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The small town of Gridley, California, was established five years after the Civil War. It would become known for its agriculture, eventually becoming the “Kiwi Capital of the United States.” The Northern California community would also be successful in growing such other crops as peaches, plums that would become prunes, rice and walnuts. Gridley became […]

On the surface, it’s difficult to imagine a major-league ballplayer with more disappointing statistics — a pitcher with a career winning percentage of .000, a batting average of .000, and a fielding percentage of .500. But Pete Magrini had six very good seasons in minor-league baseball and, after all, attained a goal that most professional […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

At the end of the 2019 baseball season, 25 former major-league baseball players who had seen military service in World War II survived. One of them was Massachusetts native George Edward Yankowski, who served in the United States Army and saw combat with General George S. Patton’s Third Army. At age 96, this ex-catcher said […]

Variously referred to as “The Bryan boy,” “Bryanite,” “Bryan’s contribution to the major leagues,” “Bryan baseball star,” and “Bryan’s gift to the diamond,” John Hudson’s life and family centered around baseball…and Bryan, Texas. He was born in Bryan on June 30, 1912, and lived there his entire life. He remained there during baseball off-seasons and […]

Steve Garvey was the epitome of the Southern California cultural icon in baseball spikes. Photogenic, fan-friendly, and media accessible, he projected the image of an All-American success story and devoted family man. As a Los Angeles Dodger in 1974, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award after starting the All-Star Game at first […]

A consistent and sometimes spectacular player, Bob Elliott was the biggest everyday offensive threat on the 1948 Boston Braves. He led that pennant-winning team in games played, home runs, and runs batted in. He was very selective at the plate, striking out just 57 times while leading the National League with 131 bases on balls. […]

The Monster. It wasn’t a nickname Dick Radatz liked but the minute it was out there, it stuck. For three seasons (1962-1964), he was one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game, a supernova.1 He may have been overused, perhaps burning out after facing more than 500 batters for each of four seasons […]

Every team Matt Zieser ever pitched for was a B-level minor-league team, except when he appeared in two games in the major leagues. Briefly a member of the 1914 Boston Red Sox, he was 19 years too early to be assigned a Red Sox cap with a “B” on its front. When he started professionally, […]

Versatility is the best word to describe Felix Mantilla’s 11-year career, in which he won a world championship with the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, appeared in the All-Star Game, and played every position other than pitcher and catcher.  Felix (Lamela) Mantilla was born on July 29, 1934, in Isabela, a town in the northwest corner of […]

Ed Ashenbach was known as the “King of the Minors.” Who else could claim discovery of Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Alexander? From 1890 to 1911, Ashenbach toured the minors as an outfielder and manager. During this period, minor leagues were formed and disbanded at a dizzying pace. “Ash” navigated these waters, […]

When radio came along in the 1920s, it brought sports, including baseball, directly into people’s homes. Radio also created a new type of sports reporting: now, fans could not only read about the game in their favorite print publications but also listen to play-by-play announcers telling the story of the game in real time. In […]

When Mike Sandlock signed his first professional baseball contract, in 1938, he could not have envisioned that he would become a major-league teammate of no fewer than six Hall of Famers – Warren Spahn, Paul Waner, Ernie Lombardi, Pee Wee Reese, Billy Herman, and Ralph Kiner. Nor could he have imagined that during his five […]

Mastering the art of the line drive but unable to master his own temper, Heinie Manush burst onto the major league scene with the Detroit Tigers and quickly became one of the fiercest and most feared hitters in the game. Born July 20, 1901, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Henry Emmett Manush was raised in the Deep […]

After Game One of the 1935 World Series, Detroit’s playing manager, Mickey Cochrane, shared, “You’ll go a long time until you see better pitching than that Warneke tossed at us this afternoon.”1 Cochrane knew of what he spoke firsthand, having gone 0-for-4 including three taps back to Lon Warneke. Warneke’s performance was outstanding; he shut […]

Oh, pass the biscuits, Mirandy, I’m a-gonna load up my gun. I’ll use your biscuits for bullets, I’ll put them varmints on the run. —  from the song “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy,” by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, 1942   The Brooklyn Dodgers won the 1941 National League pennant by a 2½-game margin over […]

The 1911 Boston Red Sox were nothing to write home about. They finished tied for fourth place with the Chicago White Sox, both 24 games behind the pennant-winning Philadelphia Athletics. Any Red Sox fan who happened to be in Detroit’s Bennett Park, though, on this Saturday afternoon might have written back to Boston about this […]

At the start of the 1897 season, the Boston Beaneaters set out to regain the National League crown. Winners of three league titles earlier in the decade, the Beaneaters suffered through injuries, aging of key performers, and a ballpark fire in 1894 as the Baltimore Orioles built a new championship team. The Orioles, managed by […]

The New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates were to play the initial game of a three-game series at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on Monday, September 8. The Giants had just concluded a four-game series against the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Polo Grounds. The Giants split the four-game set with more than 166,000 fans attending. After […]

As the calendar turned to September in 1891, the Beaneaters headed to Chicago for a series with the Colts. This matchup between the league’s top two teams produced one of the most memorable games of the season thanks to Chicago’s legendary captain. Boston arrived trailing the Colts in the standings by six games and with […]

Led by MVP Dolph Camilli, the Dodgers staved off a fierce challenge from the St. Louis Cardinals to capture the pennant in 1941, winning 100 games for skipper Leo Durocher. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   Brooklyn’s Freddie Fitzsimmons knew nothing but hard luck on the big stage. He had started three World Series games for the […]

On Tuesday, June 15, 1965, majestic Tiger Stadium held 9,624 spectators who witnessed one of the most historic pitching accomplishments in Detroit Tigers history. The pitching matchup pitted Dave Wickersham (1-4) of the Tigers against Earl Wilson (4-4) of the Boston Red Sox. Wickersham, a 19-game winner in 1964, took the hill to start the […]

The defending world champion Pittsburgh Pirates were in first place on August 10, 1926, having routed the Brooklyn Robins in the first two games of a three-game series at Ebbets Field. To the outside world, the Pirates seemed harmonious, but the team was divided over whether Fred Clarke should be allowed to sit on the […]

After winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award with the Chicago White Sox in 1972, Dick Allen needed some rest. “Toward the end of the season, I was completely exhausted, a nervous wreck,” he admitted. “I’d been carrying the team for months. … I didn’t think I could play anymore.”1 The newly adopted designated-hitter […]