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 The switch-hitting José Vidro made three All-Star teams and batted over.300 for five straight seasons, 1999 through 2003. He remains the best second baseman in the truncated history of the Montreal Expos. Born on August 27, 1974, in Mayaguez, on Puerto Rico’s west coast, Vidro grew up about 15 miles away in Sabana Grande, where […]

Julio “Monchy” de Arcos (1922-1966) was a Cuban executive and scout. He was associated with the major leagues as early as 1941, when the Brooklyn Dodgers trained in Cuba’s capital, La Habana. Thanks to his friendship with Leo Durocher, then Brooklyn’s manager, he was the Dodgers’ interpreter and batboy. In the mid-1940s, de Arcos became […]

On June 18, 1974, Paul Splittorff threw a two-hit shutout against the Brewers in Milwaukee. After the game Splittorff and his roommate, Steve Busby, were talking about no-hitters. Splittorff did not consider himself to be a no-hit-type pitcher. But he had a list of pitchers who he considered could throw a no-hitter every time out […]

Sinclair Oil’s dinosaur logo is as powerful a brand identifier as Exxon’s tiger or Mobil’s Pegasus. When Harry Sinclair died at the age of 80 in 1956, his obituaries in the Los Angeles Times1 and the New York Times2 highlighted his oil exploits—but did not mention his baseball interests.  In the early 1900s, Sinclair was […]

Edythe Perlick (later Keating), the star left fielder for the Racine, Wisconsin, Belles from 1943 through the 1950 season, exemplified the kind of women who played hardball in the All-American Girls Base Ball League, today called the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. A steady and productive hitter, a speedy defensive outfielder with a strong and […]

Early in his career on the baseball diamond he was a man without a position. Luckily for him, the power emanating from his bat allowed him to hang around the major leagues long enough to settle into the only position he could play reasonably well. He came from Native American – or, in the common […]

High atop the left-field foul pole in Wrigley Field waves a flag bearing Cubs uniform number 14, retired in honor of a slugging 1953 rookie. Paul Schramka wore number 14 for Chicago on Opening Day, 1953, when he pinch ran for Clyde McCullough in the seventh inning against Cincinnati. He did not score. Two days […]

Ted Lyons is remembered as the “Sunday pitcher” who started only once a week for much of his career. He made the most of his workdays, finishing nearly three out of four starts with more complete games than any other contemporary pitcher. Forget won-lost record, Lyons said: “A good pitcher is a pitcher who has […]

Clyde Kluttz, a journeyman catcher-turned-scout, convinced Charlie Finley to pay a young North Carolina pitcher named Jimmy Hunter $50,000 to sign with the Athletics in 1964. A decade later, Kluttz, then a super scout with the Yankees, persuaded the All-Star now known as “Catfish” to accept $3.75 million to come to New York in the first of a flood […]

Second-generation big-leaguer David Segui1 debuted in 1990 and batted .291 over all or parts of 15 seasons. A switch-hitter with moderate power, he started and ended his career with the Baltimore Orioles around stints with six other teams. Segui was briefly the majors’ all-time fielding percentage leader among first basemen with at least 1,000 appearances […]

By the close of the 1905 season, first baseman Joe Nealon was the most highly coveted minor league prospect on the West Coast. Young (not yet 21), large (at least 6-foot-2, 200-plus pounds),1 and athletically gifted, his services became the object of an intense bidding war among major league clubs ultimately won by the Pittsburgh […]

Clad in the uniform of his hometown team, Paul Molitor stood on third base after he collected the 3,000th hit of his major-league career. The first player ever to reach the milestone with a triple, Molitor enjoyed a number of memorable moments in a Minnesota Twins uniform through the final three seasons of his 21-year […]

Sam Nahem was a so-so pitcher who logged a 10–8 won-loss record and a 4.69 ERA in four partial seasons with the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Phillies between 1938 and 1948. Despite this unremarkable record, Nahem was a remarkable major leaguer in many ways. He was the only Syrian and one of the few Jews in […]

Though Thomas Austin Brewer Jr. was a lifelong resident of Cheraw, South Carolina, he was born in North Carolina on September 3, 1931.1 Cheraw lies in the northern part of South Carolina and was a town of a few thousand inhabitants in 1931 so it happens that the nearest hospital was in Wadesboro, North Carolina, […]

When Chris Jelic was traded from Kansas City to New York in 1987, the Mets picked up a future All-Star. It just wasn’t him. Jelic’s place in baseball history endures as the answer to two trivia questions: He was the other guy the Mets got when they traded for David Cone, and he remains the […]

In the late 1940s, Dick Fowler was one of the American League’s top pitchers. He tossed 61 complete games between 1946 and 1949 — only three AL pitchers threw more ­— and posted back-to-back 15-win seasons despite an aching shoulder.1 He played in an era when sore-armed hurlers were expected to keep throwing.2 That’s exactly […]

“Yes, I knew him. He had huge hands with crooked fingers. He was a catcher, you know.” “Hell Yes, Babe was here. When? I don’t know, maybe on Ben Egan day? No! I don’t recall ever seeing him. No! I don’t know of anyone who did.” “Yes, I knew Ben. A great guy, everyone liked him. He […]

Roger Clemens’ last major-league start, on October 7, 2007 — for the New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians, the very team against which he had made his major-league debut in May 1984 — ended with him limping off the mound after only 2⅓ innings with a hamstring injury. Clemens had already allowed the Indians […]

Since 1931 the University of Minnesota baseball program has been blessed with three fine coaches, Frank McCormick, Dick Siebert, and John Anderson, all of whom are enshrined in the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The most improbable and quite possibly the least appreciated success story has been Anderson’s tenure as coach of the […]

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Goodwin “Goody” Rosen is that the diminutive former National League All-Star spent the entirety of his career drawing strength from his identity as “the other” in baseball. On the one hand, Rosen was a Jew, one of only 25 Jews to play in the major leagues during the […]

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw celebrates after closing out Game Six of the 1980 World Series, clinching the first championship in franchise history. (Courtesy of the Philadelphia Phillies)   In the Beginning The first National League game in Philadelphia was played in 1876 with the Boston Red Stockings facing the Philadelphia Athletics, one of several […]

Entrance to Four Mile Run Park in Arlington, Virginia, in the twenty-first century. (City of Arlington)   Take a flood-prone elementary school. Add a peppery, baseball-mad mayor and a group of disgruntled neighbors. Mix in dozens of minor-league ballplayers, ranging from top prospects to unwanted, unsigned good-enough-to-dream types. Oh, and throw in a bunch of […]