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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 […]

The Brooklyn Robins and New York Giants were seemingly participating in different leagues though the teams were adjacent in the standings in late June of 1929. The fifth-place, 26-34 Robins were 11½ games behind the NL-leading Pittsburgh Pirates, and a half-game ahead of the Boston Braves. The fourth-place, 34-26 Giants fared better, 3½ games from […]

The mood was gloomy and subdued at Sportsman’s Park in the Gateway City on October 4, 1930, as the Cardinals prepared to face the seemingly invincible Philadelphia Athletics in the third game of the World Series, having lost the first two contests in the City of Brotherly Love. There was “none of the concerted cheering, […]

July 1976 was filled with breathtaking events. Operation Sail’s parade of Tall Ships in New York Harbor marked the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.1 NASA navigated the Viking 1 lander onto the surface of Mars to search for evidence of life.2 And Israeli commandos freed 103 hostages from a hijacked […]

Pittsburgh manager Pie Traynor trudged back to the Belmont Hotel in Chicago wondering what the hell had just happened. Four weeks earlier, his Pirates led the National League by seven games. Fans in Pittsburgh were buying World Series tickets. The club had expanded the press box to accommodate all the writers who would be descending […]

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 […]

In an era when the common impression of a baseball catcher was a sturdy player with bulging shoulders, a husky framework, and brute strength, the 5-foot-7 (many sources say 5-foot-9), 155-pound Ray Schalk did not convey an imposing figure behind the dish. But as John C. Ward wrote in Baseball Magazine in 1920, “Schalk is […]

Rubén Gómez was the second pitcher from Puerto Rico to reach the majors — and the first to start and win a World Series Game. He led the New York Giants to a 6-2 win in Game Three at Cleveland on October 1, 1954. A limber 6 feet even and 170-175 pounds, Gómez was amazingly […]

The apex of Billy Meyer’s major league career came in 1948, when The Sporting News named the rookie pilot as Manager of the Year. He kept an undermanned Pittsburgh Pirate team in the middle of the pennant race until late September. That accomplishment sealed his reputation as a quintessential “baseball man.” William Adam (“Billy” or […]

A ballplayer turned Hollywood actor and a car dealer who once sold a Corvette to Elvis Presley. Lou Stringer was all three. Louis Bernard Stringer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on May 18, 1917. When Lou was three years old, his father moved the family to East Los Angeles. Robert Stringer had been a […]

Lefty Tyler was the third of the Miracle Braves’ Big Three, and the only one who didn’t win a 1914 World Series game (though the Braves won his only start). During the astonishing run from last to first, Tyler was, according to sportswriter Tom Meany, “untouchable when he had to be, which was most of […]

In Jim Bouton’s revelatory 1970 book Ball Four, he describes a late September 1969 scene at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. “A group of terrorized pitchers stood around the batting cage watching Willie McCovey belt some tremendous line drives over the right-field fence. Every time a ball bounced into the seats we’d make little whimpering animal […]

Serving as the pitching coach for the Big Red Machine is a bit like being the drummer in Billy Joel’s band. Even if you’re an integral part of an exceptional team, only the most devoted and hard-core observers will ever know your name as opposed to the headline-grabbing main attraction. While the Reds’ offense and […]

“Pinch hit hero mobbed by rabid Red Sox enthusiasts” was a sub-headline of the October 17, 1912, edition of the Boston Globe reporting on young Olaf Henriksen’s game-tying base hit in the eighth and deciding game of the 1912 World Series, against a dominant Christy Mathewson. It was a crucial blow off the great Mathewson, […]

Frank Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits across 18 seasons playing minor-league baseball (1946-63) — but appeared in just one major-league contest. He played a single inning at shortstop for the Yankees in 1953 and never got to bat. Verdi is perhaps most remembered for his 24 years of managing in the minor leagues and independent ball, […]

Despite not having the longest of careers and being only slightly above average in talent, James Joseph “General” Stafford made more of his baseball-playing mileage than almost any other player who played mostly in the nineteenth century. He loved being on the field and kept at it no matter the number of times he was […]