Kallestad)   My lifelong adoration of Willie Mays began quite accidentally in the summer of 1954 when as an 8-year-old […]

Anyone researching National and American League playing managers soon realizes that unlike Gertrude Stein’s rose (“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”), a manager who also played may or may not have been a playing manager. Three examples will make this clear: On September 23, 1930 in a less- than-inspired move the […]

A MANAGER DOESN’T NEED A nickname to make the Hall, but it helps. Fully fourteen of the 16 Cooperstown skippers had calling cards. See if you can guess the people from their nicknames: The Old Roman. When his White Sox won their first pennant in 1901, journalist Hugh Keogh began referring to their owner, who […]

The National League started off without too much fanfare in 1876. Only one game was scheduled on its opening day on Saturday, April 22, with Boston playing at Philadelphia. Of course, that was 34 years before a President of the United States attended an opening game, but it wouldn’t have been too difficult for President […]

Until the recent success of New York Met, Cleon Jones, there have been few instances of left-hand throwing, right-hand hitting non-pitchers making the grade in major league baseball. Scouts have stayed away from such players and the odds back their opinions. The I.C.I. Encyclopedia of Baseball lists but 30 such players. The most prominent of […]

Many fans and researchers recall that the Brooklyn Dodgers, to stimulate gate receipts, played 7 games in Jersey City in 1956 and in 1957. For the same reason, the Chicago White Sox played 9 games in Milwaukee in 1968 and 11 in 1969. That was in the period when Milwaukee did not have a team […]

Introduction and Context As the American and National Leagues prepared for the 1924 winter meetings in New York City, drama laced the usual business agenda of trades, rulings, and discussion of regulations. The NL had faced trouble internally since the end of September, when its president, John Heydler, disclosed, first to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis […]

When a major league player closes out his active play around the ages of 35 to 40, where does he turn if he wants to continue his direct contact with the diamond activity? He becomes a coach, a manager, or an umpire. A former player could also become a club executive, a scout, broadcaster, etc., […]