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It was relatively early in the 1986 season, but when the Boston Red Sox (29-14) faced the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Stadium on the night of May 27, 1986, they led the American League East Division and held a seven-game lead over the sixth-place Indians – who nonetheless owned a winning record (22-21).1 The Indians […]

As the Cubs occupied themselves with preparations for Game Four of the World Series against the Cleveland Indians, their fans were busy trying to convince themselves that the home team could overcome the previous night’s 1-0 loss — the second Cleveland shutout of the Series — that had put Chicago into a 2-1 Series deficit. […]

The Chicago Cubs and their fans were flying high on the first Wednesday in October 1984 as “Work came to a standstill, crime came to a halt and joy was the most abundant emotion in town.”1 The Cubs crushed the San Diego Padres 13-0 in the opening game of the National League Championship Series. The […]

On April 8, 1960, the Los Angeles Dodgers traded infielder Don Zimmer to the Chicago Cubs for three minor leaguers and $25,000. Just four days later, on Opening Day, Zimmer hit a home run off Don Drysdale at the Los Angeles Coliseum in his first at-bat against his former team. After the home run, Zimmer […]

In 1987, his first season with the Chicago Cubs, Andre Dawson got his MVP season going with a 5-for-5 performance against the San Francisco Giants, including joining the ranks of those who have hit for the cycle. After 11 seasons in Montreal, he had signed with the Cubs as a free agent in March, taking […]

A tenacious, feisty catcher who played six years in the 1890s with the Chicago club of the National League, Tim Donahue appeared in 466 major league games and compiled a .236 lifetime batting average. He was an outspoken individual, having what one sportswriter termed “a tongue as nimble as a squirrel’s and as sharp as […]

“Frank Killen is certainly a natural born pitcher,” opined sportswriter John M. Roche in Sporting Life in 1892 as the burly 6-foot-1, 200-pound southpaw was preparing for his first full season in the big leagues. “He is well built, young and possessed of all the attributes which go to make up a winning pitcher.”1 That […]

Right-handed-hitting outfielder Ken Hunt and one-time major-league single-season home-run leader Roger Maris1 were boyhood friends while growing up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After the Maris family moved to nearby Fargo, the two all-around athletes were high-school sports rivals. During Hunt’s senior year in football, his team lost one game, a 7-6 setback to Fargo […]

A powerful right-handed hitter with a legendary throwing arm, Tillie Walker spent the second decade of the Deadball Era shuffling around the American League, playing for four different teams in the span of eight seasons. After spending time with Washington, St. Louis and Boston, Walker finally came into his own with the Philadelphia Athletics in […]

Ebbets Field has been gone for more than half a century, but the place still has a remarkable grip on our consciousness. At least three books have been devoted to the lovable old ballpark in Crown Heights.1 Yet even these in-depth works don’t shine much light on what happened after the Dodgers left Brooklyn. They […]

Circa turn of the Twentieth Century’s industrial post-war boom. An immigrant tide augurs writer Eric Goldman’s Metro-American. “The more people moved to the cities,” Bill Veeck observed, “enclosed parks moved the game downtown.” Self-interest led it where the action was. Slums, lumber yards, and vacant lots fell to baseball’s craze for cash.    By then, the […]