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The 1961 American League baseball season ushered in change. The Washington Senators moved to Minnesota, becoming the Twins. It was the inaugural season for two new expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the new Washington Senators. Julio Becquer also experienced change as the season got under way. Beginning in 1955, Becquer had played for […]

Pittsburgh’s Chief Wilson set the major league single-season triple records by stroking his 36th three-bagger during the Pirates’ final game of the season, an away contest in Cincinnati. On the same day but in St. Louis, Cleveland’s Shoeless Joe Jackson raced around the diamond for his 26th triple of the season, establishing the American League […]

The Minnesota Twins belted five home runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to erase a 4-3 deficit and take the rubber game of a three-game series with the Kansas City Athletics, 9-4, before a crowd of 9,621at Metropolitan Stadium. It was the first time an American League team hit five home runs in […]

In major-league history, 10 teams have lost their first 11 regular-season games.1 Of these slow starters, the National Association’s 1872 Eckfords of Brooklyn were the most severely outclassed during their season-opening skid. They bore the largest negative run differential (-185), suffered more double-digit losses (10) and absorbed as many losses by 20 runs or more […]

Two of the least likely home-run hitters both struck in the ninth inning to tie and then win the game. The 1961 season wasn’t going well for either the Chicago White Sox or the newly relocated Minnesota Twins. Both teams had losing records on June 18, and the Twins were several games behind the White […]

The Friday of Labor Day weekend in 1960 wasn’t a good day for Boston Red Sox fans, what with the Washington Senators sweeping the doubleheader, 5-1 in the opener and a come-from-behind 3-2 win in the second game. Washington’s Jim Lemon homered in each game, a key home run each time. Ted Williams homered, too, […]

The end of a terrible era, the absence of National League baseball in New York, was at hand. After four intolerably long seasons, young and old alike, who Dick Young of the New York Daily News tabbed the “New Breed,” could see their National League heroes in the flesh. The New York Mets had arrived, […]

Only two of Murray Wall’s 91 major-league games were played with a team other than the Boston Red Sox. The first came on the Fourth of July, 1950, when the former All-American pitcher at the University of Texas1 made his big-league debut in a late-inning mop-up role with the crosstown Boston Braves. The second came […]

Arm’s length. The Philadelphia Phillies had held the rest of the NL at arm’s length for the better part of two months, maintaining a cushion over their rivals that made clinching the 1964 pennant seem only a matter of time. It wasn’t. On Wednesday, September 9, the St. Louis Cardinals rallied for five runs in […]

It had been a terrible week for the Philadelphia Phillies. On Sunday, September 20, after beating the Dodgers in Los Angeles, 3-2, the Phillies had a 6½-game lead over their closest pursuers for the National League pennant, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. After that win, the Phillies returned to Philadelphia and Connie […]

On Saturday, September 30, 1967, as the thrilling American League pennant race neared its conclusion, the Boston Red Sox entered their final series of the season needing two victories against the Minnesota Twins — whom they trailed by one game — plus two Detroit Tigers defeats to make their Impossible Dream become reality.1 Left fielder […]

Who needs Casey? Cubs fans will forever more repeat the tale of “Lester at the Bat.” In its century of hosting Chicago Cubs games, Wrigley Field has seen some unorthodox tilts. In 1917, Cubs pitcher Hippo Vaughn no-hit the Cincinnati Reds for nine innings only to lose the game in the 10th. Sixty-two years later, […]

Roman candles and bottle rockets lit up the evening sky on the Fourth of July in the Twin Cities. In the afternoon the Minnesota Twins produced baseball fireworks in the first game of a doubleheader at Metropolitan Stadium against the Chicago White Sox. It was the summer of 1961, and fans were coming out in […]

The umpire was a fish. Some Yankees said so.1 The New York ballplayers believed their Thursday afternoon game in Detroit should have been called long before it reached the ninth inning. Rain, wind, and hail began their assault midway through the contest and grew stronger as the game progressed, dousing and endangering players and the […]

The champagne was on ice while 15,443 waited to erupt after their Minnesota Twins defeated a Seattle Pilots team they had already beaten 11 times in 14 games, including eight of eight at Metropolitan Stadium. At 91-60 with an 11-game lead over the second-place Oakland A’s, the Twins saw that the clinching of the first-ever […]

I guess it was the best game I ever pitched — Whitey Ford1   During a 16-year career, Whitey Ford pitched a total of 3,170⅓ innings. On eight occasions, he pitched more than nine innings. His longest outing, a 14-inning shutout in 42-degree weather, occurred in Griffith Stadium on April 22, 1959.2 The Yankees defeated […]

The Pirates were fresh off winning the 1960 World Series in one of the most exciting games ever. The good feeling bled over for a while; on May 24, 1961, they were 20-13, in second place, only one game out of first. But then they lost five in a row, fell into fourth place, and […]

Losses in May and June count as much as those in September; just ask any second-place team. Ivers Whitney Adams’s assembled dream team of Boston Red Stockings was designed to have an exciting and superior baseball season in 1871. But after winning their very first two games on the road, their initial home appearance at […]

In late December 1959, it was widely published that Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith “had looked one million dollars in the eye and expressed no interest.” It was an offer not for his Washington franchise but for just two of his ballplayers, first baseman Harmon Killebrew and pitcher Camilo Pascual. One of those published reports […]

If Rich Reese had as much success in baseball as he later did in business, perhaps his major-league résumé would have been filled with All-Star appearances, batting titles, MVP awards, and World Series triumphs. As it was, his path to such acclaim was hindered by a succession of higher-profile players who kept him from a […]

Gary Allenson is a baseball lifer. He began his baseball career as a Little Leaguer and spent his entire life involved in the game. He played baseball at every level and has managed or coached at every professional level. Allenson was an excellent player at Arizona State University and competed in two College World Series […]

On Saturday, August 26, 2017, the Bob Broeg St. Louis SABR Chapter hosted its third annual Research Conference at the Emerson Library on the campus of Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Six speakers presented a variety of subjects, hoping to capture the Jim Rygelski Research Award bestowed by the local chapter. The award is […]

Sixteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. With the Cardinals/Mets game (which the Cardinals eventually won 10-2) playing silently on the television at the far end of the room chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. […]

Seventeen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Monday, April 20, 2015. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. The date for the Jim Rygelski Research Conference has been set for August 22, however the venue has not been fully determined […]