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In the course of the nine seasons and 449 major-league games in which Edward Spencer appeared, he was hit by a pitch 17 times. More than half those hit-by-pitch moments came in one year, in just 70 games, when he was hit a league-leading nine times. Spencer was a catcher, and he stood 5-foot-10, while […]
On graduation day in 1954, San Diego High School star athlete Floyd Robinson was signed personally by Bill “Chick” Starr, the owner of the Pacific Coast League San Diego Padres, for a reported $500 bonus.1 He appeared in three games — two in the outfield. He was 3-for-6 at the plate, and handled all eight […]
High atop the left-field foul pole in Wrigley Field waves a flag bearing Cubs uniform number 14, retired in honor of a slugging 1953 rookie. Paul Schramka wore number 14 for Chicago on Opening Day, 1953, when he pinch ran for Clyde McCullough in the seventh inning against Cincinnati. He did not score. Two days […]
“A ball player entertains thousands of people who go to see him at the ball grounds. But he also entertains millions who read about him in the newspapers,” wrote Olympic athlete and nationally syndicated journalist Robert Edgren toward the end of baseball’s Dead Ball Era.1 As one newspaper commented, George Yeager was “one of those […]
On June 17, 1994, the nation was glued to the live broadcast of police chasing a white Ford Bronco on Los Angeles’ Interstate 405. In the home clubhouse 2,300 miles away, the Cleveland Indians were no less riveted as they prepared for a match against the Boston Red Sox. Never confused for an intellectual titan, […]
Clad in the uniform of his hometown team, Paul Molitor stood on third base after he collected the 3,000th hit of his major-league career. The first player ever to reach the milestone with a triple, Molitor enjoyed a number of memorable moments in a Minnesota Twins uniform through the final three seasons of his 21-year […]
Bronson Arroyo played 16 years of major-league baseball and helped the Boston Red Sox end the Curse of the Bambino with the 2004 World Series championship. His controversial tag of Álex Rodríguez in Game Six of the ALCS, when the umpires reversed their original call, spurred the Red Sox on to a victory. Boston closed […]
Infielder Bill Ripken attacked the game of baseball with reckless abandon and paid the price, sustaining an inordinate number of injuries during his career. He never changed his all-out, hustling style of play, earning the reputation of a player who left it all on the field. The Ripkens were a baseball family. Bill’s father, Cal Ripken […]
Hardrock Johnson: it’s one of the great tough-guy names. Roy Johnson got the monicker as a minor-league manager in Arizona, circa the late 1920s, because “he was a stickler for hard playing.”1 Johnson, a righty pitcher, was in the majors for part of just one season, 1918. He posted a 1-5 record in 10 games […]
Had he possessed the batting ability of his older brother John, Gil Hatfield might well have become a late 19th-century major league star. A natural athlete, Gil was blessed with good hands, a strong and accurate throwing arm, ample foot speed, and an abundance of baseball smarts. On top of that, he was both versatile […]
An era closed for both the Cuban and North American versions of a shared national pastime on April 23, 2014, when the oldest surviving former big-leaguer, Conrado Marrero, passed away quietly in his beloved native homeland.11 The news of the Cuban legend’s passing came less than 48 hours before a planned national celebration of the […]
If asked for the name of the man responsible for bringing the Milwaukee Brewers into the American League, most would no doubt answer Bud Selig—and that answer would not be wrong. But 70 years before the 1970 Brewers first played at Milwaukee County Stadium, the city had a team in the American League, and Matthew […]
The holders of major-league baseball’s longest consecutive-game hitting streaks are members of the game’s elite — Hall of Famers such as Ty Cobb, Willie Keeler, and, of course, Joe DiMaggio. But if the survey field is expanded to encompass the entirety of professional baseball, an unfamiliar name joins the ranks: Jack Ness. During the 1915 […]
Right-hander Ray Kremer can lay a legitimate claim as being the best pitcher in big-league history to debut in his 30s. After failing in a spring-training tryout with the New York Giants in 1916, Kremer logged more than 2,100 innings and won over 100 games in the Pacific Coast League in the late 1910s and […]
One of the rarest things in baseball is a shut-down righty-lefty bullpen. Players, managers, and – let’s face it – agents, like relief roles defined. Today you have eighth-inning guys and ninth-inning guys. And if you’re lucky, you have hurlers who can form a human bridge from the starters to those players. Having two closers—one […]
When he arrived upon the major league scene in early 1906, the attribute of left-handed pitcher Carl Druhot that most intrigued big city sportswriters was his diminutive size. Press reports and game accounts so regularly identified him as “Little Druhot” that baseball fans might well have supposed that the descriptive was the newcomer’s first name. […]
As the 1950s drew to their conclusion, the American League had known no champion other than the New York Yankees for the decade, save for a one-year interlude in 1954 courtesy of the Cleveland Indians. The Yankees had finished in first place every year from 1949 through 1953, then 1955 through 1958. In 1959 another […]
Just as the major leagues have big-market and small-market teams, so too do the minor leagues. In the Class-A Midwest League, it would be difficult to find two representatives more different than the Dayton Dragons and the Clinton LumberKings. Clinton, Iowa, joined the league in 1954 as an expansion team, when the circuit was still […]
There are times when our humanity transcends decades-long sports rivalries because something, or someone, bigger than all of us is present. In the City by the Bay, the afternoon of October 2, 2016, was one of those times. The San Francisco Giants were hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers at AT&T Park on the last day […]
The early professional careers of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels and San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain were linked in several ways. Selected out of high school in the first round of the June 2002 draft, eight picks apart,1both made their major-league debuts after short minor-league stints. Each had early success in the majors, with […]
Springfield Sallies hurler Erma “Bergie” Bergmann looked in for the sign from her catcher, Sonia Vialat,1 wound up, and delivered the first pitch of the 1948 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) season.2 It’s not known whether the pitch was a ball or a strike, or if it was put in play by Helen Callaghan […]
It seemed that every time St. Louis Cardinals fans clicked on the television or flipped open a newspaper in the first six weeks of the 1997 season, they learned that another player was headed to the disabled list. By the time the Cardinals took the field on May 14 to conclude a two-game series at […]
Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, served the American League’s Minnesota Twins for 21 seasons. However, it was originally the home of a minor-league team, the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. The drive for a new ballpark for the Millers began in the 1940s. In June of 1948, the Millers, affiliated with the parent New […]