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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 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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Twins-Senators game on June 18, 1968, had many ebbs and flows and featured almost every play you could imagine. Minnesota starter Jim Merritt had a no-hitter for 5⅔ innings, and then bullpen implosions by both teams led to four lead changes in the last two innings. Among the 26 hits in the game were […]

On April 22, 1980, the Chicago Cubs were 5-3, and one game out of first place in the National League East Division. They had swept the New York Mets in a three-game home series that drew healthy turnouts to Wrigley Field. Nonetheless, the “jury was still out” in regard to the amount of support new […]

Every good recipe starts with the right ingredients. In baseball, start with some speed and power, solid swings on the right pitches, and good bounces or caroms off the wall, and add some good fortune. In other words, possess the offensive skills of a “five-tool player”1 and it might lead to one of the rarest […]

Residents of Wampum, Pennsylvania, and neighboring towns cheered hometown hero Dick Allen at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field during his 1964 National League Rookie of the Year season with the Philadelphia Phillies, even honoring him in on-field ceremonies before three games against the host Pittsburgh Pirates. But Allen scuffled in Pittsburgh in ’64, batting .182 in nine […]

The story of General Abner Doubleday inventing baseball as a young man in Cooperstown, New York, has long been recognized as apocryphal, a creation myth fashioned as proof that baseball is wholly American. Baseball historians agree that the sport was being played long before Doubleday purportedly came on the scene in 1839. Another Union general […]

Minor-league pitcher Ferguson Jenkins started preparing for the offseason as the 1965 Arkansas Travelers season wound down. The 22-year-old right-hander was wrapping up his fourth season in the Philadelphia Phillies system. “I sent my things home from Little Rock,” he said. “I thought the season was over.”1 So when Travelers manager Frank Lucchesi informed Jenkins […]

Although the 1961 Twins had finished their inaugural season in Minnesota with a won-lost record of 70-90, seventh in the American League, Twins owner Calvin Griffith was optimistic heading into the 1962 season. “We’re bound to show youthful improvement. Established American League performers Pascual, Ramos, Kralick, Battey, Killebrew and Allison haven’t reached their peaks yet. They’ll get better […]

While pulling on his gray Pittsburgh road uniform in the visitors’ locker room at Wrigley Field on the morning on September 16, 1975, Pirates second baseman Rennie Stennett grimaced in pain. Unsure if he would be able to play, Stennett gazed down at a heavily-taped sprained ankle “which he said has been hurting him for […]

A good manager, like a good magician, always has a trick up his sleeve. But a true tactician has a trick up someone else’s sleeve. That’s how Cleveland skipper Birdie Tebbetts overcame the overpowering Jim Kaat and the first-place Twins on a night in June 1965 at Metropolitan Stadium, invoking an obscure rule about jersey […]

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 […]

A familiar baseball stereotype of the mid-twentieth century was the “good field, no hit” Latino shortstop.1 The prototype was captured by Willy Miranda – who many contend was the slickest Cuban glove man ever born but who ended his near-decade-long sojourn in the majors with a mere 70 extra base hits and a lightweight .221 […]

As a 22-year-old Bill DeLancey caught every inning of the 1934 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals as the club won its third championship. Later, he was named by Branch Rickey as one of the best three catchers he had ever seen, alongside Roy Campanella and Mickey Cochrane. However, DeLancey accumulated only 686 plate […]

Vince DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio, and Dominic DiMaggio were his sidekicks. He and Joe wore their first uniforms while playing with the San Francisco Boys Club team. He played with Joe at Francisco Junior High. Joe played shortstop and Dario was his double-play partner at second base. When he moved on to Galileo High School, Dario […]

On August 31, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower traveled approximately two miles from the White House to Griffith Stadium take in an afternoon of baseball featuring the Washington Senators and New York Yankees, whose star, Mickey Mantle, was in pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home-run record. Mantle walloped his 47th round-tripper in the Yankees’ 6-4 victory, […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) January 2017, Volume 2, Number 1 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley Howdy Conundrum of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Scoring the Shift Interview with Ben Trittipoe Guest Column: Alan Cohen Obstruction: Error […]

On September 30, 1967, a Saturday afternoon, the Minnesota Twins played the first of a two-game season-ending series against the Red Sox at Boston’s Fenway Park. The Twins led the Red Sox and the Tigers (who had to play two doubleheaders) by a single game. A Twins victory would eliminate the Red Sox, while the […]