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 A nickname like Squanto is a pretty good clue that George Francis Wilson was portrayed as Native American. Newspaper stories remarked on Wilson’s dark complexion and Indian nickname, though it is possible that people just dubbed him Squanto the way they might call another player Nig (Nig Cuppy, for instance) or another such name. There […]

Marty Griffin made a name for himself pitching in the Pacific Coast League, but fell short in his one chance in the major leagues. He was a native of San Francisco, and his first five seasons in professional baseball were spent with his hometown San Francisco Seals, though most of 1927 was in Nebraska with […]

John Ryn’s career was spent in the Midwest, South and West far from the eyes of the major East Coast newspapers and fans. All of it was spent in the minors or below. Considering this and the fact that his career ended more than a century ago, few have heard of him. Physically, he was […]

Sam Mele managed the Minnesota Twins to the American League pennant in 1965, but just a year and a half later was fired by the team. Subsequently, his former team rallied to finish the 1967 season tied with the Tigers, just one game out of first place in the American League. The record books show […]

“In my mind’s eye, I can still see Joe Torre – he was playing third base for the Cardinals – jumping and the ball going over his glove. Jerry Reuss was pitching. He threw me a slow curve. It was a clean hit. A single down the left-field line. When you get only one hit, […]

For a player who appeared in only 19 games during part of a nineteenth-century season, Daniel Albion Jones Jr. received an inordinate amount of notoriety. Among the many cameo players who flitted briefly across the major-league scene, Jones was perhaps the most unique. He was a Yale man who sang in the college’s glee club. […]

Ed Giovanola was a utility infielder who played in 218 major-league games over the course of five seasons from 1995 to 1999. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Giovanola was a versatile infielder who played second base, third base, and shortstop during a professional baseball career that spanned 10 seasons. In the majors, he played […]

“Baseball was his life,” said Gene Myatt of his father, George Myatt, who spent four decades in baseball (1933-1972) as a player, coach, and manager, and was the third-base coach for the 1964 Phillies1 Most of his playing career was as a second baseman, but he also played third base, shortstop, and the corner outfield […]

Bob Veale was one of the hardest-throwing and most intimidating strikeout pitchers in the National League from 1962 through 1972. The bespectacled left-hander stood 6-feet-6 inches tall and weighed 212 pounds — the combination of size, arm strength, and questionable vision made him an imposing figure on the mound and one of the most difficult […]

A baseball journeyman, Reno Bertoia nevertheless held a number of distinctions. He was one of baseball’s original bonus babies. Of the seven major leaguers born in Italy, he had the longest career, ten seasons. (One of the seven, Alex Liddi, was still active in 2012.) In Bertoia’s big-league debut, with his hometown Detroit Tigers, the […]

Dave Baldwin didn’t talk to the baseball or scream at the hitters. Offering no self-styled Mark Fidrych or Al Hrabosky theatrics on the mound, the relief pitcher was a quiet guy to the point of being shy, almost unnoticeable. Yet in 176 games over six seasons with the Washington Senators, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White […]

In the 1950s announcer Jack Brickhouse dubbed Wrigley Field the “Friendly Confines.” Baseball fans know there is nothing friendly about the ballpark when the winds are blowing. As longtime WGN weatherman Tom Skilling put it, “When the northeast gales off nearby Lake Michigan howl in toward home plate, the most mediocre pitchers can perform as […]

The second night game ever played at Wrigley Field was a Red Cross “Thank You” program exhibition between the Milwaukee Chicks and the South Bend Blue Sox of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. This was the first contest of a doubleheader held on Tuesday evening, July 18, 1944, serving as a break between the […]

Baseball fans, more than fans of any other sport, are lovers of nostalgia, and the end of a star player’s long career evokes fond memories, even more so when that player has spent his entire career with one team. Craig Biggio made it to the major leagues as a catcher with the Houston Astros in […]

On July 13, 1872, the New York Clipper reported as follows: “The Boston on a Rest. On July 6th, the Boston Reds went into camp on the Island in Boston Harbor to fish, shoot, bathe and recuperate generally for the fall campaign.”  The island in question was Calf Island, one of the Brewsters, where, in […]

“I guess it shows they play ball in that other league too.” — National league manager Fred Hutchinson 1   Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted the best of baseball on July 30, 1962, in front of a crowd of 38,359. The All-Star Games had started back in 1933 when the players congregated on Chicago’s South Side […]

Neither team had won a championship in decades. The Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs, the two teams with longest postseason title droughts, knew that one of them would finally end the years of disappointment. For the Cubs, it had been 108 years since their last championship. Indians fans had to go back only 68 […]

Most Phillies fans have Father’s Day 1964 etched in their hearts and minds. In the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets in Shea Stadium, Jim Bunning pitched the seventh perfect game in major-league history and the first in the National League since 1880. Acquired from the Detroit Tigers in the offseason, […]

In 2017 a major-league game typically lasted more than three hours. Imagine completing one in less than one hour? That’s what the Chicago Cubs’ Grover Cleveland Alexander did when he needed just 58 minutes to shut out the Boston Braves on the north side of the Windy City. [Alexander] “figured the game was not worth […]

Let’s ponder these statistics for a moment: 187 pitches in a 10-inning complete game, 10 walks and 12 punchouts, one hit batter, at least 13 full counts, bases filled twice, 10 stranded runners, and three outfield flies. Together they produced Cincinnati Reds speedballer Jim Maloney’s no-hitter, arguably the most astounding in big-league history.1 “It was […]

Tommy McCarthy of the Boston Beaneaters was one of the smartest players in baseball. The outfielder with the “smooth face and boyish smile” was quick thinking, “fast on his feet,” and “game to the core.”1 The Pittsburgh Pirates were victims of his astute play on Wednesday, August 15, 1894, at the South End Grounds in […]