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Cecil Duff was a fixture of the semiprofessional circuits of northeast Oregon before pitching three games for the Chicago White Sox in September of 1922. When his playing days were done, Duff returned to Oregon to work in the lumber mills, briefly managing a semipro team called the Loggers. With the ponderosa pine forests depleted […]

The 18-year-old righty dubbed 1925’s “sensation of the [New York-Pennsylvania L]eague”1 seemingly appeared from nowhere. Advanced to the Eastern League four years later, the youngster known as Dick Oliver was “ranked as one of the pitching mainstays of the [Albany Senators]”2 and a bright future beckoned. The problem was that no such pitcher existed. Hints […]

Played out before the empty seats of Washington’s Griffith and D.C. Stadiums in the early 1960s, the “breath-takingly impressive”1 launch of Ken Retzer’s career was nearly “invisible to the [national sports]writers … [to the point that he was] mistakenly identified as Dick Retzer” in a Sporting News article about the rich crop class of rookie […]

Bob Chance – a lefty-hitting, righty-throwing right fielder and first baseman – played on three major-league teams in six seasons in the 1960s. At 6-foot-2, Chance was big and powerful. Gripping the bat with his right palm wrapped around the knob of the bat, he hit colossal home runs, some of which allegedly traveled over […]

Her first words on the phone to the police were, “My name is Mary, and I’ve shot a man.”1 It was March 9, 1967. Left-hander Ted Davidson, just 11 days into spring training and with his big break in the Cincinnati Reds bullpen imminent, lay bleeding behind a Tampa bar. His blonde assailant had fired […]

Seems to Move in Perpetual Sunshine.1 “Baseball is a lot about attitude — not getting too up or down, enjoy each game, then forget it and go on. Review the game, learn from your mistakes, but don’t let it burden you. A lot of things matter more than talent: work, education, never being satisfied. These […]

There were two major-league ballplayers named Joe Harris, and both played for Boston’s American League team. They had very different records. One had two middle names – the pitcher named  Joseph Lionel White Harris, who pitched only for Boston (1905-07) and racked up the astonishing record of 3-30, despite a 3.35 earned-run average. This biography […]

Native Philadelphian Monte Cross played short for the Phillies and Athletics during a particularly successful era in his city’s baseball history. After several earlier major-league stops, he manned the position for the slugging, first-division Phillies from 1898 to 1901. Then, jumping to the American League in 1902, Cross helped the Athletics to two pennants over […]

Dave Malarcher was an erudite, disciplined, and reverent man known appropriately as Gentleman Dave. As a player, he was a small (5-feet-7 and 150 pounds during his playing days), speedy, and smart third baseman, whose play embodied the methodology of one of his mentors, Rube Foster. Malarcher later became a manager, utilizing what he learned […]

Beginning in 1888 and for the next five summers, right-hander Huyler Westervelt was a pitching standout on various amateur baseball teams in the greater New York City area. As a result, he attracted a number of offers from major league clubs but did not accept one until he signed with the New York Giants in […]

He describes himself as a very easy-going guy, but in the next breath he’ll tell you he’s a full-blooded German with a hot temper that sometimes explodes.” — Earl Lawson, The Sporting News1 The Kansas City Royals gathered in February 2008 at their spring facility in Surprise, Arizona. One coach, rumbling around on a golf […]

Martin Flaherty was a major-league owner, player, and umpire during the 1880s – sort of. Mostly, he was a fan. For six innings in 1881, he played outfield as an emergency substitute for the Worcesters, a National League team he partly owned. The following season he umpired a single game: the Worcesters’ final nine innings […]

Mike McNally emerged from the gritty Lackawanna Valley before World War I to fashion a half-century career in baseball. A deft, light-hitting utility infielder, he played 10 seasons in the big leagues, twice scored spectacularly in the World Series, and went on to become a popular manager, scout, and front-office executive. Along the way, irrepressible […]

Who was the last player to bat for the Washington Senators in the franchise’s final game and also the last active player from that team? Who played both complete games of a doubleheader at shortstop without handling a single chance? Who became one-half of the first set of American League teammates – and only the […]

In 1964, promising Chicago Cubs infielder Ken Hubbs was killed in a plane crash. Almost sixty years earlier, another promising infielder’s career was cut short by death. Like Hubbs, Joe Cassidy of the Washington Nationals came out of nowhere to win a major league job. Like Hubbs’, Cassidy’s future abruptly ended after two major league […]

Rodney McCray is known as “Crash” for the time he made his mark and then some on an outfield wall in the minor leagues. But though his major-league time was brief and he totaled only three hits at the top level, McCray left a positive impression on the game and baseball did likewise to him. […]

“You can’t win ’em all.” It’s said with a shrug, a human acknowledgement that nobody goes undefeated, that nobody is perfect, that even if you do everything possible sometimes you will lose. The origin of this phrase could be Connie Mack after the 1916 Philadelphia A’s went 36-117. But it could also be from Cliff […]

James Elbert Greene, who went by the first name Joe, was one of the iconic catchers of the Negro Leagues. Greene was born on October 17, 1911, in Stone Mountain, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound Greene was a durable and solid receiver who caught Satchel Paige and the balance of the elite pitching […]

Rodolfo Arias’s professional baseball career as a left-handed pitcher spanned a total of 23 years in three countries: his native Cuba, the United States, and Mexico, where he made his final farewell to the game he loved. As a member of the Chicago White Sox in 1959, his one year in the majors, he made […]

Many recognize Pop Dillon as merely a cousin of Hall of Famer Clark Griffith who happened to have a brief major league career. If he’s written about today, it’s usually in that context or in relation to his passing on a young fastballer named Walter Johnson. Dillon was in fact among the top names in […]

Cleveland Indians General Manager and Hall of Fame outfielder Hank Greenberg once said of Bobby Avila, “He has that something extra that makes a great hitter. Call it competitive instinct. … He’s always fighting the pitcher, never choking up and never giving an inch. … In a tough spot, I’m always glad to see Bobby […]

Bobby Mathews, nearly forgotten today, was one of the top pitchers of the early professional era despite his small stature (5-feet-5½-inches tall, weight about 140 pounds). Between 1871 and 1887, he won nearly 300 games, 297 to be exact – more than any other pitcher not inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His […]

Curt Gowdy was the Cowboy behind the mike. Ned Martin quoted Ted Williams and Eudora Welty. Ken Coleman meant the Jimmy Fund. Bob Starr had a gentle lummox William Bendix kind of charm. In evaluating the Red Sox during the mid-to late 20th century, all helped baseball bewitch. Ken Harrelson was the Red Sox’ Southern-fried […]

Pitcher Paul Hartzell played four complete major-league seasons (1976 through 1979) and parts of two others (1980 and 1984). He was a swingman, starting 77 of the 170 games in which he appeared. He threw 22 complete games yet also posted 12 saves, a statistical combination that is difficult to imagine in today’s game. His […]