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Bill Phillips’s professional baseball career spanned a quarter century from 1890 to 1915. A right-handed pitcher, he was a five-time 20-game winner in the minors and pitched for the Cincinnati Reds for six seasons. A smart and respected baseball man, Phillips managed several teams, most notably the Indianapolis Hoosiers, champions of the Federal League in […]

On the back of his 1955 Bowman baseball card, Mel Clark urges youngsters to have a glove, bat and ball at hand so they can be ready to play when the opportunity presents itself. When that opportunity arose for the war veteran from the sandlots of West Virginia, he seized it with a vengeance. Melvin […]

Martin Flaherty was a major-league owner, player, and umpire during the 1880s – sort of. Mostly, he was a fan. For six innings in 1881, he played outfield as an emergency substitute for the Worcesters, a National League team he partly owned. The following season he umpired a single game: the Worcesters’ final nine innings […]

The mere mention of Edgar “Blue” Washington evokes thought and a curious smile, as he is undoubtedly one of the rarest of all Negro League treasures. During the early part of the twentieth century, Edgar flaunted his athleticism as a gallant young prizefighter in open-air boxing arenas in Southern California and on weekend afternoons could […]

Getting caught stealing forever links Ray Morgan to Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore. Getting out of jail — a month into a year’s sentence — when Clark Griffith showed up in court with a scouting job offer — is another reason Morgan has a place in the game’s lore. Morgan played second base for the Washington Senators in the final […]

Mel Parnell devoted a full decade to the Boston Red Sox, from 1947 through 1956, winning 123 games while losing just 75. He ranks first among left-handed Red Sox pitchers in wins, number of games started (232), and number of innings pitched (1,752⅔). The New Orleans native performed exceptionally well in Fenway Park, a ballpark […]

Karl Kolseth owed his big-league career to two-way talent and a stroke of luck. When his pitching arm wore out, he had enough pop in his bat to reinvent himself as a slugging first baseman. Also, he was a star amateur player in Baltimore in 1915, when the Federal League’s Terrapins threw their doors open […]

Determined to make the major leagues since he was a young boy, Jim Umbricht paid his way to a minor-league tryout camp and, after making the team, was converted from shortstop to pitcher. After he returned from serving two years in the military, Umbricht worked his way up to the majors and then spent three […]

Long before he died in 1947, Joseph Henry Page was regarded as the Father of Baseball in Canada. Not that he introduced the sport above the 49th Parallel. But he did more than anyone else to popularize it with Canadians, especially those in French-speaking Quebec. In a baseball career spanning 60 years, Page played for […]

Lewis Henry Meacham’s place in baseball history is linked to that of his friend, Chicagoan William Hulbert (1832–82).1 In 1870, Hulbert purchased a share of stock in the city’s newly formed White Stockings organization (a team now known as the Chicago Cubs).2 Five years later he was elected president of the Chicago Base Ball Association, […]

In his second big-league season, young Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Jimmy Viox hit .317, good for third place in the 1913 National League batting race. In the eyes of many observers, including Sporting Life, Viox had supplanted Johnny Evers as the senior circuit’s top second baseman, and great things were expected of Viox in coming seasons. […]

Tex Hughson was a big right-handed power pitcher out of the University of Texas who principally wore the number 21 during his tenure with the Red Sox (he would also be assigned the numbers 29, 15, and 27) and, like his numerical counterpart and fellow Longhorn Roger Clemens four decades later, was the dominant Red […]

José Manuel Morales was a master pinch-hitter. In 1976 he made his big-league reputation with 25 base hits in this role. This single-season record stood until Colorado’s John Vander Wal stroked 28 in 1995; it remained the third best one-year total as the 2013 season ended. Morales — the seventh of 11 men from the […]

During Welcome Back, Kotter’s run as a popular television sitcom, one of the “Sweathogs” – Robert Hegyes’ fictional Epstein character – routinely identified himself as a “Puerto Rican Jew” to comedic effect. Less than a decade after the show aired its final episode in 1979, a real-life Dominican Jew commenced his nine-season (1988-1991, 1993-1997) big-league […]

Overshadowed on the diamond by the antics and accomplishments of his younger brother Patsy, George Tebeau was little more than a journeyman late-nineteenth century outfielder-first baseman. The lasting impression that he made on the game came only after his playing days were behind him. For almost two decades, George was arguably the most powerful force […]

With his poor eyesight, and notoriously poor control, flame-throwing pitcher Ryne Duren’s fastball put the fear of God into opposing hitters in the late 1950s and early 1960s. “Duren was the standard by how we ranked hard throwers,” All-Star pitcher and pitching coach Jim Kaat said. “We’d say [so-and-so] can throw almost as hard as […]

The American dream of being a well-known baseball player was firmly established years before Babe Ruth’s major-league debut in 1914. For instance, in 1910 a New York Times article on recreation centers and urban parks asked, rhetorically, “What youngster nowadays dreams of being President of the country when it is just as easy to conjure […]

Even if he had never gone on to own the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner would have had a proud legacy in his hometown of Cleveland. By the early 1970s, he was one of the city’s captains of industry, having taken his family shipping firm to new heights and used it to leverage a purchase […]

“I always hope he hits the ball to left so I can watch him run, because I’ve never seen anything like him turning second.” — Dwight Evans of the Red Sox, talking about Willie Wilson in 19801 “Having Willie Wilson in center field is like having four outfielders.” — Billy Scripture (Wilson’s first minor-league manager) […]

He had just 11 big-league at-bats in 1990, but Brian Traxler was still a cult figure. Over 13 years as a pro, the first baseman delighted fans across the minors, the Caribbean winter leagues, Asia, and independent circuits. His immediate appeal was visual. “Trax” was rotund — leniently listed at 5-feet-10 and 200 pounds, he […]

When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]

The baseball team known as the Braves makes its home in Atlanta, but traces its diamond ancestry back through Milwaukee and to Boston, where it began in 1871. In fact, the Atlanta Braves are the only baseball team that has played every season consecutively since 1871, outdating even the National League itself. While forgotten by […]