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The first frost would not arrive in Cleveland for another six days. Two thousand fans officially attended the pennant-clinching game against the defending champion Beaneaters. The attendance, slightly above average, was pretty respectable for a fall Wednesday afternoon game in northern Ohio when the home team’s pennant chances were long gone. Because the Spiders departed […]

With only a little over a week until the 1935 All-Star Game, the St. Louis Cardinals played the second of a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. The visiting Cardinals (36-27) had lost their last two games and were clinging to third place in the National League, eight games behind the New York Giants. The […]

A combination of fine weather, a state holiday,1 the largest recorded crowd at the South End Grounds to date, and serious Boston batting made the Beaneaters’ 1896 home opener an event to be remembered for some time, although not for the quality of the baseball. In 1896 the South End Grounds in its third iteration […]

Baseball is a game of inches, but it is also a game of numbers. On April 8, 1974, Number 44 hit Number 715. Every baseball fan in America knew what that meant: Hank Aaron had just surpassed Babe Ruth to claim the career home-run record. The Atlanta Constitution showcased Aaron’s feat on its front page, […]

Hugh Duffy strode to home plate in the bottom of the ninth inning. His Bostons trailed 12-11 but Bobby Lowe stood on third and Herman Long was on second after his clutch double. It was another roller-coaster thrill ride for the 2,100 fans in attendance but this was special, as it would be the last […]

Three weeks had passed in the National League’s 1896 season, and the Boston Beaneaters were fighting for first place. They trailed Philadelphia by a game and Pittsburgh by a half-game. By contrast, Louisville was entrenched in last place, 10½ games back. With a 2-16 record, the Colonels had been outscored 155-69 by their opponents. The […]

When Ebbets Field locker-room attendant Dan Comerford arrived at work on the morning of July 12, 1929, several packages were waiting for him at the clubhouse door. The five boxes – each containing a dozen new baseballs – had been sent from the office of National League President John Heydler. Seeing the parcels did not […]

The Beaneaters’ first Western road trip of 1892 began in the final days of April. Two games apiece in St. Louis, Chicago, and Louisville preceded their season debut in Cincinnati on Friday, May 6.  Losses in St. Louis and Chicago had brought Boston’s record to 14-3. The Reds, at 10-8, had lost three of their […]

In the spring of 1891, Boston Beaneaters pitcher Kid Nichols worked out with players from the Kansas City Blues team in Kansas City of the Western Association, where he had gotten his professional start in 1887 as a 17-year-old. One of the daily newspapers reported on his prediction for the 1891 season: “He says the […]

It was a cold, wet day in Boston. The morning half of the Memorial Day twin bill had been canceled because of a downpour, and the afternoon contest seemed in doubt until the rain tapered off shortly before game time. Although the outfield grass was soaked and slick and the basepaths muddy, the attendance-challenged Browns […]

On a cool 1960 September evening in Bloomington, Minnesota, one of the greatest rivalries in minor-league baseball came to an end. But nobody knew. When the St. Paul Saints visited Metropolitan Stadium to play the Minneapolis Millers on September 8, little did anyone know that it would be the last game ever between the two […]

Described as “the largest throng to see a night game in the Mound City,” a capacity crowd of 33,527, including 267 servicemen, packed Sportsman’s Park to see the invading Brooklyn Dodgers face the hometown St. Louis Cardinals on August 25, 1942.1 The Sporting News praised the game as “one of the tensest, most dramatic games […]

Charlie Grimm was a man of many talents. Called “perhaps the best ever” defensive first baseman by Bill James,1 he led the National League in fielding percentage at the position seven times and finished in second place three times between 1920 and 1933 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. He was a .290 hitter […]

In June 1883, scarcely a month after the expansion Columbus, Ohio, franchise had launched its fledgling season in the American Association, Buckeyes manager “Hustling” Horace Phillips moved Pop Smith from third base to second base, replacing Willie Kuehne who had shown himself to be both error-prone (30 errors in 18 games) and lacking sufficient range […]

Earl Jesse Battey, Jr. was one of the top defensive catchers in the American League in the early 1960s. His Twins teams were in contention for the pennant in 1962 and 1967, and won the pennant in 1965, losing the World Series to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games. Battey was […]

A dapper Bob Brown surveys his domain from the wooden steps of Athletic Park. The 5′ 9″ Brown was a dandy of sorts, wearing vests until the 1950s, long after they had gone out of style. (David Eskenazi Collection)   Bob Brown figured more money was to be made in baseball as an owner than […]

William Henry Zuber had a notable major league career for two reasons. First, he was born and raised in a German-speaking religious sect that banned sports and other entertainment. Second, the loss of talented players to service in World War II created the opportunity for him to play a prominent role in several pennant races. […]

Was the Federal League of 1914 and 1915 a major league? If you answer “yes” to this question, Art Queisser was a major-league umpire, by virtue of having worked a four-game FL series between the St. Louis Terriers and Kansas City Packers from September 2 through 4, 1914. Queisser’s stint as an umpire capped his […]

In the spring of 1972, Wes Stock worked as pitching coach for the Milwaukee Brewers, a four-year-old team with a roster of unproven throwers in need of tutelage. A year later, he had the same job with a different employer — the world champion Oakland A’s. “Wes Stock must feel like the auto mechanic who […]

Sometime during the 1967 baseball season, Houston Chronicle sportswriter John Wilson first referred to Houston Astros’ center fielder Wynn as the “Toy Cannon.” Wynn did not like the nickname at first, believing, justifiably, that it was yet another reference to his small (5-feet-9, and a muscular 165 pounds) stature. But the name hardly poked fun […]

Although rarely in the everyday lineup for an extended period, George Shoch was a useful member of several late-19th-century major-league teams. In an era of small rosters, Shoch’s versatility – he could play second, shortstop, third, and the outfield competently – was coveted by his managers. His durability, strong work ethic, and temperate habits were […]

Left-handed reliever Craig Skok pitched for three major-league ballclubs — the Red Sox, the Rangers, and the Braves — during the 1970s, throwing 150 innings in 107 games. He might have had some baseball in his blood. Craig’s father Joe was mistakenly reported at one point as having been a player in the Red Sox […]

On September 27, 1920, suspicions about the integrity of the previous year’s World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds were given substance by a self-admitted fix insider named Billy Maharg. In an interview first published in the Philadelphia North American and syndicated nationwide immediately thereafter, Maharg maintained that a number of Chicago […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Baseball’s Biggest Blowout Games” (2020), edited by Bill Nowlin.   There are a number of blowout games in the Negro Leagues. Alan Cohen drew my attention to one such blowout. He wrote: “On May 31, 1943, the Homestead Grays defeated the Baltimore Elite Giants 17-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington, […]