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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 […]

Opening Day of the baseball season is always a festive occasion, and no city honors the occasion quite like Cincinnati. Even in the midst of the Great Depression, Opening Day in the Queen City was a perfect moment for players and fans to lose their worries in hopeful anticipation of the coming season. The Reds […]

In 1964 Boston Red Sox right-hander Dick Radatz struck out 181 opponents – which more than 60 years later remained the single-season record for a pitcher who worked exclusively in relief. His 16 wins as a reliever that year set an American League record.1  The 1964 Red Sox weren’t a winning team. They finished 72-90, […]

From 1883 until 1906, the Boston entry in the National League was often known as the Beaneaters. They finished first in the league standings in 1883, 1891-1893, and 1897-1898. The team had such well-known players as Tommy McCarthy, Old Hoss Radbourn, John Clarkson, and Jimmy Collins, as well as their manager, Frank Selee, all of […]

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 […]

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, […]

“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, […]

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 […]

Rising from the Chicago sandlots, Johnny Mostil joined the White Sox during the club’s darkest hour. It was no easy feat replacing the highly regarded Happy Felsch in center field, but Mostil was up to the task—establishing a reputation as one of the premier fly chasers in the majors. There is no telling what he […]

Ferd Eunick made the jump from Class D ball to the Cleveland Indians to get a “look-see” in 1917. The third baseman drew the Tribe’s interest because Joe Evans, the regular at third, was hitting under .200. It also helped that Ferd played for Marshalltown, Iowa, the birthplace of Indians owner James Dunn. Eunick never […]