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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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Losers of seven straight and 14 of their last 15 games, the Houston Astros were desperate to get off the merry-go-round as April 1969 drew to a close. Looking up at the rest of the National League West Division from last place, what they got over the next five days was a round trip for […]

Jackie Robinson’s debut at Braves Field was originally scheduled for April 22, 1947. But the Dodgers’ three-game series in Boston was a total washout because of rain. Robinson’s first game was in the opener of a Memorial Day doubleheader on May 30. Before both scheduled series, Robinson wasn’t the biggest story in the local news. […]

The St. Louis Cardinals’ chances of making the 2011 postseason looked bleak in late August. They were 10½ games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central Division and 9½ games off the wild-card pace on August 28. But the Cardinals went 20-8 down the stretch to edge out the Atlanta Braves for […]

Defending their first World Series championship in 35 years, the Pittsburgh Pirates were in fourth place in the National League in June 1961 when general manager Joe L. Brown restructured their bench with a flurry of transactions. The moves included calling up 29-year-old catcher Don Leppert, whose .386 batting average was leading the Triple-A International […]

Twins manager Sam Mele was not happy. His team had lost four of its last five games. The night before, fielding lapses, particularly a botched rundown, turned a 2-2 game into a 7-2 defeat at the hands of the last-place Washington Senators. So before the game on July 17, 1964, Mele held a drill to […]

“Oh, I’m not really great. I’m just good, darn good.” – Terris “Elmer the Great” McDuffie, August 14, 1935.1   Night baseball came to Ebbets Field for the first time on September 11, 1935, when the Brooklyn Eagles of the Negro National League took on the House of David in an exhibition. Pitching for the […]

“For a moment, Watts had spilled over to the National Pastime.”1 The intensity of a rivalry that began decades earlier on the East Coast heated up once again as the Giants and Dodgers contested yet another National League pennant in 1965. Going into action on August 22, the Dodgers led the league and were being […]

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 […]

Dave Danforth (1890-1970) is one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in the history of the national pastime. He was “the icicle of the swirling vortex” for most of his career, and the mystery of what he threw and how he pitched has never been resolved.1 “Danforth, if you believe the boys in the […]

He won 247 games in his 23 seasons in the major leagues, plus dozens more in the minors and as a semipro in a pitching career that spanned more than 30 years. Yet we do not know for certain when or where he was born, the national origin of his forebears, or even his birth […]

For a pitcher with 474? innings of major-league experience behind him to leave on the note he did – his disastrous one partial inning for the 1908 Red Sox – must have been personally aggravating. But even with that disappointing finale, Jake Thielman won 30 big-league games with an earned-run average of 3.16. Thielman spent […]

Is Rollie Naylor the unluckiest pitcher in baseball history? Pitching for the then-hapless Philadelphia Athletics from 1917 through 1924, he amassed a 42-83 career record and an ERA+ of 101. Through 2016, more than 800 pitchers with at least 100 decisions to their credit have earned an ERA+ of at least 100. (With this retrospectively-calculated […]

Former major leaguer Ralph Edward “Hap” Myers faced a possible death sentence for armed robbery in El Paso the year after he left the game, but later went on to serve as the director of a number of companies and retired as vice president of Laurentide Finance Corp. He was acquitted of the alleged crime […]

While professional baseball played a prominent role in the life story of pitcher-umpire-policeman George Bausewine, his impact upon the game was negligible. A one-game winner for the 1889 Philadelphia Athletics of the major-league American Association, Bausewine later spent a single season as a National League umpire. His life, however, was hardly without incident. A talent […]

Team captain Sal Bando was the glue that held the volatile Oakland A’s together during their three-year run as World Series champions (1972-1974). Respected by teammates, peers, and his managers, Bando was Oakland’s unequivocal leader, a durable, rough-and-tumble third baseman who averaged 23 home runs and 90 runs batted in over an eight-year span in […]

At spring training in 1921, Branch Rickey, vice president of the St. Louis Cardinals as well as the club’s field manager, was looking over the rookies in camp at Orange, Texas. Turning to veteran shortstop Doc Lavan, he said, “Tell that bat boy to get out of the infield.” Advised that the “bat boy” was […]

When manager John McGraw needed a clutch win for his New York Giants during their four-year run as National League champions (1921-1924), he often relied on ace southpaw Art Nehf, winner of 184 games for four teams in his 15-year career (1915-1929). Described as a “money pitcher” by sportswriter Frederick G. Lieb, Nehf won the […]

“Willie Foster was the greatest left hander that I ever played with and he was a gentleman on and off the field.” — Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe   If there was a signature moment for a baseball player, Willie Foster’s complete-game victories in both ends of the doubleheader for the Chicago American Giants to decide […]

Despite having an impressive minor-league record, left-handed-hitting Jim Marshall never could crack the starting lineup on a regular basis for five major-league clubs. As a result, he served mostly as a backup first baseman/outfielder and pinch-hitter during a major-league career that started in 1958 and ended in 1962. After his playing days he became a […]

East Field as pictured in 2021.   Over the course of a month and a half in March and April 1980, East Field in Glens Falls, New York, went from an unremarkable city-owned baseball field notable mainly for its swampiness to a showcase for some of the Chicago White Sox’ top prospects.1 It happened this […]