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Kenny Washington, known to many as the Jackie Robinson of the National Football League and one of the greatest players in football history, was also a standout on the diamond. Various people who saw him play baseball thought his talent surpassed Robinson’s. On three separate occasions Washington figured in efforts to integrate professional baseball. Kenneth […]

When asked in the twilight of his life to reflect on his baseball career, Gus Munch revealed why he never made it to the major leagues: His mom talked him out of it. This was perhaps a bit of a simplistic answer, as there were several instances of mutual interest expressed between Munch and major-league […]

Until Rickey Henderson donned New York Yankee pinstripes in 1985, Fritz Maisel’s 74 stolen bases had been the franchise’s single-season record for 71 years. The diminutive Maisel, nicknamed “The Catonsville Flash” for his Maryland hometown, spent all or parts of six seasons (1913-1918) with the Yankees and St. Louis Browns. For 57 years he was […]

Before the time of extensive scouting, there are numerous stories of teams offering a tryout to a local phenom and, if he made good in his audition, signing him to a contract. Some of these “finds” went on to stellar major league careers. However, roster limits necessitated that when a new youngster was added to […]

Decades before Michael Jordan stepped away from the National Basketball Association to play minor league baseball, another former first-round draft pick made a similar decision. Dick Ricketts was a two-sport athlete in high school and college, excelling at baseball and basketball. Taken number one overall in the 1955 NBA draft, Ricketts spent three seasons in […]

A fill-in catcher in a rookie-loaded lineup for Connie Mack and the World Series-bound Philadelphia Athletics on September 30, 1913, Navy man and “one-hit wonder” Joe Giebel’s only major league appearance would fortuitously occur right in his hometown of Washington, DC. Joseph Henry Giebel was born in Washington, District of Columbia, on November 30, 1891, […]

Stout left-hander Ed Zmich won only one big-league game, but for a few weeks in the summer of 1910, the Class-D hurler caught the attention of the baseball world, resulting in an unusually fierce bidding war. Edward Albert Zmich was born on October 1, 1884, in Cleveland. His father, Max, emigrated from Germany in 1873 […]

Jack Gleason is the older of the two Gleason brothers who played on the inaugural St. Louis Browns team (the forerunner of today’s St. Louis Cardinals) in the American Association in 1882. Known as “Brudder Jack”1 and as one of the handsomest players in the league, he covered third base for the Browns for their […]

Right-handed-hitting outfielder Ken Hunt and one-time major-league single-season home-run leader Roger Maris1 were boyhood friends while growing up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After the Maris family moved to nearby Fargo, the two all-around athletes were high-school sports rivals. During Hunt’s senior year in football, his team lost one game, a 7-6 setback to Fargo […]

As he walked to elementary school in La Jolla, California, Bruce Robinson tested his throwing arm with rocks. “I had to hit every sign from a certain distance or I couldn’t go to school,” he said. “I was on a mission from the time I was about 10 years old to become a major league […]

Handsome, well educated, and a gifted athlete, pitcher Carl Lundgren led a life blessed with good fortune. He was born into a prosperous, stable household in northern Illinois and raised in comfortable circumstance. Initially as a schoolboy, and thereafter at the University of Illinois, Carl excelled both in the classroom and on the playing field. […]

In the late 1930s, Monty Stratton of the Chicago White Sox was one of the best and most praised pitchers in major-league baseball and was about to enter the prime of his career. “Monty Stratton looks as if he is going to furnish many a page in baseball history before he gives up,” Philadelphia sportswriter […]

A child approached Baltimore Oriole third baseman Brooks Robinson seeking more than an autograph. The bold youngster peppered the Hall of Famer for fielding tips as well. “Keep [your] glove down, near the dirt [and always practice]”1 was the sage counsel, and the “Human Vacuum Cleaner’s” advice was heeded. By 1970, the former child, Jim […]

On September 29, 1956, three weeks after his 18th birthday, George Werley debuted for the Baltimore Orioles after an outstanding summer of amateur baseball. The right-handed pitcher worked one inning, then never appeared in the majors again. George William Werley was born on September 8, 1938, in St. Louis, Missouri. His parents, George Joseph Werley […]

After six seasons in the minor leagues, Charlie Metro stepped to the plate at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis wearing for the first time in a regular-season game the uniform of the Detroit Tigers. It was May 4, 1943, a Tuesday afternoon as America approached its 18th month at war. The next day, the radio […]

Texan lefthander Cliff Hill overcame family tragedy to become a stalwart minor league starter from the late 1910s into the early 1920s. He once won 14 straight games, as well as a 20-inning complete game. Hill pitched in one game in the major leagues, for the cellar-dwelling Philadelphia A’s of 1917. Clifford Joseph Hill was […]

Mike Higgins was a fine player, a successful minor-league manager, a Manager of the Year in his first major-league season, and the face of the Red Sox for several years. But the fortunes of the club deteriorated during his tenure, and for many people Higgins became the face of that failure. While his team continued […]

From 1926 through 1976, a wooden stadium stood at the corner of King and Isenberg Streets in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was small, with capacity of only about 25,000.1 It lacked infrastructure. It was called “The Termite Palace” for its infestation. Yet, like so many ballparks of past eras, it had a simple charm. “The first […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Black Sox Scandal Committee’s December 2023 newsletter. Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, center left, and American League president Ban Johnson, center right, seen here in 1911, were friends and business partners when they founded the AL together at the turn of the 20th century. Two decades […]

On May 22, 1901, Noodles Hahn of the Cincinnati Reds shattered the National League record for most strikeouts in a game since 1893, when the 60-feet-6-inches distance between home plate and the pitcher’s box was established.1 Hahn struck out 16 Boston Beaneaters in the Reds’ 4-3 victory at South End Grounds in Boston. In addition […]

It seemed an optimistic but relatively inconsequential signing at the time. In January 1990, the Detroit Tigers, coming off an abysmal 59-103 last-place season and in search of a power upgrade, gave a little-known and heretofore mostly unproductive former major leaguer named Cecil Fielder a $1.25 million incentive-laden contract and installed him as their starting […]

Approximately 8,000 fans paid to enter Shibe Park on Sunday, May 24, 1936, to see the seventh-place Philadelphia Athletics take on the first-place New York Yankees. George Turbeville took the mound for Philadelphia against the Yankees’ Monte Pearson. The Athletics scored the first two runs of the game, in the bottom half of the first […]

At the close of the 1939 baseball season, Tex Carleton prepared to retire to his hometown of Fort Worth convinced that his big-league days were behind him. The 33-year-old right-hander had struggled in his first campaign with the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association, posting an 11-9 record with a dismal 4.23 ERA. A sore […]

New York’s Bob Meusel hit for the cycle — for the record third time in his career — but that was not even mentioned in the newspaper accounts, as he and his Yankees teammates pounded the Detroit Tigers in the 12th inning of the first game of a scheduled doubleheader, posting a 12-1 destruction of […]