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Circuit Judge William Corwin Johns was a staple of the Decatur, Illinois, courthouse during the early twentieth century. When he died suddenly in 1914, he was eulogized for having laid down the law with impartiality while “preserv[ing] more strict decorum in his court room than any judge ever on the bench in Macon county.” (Decatur […]

From 1922 to 1938, middle infielder Hal Rhyne went back and forth from the San Francisco Seals to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and back and forth from the Seals to the Boston Red Sox. Rhyne was the starting shortstop for the Red Sox from 1929 through 1931 and the first half of the 1932 season. He […]

William H. “Bill” Lennon was the first player in a professional major league baseball game to score a run. From 1871-1873, he played in 28 games in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, recording 26 hits and batting .215 with 13 RBIs. He also umpired 15 games in that circuit through 1874. Previously, […]

Bob Cerv survived kamikaze attacks in World War II and put all 10 of his children through college. In between, he was a three-time New York Yankee. The Yankees signed him, traded him, brought him back, let him go, and brought him back again. His claim to Yankee fame came in 1961, when he shared […]

After starting four different players in right field during the first two months of the 1959 season, the Chicago White Sox recalled 22-year-old Jim McAnany, who was batting .315 at Indianapolis, in hope of providing an offensive spark. To make room for McAnany, 19-year-old outfielder Johnny Callison, hitting .163, was sent down to Indianapolis. “Mac” […]

For a few years as a young man he was the most noted second baseman in all of baseball. But a combination of factors prevented Charlie Sweasy from fulfilling the promise of his youth. He played his final major-league game at the age of 30 and is all but forgotten today. Charles James Sweasy1 was […]

Time was running out for the Detroit Tigers to keep the Chicago White Sox from running away with the 1919 pennant. Ten years after manager Hughie Jennings took his Tigers to their last World Series, their third straight appearance and third straight loss in the fall classic, he knew his team had a narrow margin […]

In their first home opener, before 24,606 fans at yet-to-be-completed Metropolitan Stadium, the Minnesota Twins played from behind the entire game before tying it, 3-3, in the bottom of the eighth inning and then losing it when the expansion Washington Senators scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning. Both starters, Joe McClain […]

This edition of the fall classic had so many bizarre twists and turns that they might as well have had Rod Serling do the pregame show. First there were the Twins beating both of the Dodgers’ best pitchers, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax. Then the punchless Dodgers turned around and won the next two games […]

Bob Quinn owned the Boston Red Sox from 1923 into 1933. In 1936 he became president of the Boston Braves and renamed them the Bees, changing the name of the ballpark from Braves Field to National League Baseball Park. More imaginative locals called the place the Beehive. Some continued to call it Braves Field. African […]

Part of the beauty of baseball is just how unpredictable the national pastime really is. No matter what the standings show, or what the prospects for a particular team are, on any given day at the ballpark, there is a chance that you might see something you’ve never seen before. That was certainly the case […]

On April 9, 1965, the former Houston Colt .45s took the field as the Houston Astros, inaugurating indoor baseball in the Astrodome with a 2-1 exhibition win over the New York Yankees. Three nights later, on April 12, a standing-room-only crowd of 48,546 (42,652 paid1), including Commissioner Ford Frick, National League President Warren Giles, and […]

When the Washington Senators suited up for the final game of the season on October 2, 1960, they didn’t know it would be the last one for the storied franchise in the nation’s capital. In what appeared to be a hasty action by the American League only a few weeks after the season ended, Senators […]

Three Rivers Stadium was Dave Parker’s home field for the first 11 seasons of his Hall of Fame career, until he left the Pittsburgh Pirates and signed with the Cincinnati Reds in December 1983. Parker’s first home run as a visitor to Pittsburgh came in his second season with Cincinnati. As the Reds and Pirates […]

“There is no prettier sight in baseball than watching Oliva, when he is right, swinging the bat.”1   Coming into a June 29 doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals in 1969, Minnesota Twins outfielder Tony Oliva was on an eight-game hitting streak, having gone 17 for his last 36. “When I swing the bat like […]

A key cog in Detroit’s starting rotation since the mid-1960s, Tigers pitcher Earl Wilson headed into the 1970 campaign having posted the fourth-most wins among all American League hurlers since 1962 – including a league-leading 22 victories in 1967. Additionally, the big right-hander could provide rare offensive punch from his position. Frequently used as a […]

It was a money game. The 1970 baseball season had boiled down to a one-game contest with cash considerations on the last game of the season. Unfortunately for the teams involved, the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets, it was runner-up money. At stake in this National League East season finale was simply second-place dollars, […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers (21-25, and in eighth place) came to Philadelphia to play the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies (27-15). It was a great pitching matchup: Sandy Koufax (5-4) and Chris Short (3-2, 0.64 ERA). Both pitchers set the side down in order in the first inning. In the second inning Tommy Davis singled but was […]

Of the 755 home runs that Henry Aaron hit from 1954 through 1976 with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers, 754 cleared fences in 31 different big-league ballparks. Aaron’s only major-league inside-the-park home run came on May 10, 1967, in the first game of a doubleheader between the Braves and Philadelphia Phillies. It […]

“The greatest invention since the cotton gin”?1 Television or maybe the transistor radio? No, it was a batting helmet that the Brooklyn Dodgers team physician, Dr. Eugene Zorn, was referring to, one that prevented serious injury to Milwaukee Braves infielder Joe Adcock when he was beaned on August 1, 1954, at Ebbets Field. As several […]

When the New York Yankees arrived in Boston in April 2007, the Boston Red Sox had not swept a series from the Yankees at Fenway Park for 17 years. The last time had been August 31-September 2, 1990, part of Boston’s only season home sweep of the Yankees in franchise history. The last time the […]

The Chicago Cubs were struggling. For the first two months of the season, they were a cute story. Since mid-May, the lovable losers of recent years had spent much of their time in first place in the National League East. Starting on June 6, however, the team lost ten of 16 games. The lowlight was […]

A paid crowd1 of 28,922 settled in to watch a scheduled doubleheader between the Astros and Mets on a Wednesday afternoon. Less than a week before, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins returned safely in the spaceship Columbia, concluding the Apollo 11 mission and the historic walk on the moon. In 1969 the Mets […]

For much of the rain-induced two-day gap between Games Three and Four of the 2017 Washington Nationals-Chicago Cubs Division Series, it appeared that Stephen Strasburg would be too sick to take the mound for the Nats in Game Four. But after enduring some withering criticism during the unscheduled offday, Strasburg told Washington manager Dusty Baker […]