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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 […]
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 […]
The spring of 1970 was a season of turmoil on college campuses across the United States. Student protests of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia escalated after four students in Ohio were killed on May 4 during a demonstration at Kent State University.1 A mid-May nationwide survey reported student strikes at 278 colleges, […]
It was the first meeting between the Mets and the Cubs since New York ran away with the National League Eastern Division on their way to the 1969 World Series. Now the Cubs were on top of the division after a little more than a month of the 1970 season, holding a 2½-game lead over […]
A brief glance at the box score for the mid-August game between the Boston Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals makes it appear that the Braves’ 3-1 win was a standard affair. However, the August 18, 1915, contest between these two teams was anything but normal. While the game flowed in fairly typical fashion, with […]
Willie Mays recorded 141 career triples and led the National League three times in that category. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library) The Giants were in the middle of a 21-game road trip when they took on the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia (formerly Shibe Park) on Thursday, September 15, 1960. The […]
Cincinnati arrived in Philadelphia on a five-game winning streak. After losing the first game of their four-game series with the Phillies, the Reds had won the next two and were hoping to continue their winning streak in the final game of the series. The Phillies were already 9½ games behind the Reds and were struggling […]
Near the end of March 1954, Stan Hack was suddenly named to become the new manager of the Chicago Cubs.1 Phil Cavarretta had abruptly resigned after refusing a reorganization shuffle to guide Hack’s minor-league team at Triple-A Los Angeles (PCL).2 The Cubs had finished in the second division since 1947, and several unfavorable comments Cavarretta […]
Sometimes the best deal for a major-league team is the one it doesn’t make. In the first six weeks of the 1965 American League season, pitcher Jim Perry was given little opportunity to show the Minnesota Twins the truth in that adage. From the start of spring training through the first 35 games of the […]
“This was the best I’ve put all my pitches together this season,” said Jim Bunning of his overpowering victory over the Cincinnati Reds.1 In what Philadelphia Phillies beat writer Allen Lewis described as a “dandy display of power pitching,” Bunning matched his personal high with 14 strikeouts to win his eighth straight decision, equaling his […]
It takes a certain kind of person to play catcher. They have to be the sage in-game counsel to the pitcher, helping him navigate the opposing lineup. They have to have the endurance to squat and crouch for three-plus hours, game in and game out, for 120 to 140 games per season. You also need […]
The Cubs returned to Wrigley Field for Game Three of the 2017 National League Championship Series facing the prospect of being pushed just one loss from elimination. After managing a total of three runs and seven hits in two anemic losses in Los Angeles, the Cubs still seemed to be catching their breath from a […]
In 1965, the Pirates made an impressive second-half run at the pennant. That year, as they would the following year, the Bucs finished third to the Giants and pennant-winning Dodgers. On a rainy June 1 evening, with the Pirates riding an 11-game winning streak, fireballer Bob Veale struck out 16 Philadelphia Phillies batters in front […]
Even the most “ageless” ballplayers, the ones who hold their places in the game the longest, eventually fade away. Pitcher Luis Tiant’s time came in the late summer of 1982, when he made six final appearances and earned two last wins with the California Angels to wrap up a 19-season big-league career. The Cuban-born fan […]
When Monty Stratton opted to take a solo hunting trip for rabbits around the family home where he grew up during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 1938, it was supposed to be a simple venture. But the hunt around the expansive Texas farm quickly turned tragic, when the 26-year-old Chicago White Sox pitching ace failed […]
In May 1949, 23-year-old Bobby Shantz took the mound for the fourth inning of an American League game between his Philadelphia Athletics and the Detroit Tigers, summoned by an 86-year-old manager born in December 1862, seven months before the Battle of Gettysburg. He pitched 10 innings in relief, allowing two hits and one run, and […]
Coming off a thrilling, 7-6 Opening Day win at Wrigley Field with pinch-hitter Willie Smith homering in the 11th inning over the brown ivy in right field (and Ernie Banks homering twice as well), the Chicago Cubs looked to keep the early momentum going in their 1969 season against the Philadelphia Phillies in the second […]
On July 3, 1911, the Philadelphia Athletics swept a pair of games from the New York Highlanders. A crowd of about 14,000 filled the stands at New York’s Hilltop Park, and “the assemblage was coatless to a man,”1 reported the New York Sun, as the players battled in the hot, glaring sun for more than […]
Overcoming potentially career-ending shoulder injuries in the early 1950s to develop into one of the most feared sluggers of his era, Roy Sievers became just the 18th player to hit 300 home runs. With a powerful and graceful swing that Casey Stengel called “one of the sweetest,” 1 Sievers, known as Mr. Clutch for his […]
His potential was glimpsed when future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, months removed from his Rookie League debut in 1965, was said to have the ability to “throw as hard as Dick Selma.”1 That fall, Eddie Stanky, who managed Selma in the Florida Instructional League, claimed the right-handed hurler could become “the best relief pitcher […]
Henry Berthrong lived an amazing and varied life – some small part of it as a baseball player. At the time of his retirement, he was likely the longest serving US civil servant (certainly among the oldest); at the time of his death, he was the oldest living major-league baseball player. Henry Washburn Berthrong arrived […]
Dylan Matthew Bundy to his credit. He is Cherokee, born to Lori and Denver Bundy on November 15, 1992, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Lori Bundy worked as a plumber and pipefitter for the Ford Motor Co. and later at Home Depot in Owasso, Oklahoma. When Lori met Denver Bundy, he was a mechanic and also ran a […]
Esteban Bellán was a pioneer. In 1871, the half-Irish Cuban became the first Latin-born player in a top professional league. Bellán, a pro since 1868, played for the Troy Haymakers in the National Association, which predated the familiar National League. He continued with Troy and the New York Mutuals through 1873. After that season, he […]
More than a decade after the 2005 World Series win, the White Sox play their crosstown rival Cubs on a warm July 25 night in 2016. The Sox went on to win 5-4. (Courtesy of the Chicago White Sox) The saying “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in […]