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The last position player who played with a major-league club for an entire season and hit .400 was not Ted Williams, but it was a fellow Red Soxer: Roger LaFrancois. Roger used to go to Red Sox games as a kid. He signed with the Red Sox and came up in their system, even receiving […]
With one of the finest spitballs in baseball history, Stan Coveleski baffled American League hitters from the final years of the Deadball Era into the 1920s. To keep hitters off balance, Coveleski went to his mouth before every pitch. “I wouldn’t throw all spitballs,” he later explained. “I’d go maybe two or three innings without […]
As the title of his 2013 autobiography showed, George Altman’s baseball journey took him from the Negro Leagues (1955) to the majors (1959-67) and beyond (Japan, 1968-75). The slugging 6-foot-4 outfielder, who also played first base from time to time, hit 101 home runs in the majors. He was a National League All-Star in 1961 […]
As the fourth president of the Boston Base Ball Association, Nicholas Apollonio navigated the corporation and its baseball team through the turbulent times of the 1874 and 1875 seasons in the National Association and the initial 1876 season in the National League. Nicholas Taylor Apollonio was born on April 9, 1843 in New York City, […]
For the first half of the 1970 season, Cincinnati rookie pitcher Wayne Simpson had the National League by the tail. He won 13 of his first 14 decisions in the majors, making the All-Star team. “He was tough,” remembered Al Oliver, then an opponent with the Pittsburgh Pirates. “Outstanding. I’d have to rate him right […]
There are many Moonlight Grahams. One is a quasi-relative of mine who signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians and made their roster but never got into a major-league game. Carter Hamilton was from a small town in Iowa. He was a pitching star at the University of Iowa and was signed to an Indians […]
Tabbed “the best young catching prospect to try for a major league berth in many years” in the spring of 1948 by Pirates rookie manager Billy Meyer, Ed Fitz Gerald went on to have a 12-year major-league career as a backup catcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Senators, and Cleveland Indians.1 The gangly, six-foot, 170-pound […]
Reliever John Wyatt may have been considered a journeyman reliever in his day, but his journeys led him to two fortuitous stops. One was in Boston, where he anchored the bullpen of the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox, who came within one game of winning their first World Series in nearly a half-century. The next year […]
During his days with the Baltimore Orioles at the end of the 1970s, Pat Kelly talked a lot with skipper Earl Weaver. While Weaver spoke about baseball strategy, Kelly – who became a born-again Christian in 1975 – persisted in talking about Jesus Christ. In one of those dialogues, Kelly proposed to Weaver, “Why don’t […]
If you’ve seen Frank Zupo’s 1958 Topps baseball card, you probably remember him. The lefty-hitting catcher appeared in only 16 major-league games for Baltimore between 1957 and 1961 — but Zupo’s pronounced unibrow and “Noodles” nickname have gained him longer-lasting fame than his on-field accomplishments. Nonetheless, at 17 years, 11 months, and 13 days, he […]
When the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Braves played a Sunday doubleheader in Milwaukee County Stadium on August 20, 1961, they were headed in opposite directions. The fourth-place Braves were riding a nine-game winning streak, including the first three games of the series with Philadelphia, which left them eight games behind the first-place Cincinnati Reds. The […]
Billy Williams was on fire, the 30-year-old hammering the ball out of the park and providing one of the few reasons to make time to see the Chicago Cubs as the 1968 season wound down. The Cubs entered the game on September 10 in fourth place, decidedly mediocre at 75-71, a half-game behind Cincinnati and […]
On September 4, 1935, Chicago Tribune sportswriter Irving Vaughan wrote an article analyzing the National League pennant race. He specifically reviewed how the Cubs were faring in a three-way race involving themselves, the New York Giants, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He observed that if the front-running Cardinals played just .500 ball the rest of […]
The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in the 1907 and 1908 World Series, but lost to the Tigers in 1935. The teams met again in the 1945 World Series and were tied three games apiece heading into the deciding Game Seven on Wednesday, October 10, 1945, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. World War II […]
Sam Leslie played parts of 10 seasons in the major leagues. He began his career with the New York Giants in 1929, where he was primarily a pinch-hitter for four seasons, making only nine defensive appearances with future Hall of Famer Bill Terry entrenched at first base. On June 16, 1933, he was traded to […]
From 1901 through the end of the 2015 major-league season, one of the two teams has scored 20 or more runs in at least 236 games.1 Only twice has each team scored at least 20 runs. Both games involved the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs, and both games were played in Chicago. The first, […]
The 31,202 fans in attendance on this Tuesday night in the nation’s capital were probably expecting another exciting game between the division-leading Washington Nationals (45-31, 8½ games up on the Atlanta Braves in the National League East) and the visiting reigning World Series champion Chicago Cubs (39-37, one game behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the […]
Although Chicago was gloomy in the immediate aftermath of the Cubs’ Game Four loss that put them in a 3-to-1 World Series hole against the Cleveland Indians, the faithful quickly regrouped to cheer on the hometown nine for one last time at Wrigley Field in 2016. Cubs partisans among the 47,711 fans in attendance used […]
They made an odd couple on Opening Day 1923 at Braves Field – a scowling, upright Midwesterner who had sat behind a federal judge’s bench, and a beaming, roguish Boston Irishman who had stood before one. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the Midwesterner, had a cold personality and a reputation for probity. Since taking office in […]
Forty-three (43) members and guests of the Larry Dierker Chapter gathered in person and via Zoom for the February 20, 2023, chapter meeting at the Spaghetti Western restaurant in Houston. Click here to watch a video recording on YouTube. President Joe Thompson opened the meeting and gave the good news that José Altuve wants to […]