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It may have been happenstance that made Ron Blomberg own a piece of history as baseball’s first designated hitter. After he overcame anti-Semitism in his hometown of Atlanta to become the number one overall pick by the New York Yankees in the free agent draft in 1967, his dream of playing in New York City, […]

Bill Veeck’s one-man carnival came blaring into Chicago on March 10, 1959. He and an investor group bought a majority interest in the Chicago White Sox from Dorothy Comiskey Rigney, granddaughter of the franchise’s founder, Charles Comiskey. The 45-year-old Veeck was coming home. He liked to say, “I am the only human being ever raised […]

With the game in the balance, Lee Smith would walk ever so slowly1 from the bullpen to the mound. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound Louisianan was in his time one of the most feared relief pitchers in the game.2 In his 18 major-league seasons (1980-1997), the right-hander pitched for eight different teams, and his records are notable […]

A onetime budding prospect in the Milwaukee Braves’ organization, Al Spangler drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn for his speed and pesky hitting throughout much of his early career. Seemingly in spite of the table-setting success of an Ashburn-like talent, Spangler often found himself on teams in search of a power-hitting slugger, […]

While he made one hit in his only major-league at-bat in 1963, Roy Gleason is better known for the unfortunate one hit of shrapnel he incurred in 1968 from an enemy bomb explosion while serving in the US Army during the Vietnam War. Gleason, who had played five years in the minor leagues before he […]

The New York Mets were trying to stay in the playoff race. They won their previous series against the Miami Marlins but remained 10½ games behind the Washington Nationals in the National League East. On their return to New York, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson told the press, “I think we feel differently about ourselves […]

The baseball gods were smiling down on the Cubs (31-31) when the Cleveland Indians (29-39) came to town on June 19, 2009. For the second straight afternoon, the Cubs scored four runs in the eighth inning and one in the ninth. In the first comeback, the Cubs beat their crosstown rivals, the White Sox. Although […]