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One day in the mid-1930s, in the New York City borough of Staten Island, teenager Karl Drews anxiously watched as older boys of his small community of Eltingville climbed into a truck to go to a baseball team tryout. As the truck was about to depart, Drews pleaded with the older boys to take him […]

Joe Torre stood facing the outfield wall like a child in a time-out. Behind him, a short, blocky man fired a baseball against the concrete wall. Torre, standing six feet away, tried to field the rebound. Cardinals coach George Kissell was teaching the catcher to play third base, teaching the quick reactions the position demands. […]

When introducing the Orioles’ new manager in 1968, general manager Harry Dalton said, “In short, I believe Earl Weaver is a winner.”1 Weaver was short. And he was a winner. For the next 14½ seasons the Orioles won more games than any other team, piling up six division titles, four pennants, and one World Series […]

In the box, Beaneater Harry Staley pitched a mystifying curve, yet he often wrestled with his control and the barrage of temptations offered baseball stars. At his peak, the curves, the speed, and workhorse stamina helped the Boston Beaneaters to three straight pennants (1891-1893). “Staley wild” was an often-used phrase by the papers of the […]

You wind him up in the spring and he goes all summer. He hits .330 or .340 or whatever, and then you shut him off in the fall. – Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Gomez1   Charlie Gehringer was a model of consistency throughout his major-league career with the Detroit Tigers. This Hall of […]

In the first decade of the 1900s, most major-league baseball players still originated from the northern United States and were not educated past high school. It was not especially common to find Southern college men on big-league rosters. Weldon Henley was one of the earlier such players to appear in the majors when he debuted […]

In rural counties from the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes basin, super-scout Gene Bennett became the face of the Cincinnati Reds organization during more than a half-century of evaluating talent for the franchise.  The team changed ownership seven times since he began scouting in 1958. Thus far 11 different general managers have deemed Gene […]

Today’s multimillionaire players probably don’t know Danny Gardella or the impact the wartime New York Giants outfielder had on their high salaries. Gardella’s brief adventure in the Mexican League and his challenge to baseball’s reserve clause was one of the first steps toward modern-day free agency. At a “not much taller than a fire hydrant” […]

He might not be a household name today, but in 1916 Cliff Markle was called the “Find of the Baseball Season” and touted as one of the best up-and-coming pitchers of his day.1 He was also identified as the first major-league baseball player killed in World War I.2 So, that raises two questions: If he […]

It’s not every part-time player with a brief major-league career who takes part in a historic baseball event. However, when Emil “Hap” Huhn of the Cincinnati Reds crouched behind the plate in the bottom of the first inning at Chicago’s Weeghman Park preparing for Fred Toney’s first delivery, that is exactly what was about to […]

Betsy Jochum was one of the sixty original players, as well as one of the best, in the early years of the All-American Girls Professional Base Ball League, a professional women’s circuit born during World War II and made famous in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. Sixty years later, she had the […]

John Buzhardt pitched in both major leagues from 1958 through 1968, primarily as a starter for the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox. He compiled a 71-96 won-lost record, and dominated the New York Yankees while with the White Sox, where he was in a rotation that ranked with the best in the American League. […]

Back in an era when a manager’s responsibilities often included both the duties of a modern skipper plus those of today’s general manager, Pat Moran excelled at each role. In a span of six years Moran took over two mediocre franchises with little history of winning, rebuilt and reassembled their players, and managed each to […]

Cotton Knaupp played 1,555 games in the Southern Association, more than any other player.1 The most memorable of those games came on August 8, 1916. On that afternoon he was at second base for New Orleans as the Pelicans hosted the Chattanooga Lookouts. With the bases loaded in the sixth inning, Knaupp snagged a line […]

Dubbed the “Volga Batman” for his Russian heritage, Mike Chartak seemingly possessed the tools for a long and illustrious career. “He can hit the ball as far as Ruth … [and] has the Jimmy Foxx stride … [the] Joe DiMaggio swing.” But despite such lofty observations by The Sporting News, Chartak managed just four years […]

The major-league career of Dutch Schliebner can be summed up in three words: “George Sisler’s replacement.” When the 1922 American League MVP, Sisler, came down with sinus conditions after his banner season, it put the St. Louis Browns in a terrible bind. After the Browns experimented with Marty McManus and Cedric Durst at first base […]

In the long history of professional baseball, almost 100 major-league players were nicknamed “Doc.” About half of them were medical professionals: physicians, dentists, an optometrist, a pharmacist, and even a veterinarian. Among the physicians was John Lavan, a graduate of the University of Michigan medical school who also earned a doctorate in public health. Lavan […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   In the early 1880s prosperous tobacco merchant John B. Day re-established the national pastime in New York – operating teams in both major-league circuits with great success. In 1884 Day’s New York Metropolitans were American Association pennant winners […]

It was said of Edgar Smith that he perhaps “lost more one-run games than any pitcher who ever played the game.”1 Hard luck seemed to follow him. He once started the season 0-10, and yet was named to the American League All-Star team. Eddie Smith, a switch-hitting southpaw, pitched 10 years in the big leagues […]

“As the son of former major league player, manager and [front-office executive Bob Kennedy]…Terry grew up among baseball…and had the privilege of learning about hitting from the likes of Stan Musial and Ted Williams.”1 This privileged education undoubtedly contributed to Terry Kennedy’s selection as the youngest player on the 1976 College All-America baseball team. He […]

  Roy Campanella was the sixth acknowledged Black player to appear in the major leagues in the twentieth century, debuting with the Brooklyn Dodgers a year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Campanella went on to become the second Black player, after Robinson, to win a major-league Most Valuable Player award, and eventually became […]

Robert “Buck” Fausett was a 36-year-old major-league rookie who finished his brief time in the big leagues as the answer to a trivia question: “Who was the only major-league pitcher ever to be relieved by a 15-year-old?” But don’t define Fausett as a baseball player by his .097 average in 13 major-league games (most of […]

“People don’t know how good the Pacific Coast League is,” a onetime miner named H.V. “Hardrock Bill” Lane said in 1935. “There’s Oakland, or San Francisco.”1 A year later he moved the then-Double-A Hollywood Stars to San Diego, renamed them Padres for a nearby mission, opened single-tier 9,100-seat Lane Field, and began to fill a […]

One evening in the summer of 1947, the National League’s best and worst teams put on a display that a future baseball commissioner labeled “a farcical exhibition which was a disgrace to baseball and a complete travesty of all the rules of sportsmanship.”1 The Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers spent 12 anarchic minutes in Philadelphia […]