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The St. Louis Cardinals entered July 1944 with an eight-game lead over the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates. The reigning NL champions compiled a 42-19 record through June 30, the best record in the majors. Manager Billy Southworth guided the Cardinals to successive World Series appearances in 1942-43 and a 17-5 record during June 1944. Their success […]

Baseball magic was happening in Chicago during the summer of 1977. It was late June and both of the city’s teams were atop their divisions. The White Sox – who had not won the World Series since 1917 – were tied for first in the American League West Division at the end of the day […]

In the final scene of the Marvel movie Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers wakes up to find himself in a basic 1940s-style hospital room, with a white metal bed frame, a ceiling fan turning slowly above, and the sound of a baseball game wafting from a wooden console radio. As the camera holds a close-up […]

Harold Baines first attracted the attention of the Chicago White Sox as a 12-year-old, when then-team owner Bill Veeck saw him hit a 400-foot home run in a little league game.1 Six years later, in 1977, the White Sox made Baines, a high-school senior in St. Michael’s, Maryland, the number-one overall pick in the June […]

The Cincinnati Reds’ Fred Toney was a big, 6-foot-2, rugged 200-pound pitcher, but even he didn’t expect to take the mound twice on a hot summer day in the Queen City. The Reds were in the midst of a grueling stretch of games when they prepared for a Sunday- afternoon twin bill with the Pittsburgh […]

“When you win that kind, you’ve got to win the pennant. You appreciate that kind of game. The fellows really pulled me through today. It’s been a long time since I’ve won that kind of game.” — Vernon Law after the Pirates had scored three 10th-inning runs to come from behind and defeat the Giants 8-7.1 […]

“The baseball rule makers made sweeping changes in the playing code of the national game today, and heaped so much additional duty and authority on the shoulders of the umpires that next season the officials will all have to take a rest cure before the season is half over.” – New York Times, February 10, […]

Baseball wasn’t the only thing on the minds of Bostonians on September 1, 1897. That was the day that the first subway system in the United States began operations. Motorman James Reed drove the first car, bearing about 150 people and departing Park Street station at 6:02 A.M. Conductor Gilman Trufent collected the 5-cent fares. […]

In 2011 the Cincinnati Enquirer published a list of the 100 greatest players in the 130-year history of the Cincinnati Reds.1 Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan topped the rankings, which were brimming with the names of renowned ballplayers. But coming in at number 62 was Curt Walker, a long-forgotten right fielder who spent […]

“It was 4:03 p.m. when the bulletin from Associated Press clattered across the country,” remembered Newark Star Ledger sportswriter Dave Klein of the events of Friday, September 12, 1969.1 The news spread like wildfire throughout New York City, and it put the talk about the first-place Amazing Mets’ surge to the National League’s Eastern Division […]

The Boston Beaneaters, under manager Frank Selee, won the National League pennant in 1897 and 1898, but finished in second place in 1899. In March 1900, Selee predicted, “My team should improve its position a peg this year. That makes us champions.”1 He had good reason to be confident. The 1900 Beaneaters had arguably the […]

Mention the name of Billy Pierce and smiles cross the faces of older Chicago White Sox fans. The affable southpaw, whose No. 19 is retired and whose statue resides in the left-field bleachers at Guaranteed Rate Field, was the darling of the Sox starting corps in the 1950s. Whenever Billy took the mound, White Sox […]

Two months into the 1928 season, the National League had a tight race for the top spot. While the Cincinnati Reds held first place (28-16),1 four other teams were within striking distance. The third-place New York Giants (21-15) traveled to Brooklyn to take on the fourth-place Robins (22-17) at Ebbets Field. A week earlier, the […]

Red Thisted never saw a professional baseball game until he was 20 years old. He made up for lost time, though. Over the course of four decades, he attended every home game played my Milwaukee’s ballclub, plus all of the away games when not prevented by wartime travel restrictions. From the start of the 1926 […]

One of the most popular players ever to play for the Boston Red Sox, Rico Petrocelli will always be remembered for his familiar “Fenway Stroke” that sent many an opposing hurler’s offerings into the net atop the left field wall. Although he was not physically imposing at 6-feet and 175 pounds, he hit 210 home […]

Excepting some otherwise brief ventures as a young man, this 14-year-old runaway spent nearly 60 years in professional baseball as player, manager, owner, innovator and groundskeeper. In this latter capacity, Henry Fabian was considered “one of the great masters of his craft.”1 St. Louis Browns owner Bob Hedges tried to entice him from the Texas […]

“If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw and […]

Cito Gaston had seen enough of Duane Ward. The Toronto Blue Jays manager had replaced starter John Cerutti with Ward to open the seventh inning with the visitors nursing a 4-2 lead over the Milwaukee Brewers at County Stadium. Four singles, two sacrifice flies, and an intentional walk later, Toronto was trailing 5-4. The Brewers […]

Allan Lewis was baseball’s first “designated runner.” Owner Charles O. Finley, on one of his many whims, put “The Panamanian Express” on his Kansas City and Oakland rosters for parts of six seasons from 1967 to 1973. “Mr. Finley’s called me up every time,” said Lewis in 1973. “No reports, no scouts, no managers —just […]

Following his death in February 1945, long-forgotten turn-of-the-century pitcher Ham Iburg was accorded a singular accolade by The Sporting News. “Iburg is credited with having the slowest ball ever hurled in the majors or higher minors,” declared the Bible of Baseball. “He had three speeds – slow, slower and slowest.”1 Some 40-plus years earlier, it […]

Fresco Thompson, the jester in Walter O’Malley’s court, ran baseball’s most productive scouting and player development factory during the 1950s and 1960s. With O’Malley providing the money, Thompson and his scouts providing the players, and vice president Buzzie Bavasi molding the roster, the Dodgers won eight pennants and four World Series between 1952 and 1966, […]

There are fewer third basemen in the Hall of Fame than players from any other position. One who hasn’t made it is Stan Hack, who held down the post for 16 years with the Chicago Cubs, from 1932 through 1947. Yet Bill James ranks him the ninth best all time at the position, well ahead […]

Many believe that spitballer Frank Shellenback had his major-league career stolen from him when his key pitch was outlawed. In 1920 the National Commission did away with trick deliveries, including the spitball — and Shellenback’s team, the Chicago White Sox, for whom he had pitched in 1918 and 1919, didn’t list his name among those […]

Charles Krehmeyer joined his first professional team in June 1883, signing with the Terre Haute (Indiana) Blues. When he made his major-league debut the following season, he joined a select club that even today numbers fewer than two dozen – catchers who threw left-handed and played more than one game in the majors. With only […]