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This ballpark in the far northern reaches of Manhattan stood for just around two decades, from the late 1910s until 1938. Along with baseball, it hosted various other sports. Though no major-league games ever took place at Dyckman Oval, plenty of big-leaguers played in semipro games there. Babe Ruth came at least twice, in 1920 […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2022 as part of SABR’s Baseball and the Supreme Court Project. The 1969 season was Curt Flood’s twelfth, and ultimately final, season as the regular center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals.  His trade to Philadelphia led to Flood testing the legality of the reserve clause under […]

Certainly there were easier scenarios than facing Bob Gibson for one’s first major-league appearance, but the Milwaukee Braves’ Mack Jones made his debut on July 13, 1961, in St. Louis look like child’s play. His four consecutive hits, including a run-scoring double in his second at-bat, tied a National League record and reinforced the can’t-miss […]

Laurence Albert Pape played his entire major-league career – three seasons – for the Boston Red Sox. He pitched in a total of 51 games in 1909, 1911, and 1912. Twenty-four of his appearances were as a starting pitcher. He appeared in 13 games with the champion Red Sox of 1912 and did not play […]

The hot days of summer strolled lazily by Cleveland in 1954. The Indians were looking to sweep the visiting Chicago White Sox on the July Fourth holiday and make it four straight victories over the Pale Hose and seven straight overall. Cleveland was flexing its muscles, in first place with a 4½-game lead over the […]

Bill “Wee Willie” Sherdel was a durable, rubber-armed starter and reliever who frustrated batters with a mesmerizing slowball during his 15-year big-league career from 1918 through 1932, most notably with the St. Louis Cardinals. Described by a contemporary as “one of the great left-handers” in baseball, Sherdel’s career is defined by a seven-year stretch (1922-1928) […]

Bruno Betzel had a $7,000 contract to manage the Montreal Royals in 1945. He saw only about $3,000 in take-home pay, though. Dissatisfied with the situation, he resigned. At the baseball convention in Columbus, Ohio, he was offered a managerial job for $6,000. As he pondered that offer, he met Carl Hubbell, who offered him […]

After the first game of a doubleheader against the visiting Chicago Cubs on July 4, 1928, rookie outfielder Wally Roettger of the St. Louis Cardinals was hitting a robust .341. In the second game, however, he dislocated his right ankle and broke both bones in his lower leg sliding into third base.1 The injury ended […]

“He is another Vance, another Dazzy, I’m telling you. Hasn’t the best disposition in the world. You know some of those Carolina fellows get funny ideas sometimes, but he certainly can buzz that ball over. Best young pitcher I’ve seen since Rube Marquard. Only he is faster than Rube was. Say, maybe he is another […]

Two Long Islanders joined the Boston Red Sox in 1961: Carl Yastrzemski and Chuck Schilling. It was Schilling, a second baseman, who won the team’s MVP award that year. Of course, Yastrzemski went on to become a Hall of Famer and one of the most celebrated Red Sox ever, whereas Schilling’s big-league career ended after […]

The 18-year-old student trainer was mortified. A 96-inch roll of cloth athletic tape unwound and rolled across the floor. The football team and adult training staff, along with the thunderstruck Mark Letendre, watched as eight yards of tape uncoiled. “What a rookie,” announced the Head Athletic Trainer. From that day forward Letendre was known as […]

A strong-armed power hitter who “swung so hard he raised dust clouds,” Frank Fernandez spent parts of six seasons in the major leagues (1967-72) as a backup catcher and occasional outfielder.1 As a Staten Island, New York, high schooler, the multisport athlete competed on New York’s biggest stages. He signed with the Yankees at the […]

On December 12, 2018, at the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Museum President Bob Kendrick, with historian Jay Caldwell, announced the Negro League Centennial Team. The team was a key part of the Museum’s celebration in 2020 of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues. The team of 30 […]

If there was one thing the Detroit Tigers could do under player-manager Ty Cobb, it was hit. They set an American League record with a .316 team batting average in 1921, and six of their eight starters in 1922 finished over .300. Even four of their backups hit over .300 that year. They were strong […]

Usually the opening game of a World Series generates a great deal of excitement. Hometown fans are thrilled that their club has reached the ultimate series to determine who will reign as the world champion. While that occurred in 1942, it played out against a different, more somber backdrop. World War II was well under […]

After a promising 1948 season in which they’d finished fourth but only 8½ games behind the National League’s pennant-winning Boston Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates were beginning a descent in 1949. The team finished sixth that year and either seventh or eighth each season through 1957, but snapped out of its malaise to finish second in […]

When the two worst teams in the American League met at Shibe Park for a September 20, 1942, doubleheader, Philadelphia’s legendary owner-manager Connie Mack readily admitted that the results were not foremost on his mind. His A’s had clinched the basement for a third season in a row, but the team avoided 100 losses by […]

“It was a fastball, and I thought I hit it good,” said Willie Mays after clouting a round-tripper against Houston in the inaugural season of the Astrodome to join the rarefied company of Babe Ruth (714), Jimmie Foxx (534), Ted Williams (521), and Mel Ott (511) as the newest member of the exclusive 500-home-run club.1 […]

The Chicago Colts,1 led by 39-year-old first baseman and manager Adrian “Cap” Anson, were on a roll in August 1891 The National League leaders had won six consecutive games entering their August 22 game against the visiting Cleveland Spiders. To make matters worse for the sixth-place Spiders, who were coming off a brawl-filled series in […]

A respectable crowd1 passed through the turnstiles at the Polo Grounds for a Monday afternoon matchup between the top two teams in the National League, the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs. Included in the audience were sailors from the German Navy,2 whose ships were docked in the Hudson River. Chicago (24-18) came into […]

A swarm of excited White Sox fans converged on the South Side ballpark’s neighborhood to wait overnight for the bleacher gate to open at 8 A.M. on Friday, October 2, 1959. Through an intermittent drizzle, they passed the time by watching television, ringing cowbells, and playing bridge.1 A male foursome from Pearl City, Illinois, even […]

The Chicago White Sox were happy to be back at home for a Sunday matinee at Comiskey Park, their four-year old stadium, dubbed the “Base Ball Palace of the World,” located at the intersection of 35th Street and Shields Avenue on the South Side of the Windy City. The Pale Hose had just completed a […]

If Catfish Hunter was going to pitch a perfect game, Minnesota Twins manager Cal Ermer was going to make him earn every out.1 Hunter, a 22-year-old right-hander in his fourth season with the Athletics, had retired 24 straight batters going into the top of the ninth inning at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, on May 8, 1968, […]

Time was running out for the Detroit Tigers to keep the Chicago White Sox from running away with the 1919 pennant. Ten years after manager Hughie Jennings took his Tigers to their last World Series, their third straight appearance and third straight loss in the fall classic, he knew his team had a narrow margin […]