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Minnesota Twins manager Bill Rigney had a plan for the game on Tuesday against the Kansas City Royals. With three games to go in the regular season and the American League West title already clinched, Rigney wanted to get his players ready for the playoff opener Saturday against the AL East champion Baltimore Orioles. His […]
What’s usually a day of terrific joy was also a day of grave concern. Cubs fans at Wrigley Field for 1970’s home opener welcomed Chicago’s North Side ballclub after the team went 1-3 in its first four games of the season. Southpaw Ken Holtzman pitched a complete game and led the home team to a […]
This was the next-to-last home run Ted Williams ever hit. It was also the fourth game-winner in a row he had hit off Washington Senators right-hander Pedro Ramos, who was only 25 years old but had given up six home runs to Williams, with the four game-winners tying him (with Virgil Trucks) for first place […]
Ironically, the Chicago Cubs got off to an auspicious start in baseball’s centennial year. They began the 1969 season with the National League’s best Opening Day record: 39 wins, 28 losses, 2 ties. And there was plenty of optimism on Chicago’s North Side as the newly-configured major leagues got underway. George Vass wrote of the […]
The 1959 White Sox were noteworthy for getting maximum results out of minimal offensive production. That was never truer than on April 22 against the Kansas City Athletics. With the season in its infancy, the White Sox entered the game at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium tied for third place in the American League standings with […]
A headache put Wally Pipp on the New York Yankees bench in June of 1925, opening the door for a young Lou Gehrig to take his position. For Kansas City Athletics shortstop Wayne Causey, it was an elbow injury that provided the opening for future star Dagoberto “Campy” Campaneris to ultimately take his.1 In the […]
The Minnesota Twins were scheduled to open their 1962 home season on Friday, April 13. The date proved unlucky for a ballgame as six inches of snow blanketed the Twin Cities, forcing a postponement to the next day. It took a flamethrower, sprinklers, and a helicopter hovering over the outfield to melt the snow and […]
The eyes of the baseball world were focused on the National League pennant race as the 1959 regular season ended on Sunday, September 27. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves, tied for first place, each won their final game, forcing a best-of-three tiebreaker series.1 But there was also a down-to-the-wire contest in the American […]
Solly Hemus’s place in New York Mets history is exceedingly small by most measures. He served as a coach under Casey Stengel for the Mets’ first two seasons, 1962-63, during which the expansion team set a twentieth-century record for losses in a season.1 Hemus, formerly the scrappy player-manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, holds one […]
In July 1952 Boston Red Sox rookie and Opening Day shortstop Jim Piersall was hospitalized with manic depression, more recently classified as bipolar disorder. Struggling to learn the nuances of switching positions from the outfield, coupled with the fear of failure, Piersall with his seeming playfulness on the field became progressively troublesome. He fought with […]
A “sticky wicket” of summer heat1 shrouded Crosley Field as the third-place Cincinnati Reds and the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies met on Saturday, July 18, 1964. The squads were pairing up for the 10th time this season in the second game of a five-game series. So far, the Phillies were up on the Reds six games […]
The Philadelphia Phillies could not have picked a better day for a batting-helmet giveaway than Sunday, August 3, 1969. The 13,181 in attendance at Connie Mack Stadium witnessed one of the highest-scoring games in the ballpark’s fabled history and, unbeknownst to them, the birth of the Cincinnati Reds’ fabled Big Red Machine. The 1968 season […]
The 1959 Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant — the franchise’s first in 40 years — with a “small-ball” team that ranked sixth in the eight-team American League in runs scored (669) while allowing the fewest (588). Chicago’s 9-7 Opening Day win over the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium1 on April 10 was […]
In the early part of 1927, the Midwest was bursting with anticipation as the baseball season segued from projections to facts delivered by daily sports accounts. By mid-April, pitching matchups, game summaries, and season standings would replace the “dreary box-scoreless winter” to provide “something in the newspapers.” Even an umpire might expect applause for one […]
The Minnesota Twins couldn’t have been happy to be facing Orioles left-hander Dave McNally in Game Two of the 1969 ALCS after losing Game One of the first-ever American League Championship Series. McNally faced the Twins three times during the 1969 season, including a game in Minnesota in May when he carried a no-hitter into […]
If the Philadelphia Phillies played their August 7, 1969, exhibition against their Double-A farm team as a farce, it might have been because they couldn’t handle any more drama. Phillies manager Bob Skinner resigned on the day of the game, blasting team management for perceived lack of support in his disciplinary struggles with slugger Dick […]
If Catfish Hunter was going to pitch a perfect game, Minnesota Twins manager Cal Ermer was going to make him earn every out.1 Hunter, a 22-year-old right-hander in his fourth season with the Athletics, had retired 24 straight batters going into the top of the ninth inning at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, on May 8, 1968, […]
At the conclusion of the 1966 season, New York Yankees outfielder Roger Maris considered retirement. The Yankees had participated in five consecutive World Series from 1960 to 1964, and the Minnesota-born, North Dakota-raised Maris was one of the cornerstones of the team. During that stretch he slugged 182 home runs, including a record 61 in […]
The 1961 American League baseball season ushered in change. The Washington Senators moved to Minnesota, becoming the Twins. It was the inaugural season for two new expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the new Washington Senators. Julio Becquer also experienced change as the season got under way. Beginning in 1955, Becquer had played for […]
Pittsburgh’s Chief Wilson set the major league single-season triple records by stroking his 36th three-bagger during the Pirates’ final game of the season, an away contest in Cincinnati. On the same day but in St. Louis, Cleveland’s Shoeless Joe Jackson raced around the diamond for his 26th triple of the season, establishing the American League […]
“Great catches are a lot like pretty girls. The last one you see is always the best one.” — Bob Sudyk of the Cleveland Press, after seeing a spectacular catch by Sandy Valdespino on June 18, 1967 In 1967 Sandy Valdespino was a bench player for the Minnesota Twins. On June 18 the Twins […]
With his trademark dark glasses and red socks, Bob Addie, the son of a New York City butcher, was a respected and popular fixture on the Washington sports and social scene for almost 40 years. A columnist and Senators beat writer for the Washington Times-Herald and the Washington Post, Addie served as president of the […]
A crowd heads toward Braves Field. The ticket and administration building (shown at left) still stands and today serves as the headquarters for the Boston University police. Note the trolley tracks in the foreground, indicating the path of transit vehicles exiting from within the ballpark itself. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY) Introduction Braves […]
On Saturday, August 26, 2017, the Bob Broeg St. Louis SABR Chapter hosted its third annual Research Conference at the Emerson Library on the campus of Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Six speakers presented a variety of subjects, hoping to capture the Jim Rygelski Research Award bestowed by the local chapter. The award is […]