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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 […]

Willie Mays hit a career-high 52 home runs in 1965. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Before a crowd of 8,922 at Candlestick Park, Willie Mays hit his 44th and 45th home runs of the season to lead the San Francisco Giants over the Houston Astros, giving San Francisco the outright lead in the […]

The 1966 baseball season was the first for the Braves in Atlanta. After 13 seasons in Milwaukee, the ballclub moved to establish itself in downtown Atlanta, bringing Hank Aaron, Joe Torre, and Eddie Mathews to their new home. Besides those sluggers they brought a 25-year-old pitcher named Tony Cloninger, who on July 3, 1966, became […]

By 1931, Al Capone was the kingpin of the criminal enterprise system that ruled Chicago from top-level politicians down to neighborhood shopkeepers. There were other gangs, but his South Side “Chicago Outfit” stood supreme. This was not to say, though, that he was secure. He was in constant danger from rivals—to the point that he […]

For a few days in May 1983, news outlets in Rochester, New York, buzzed about the possibility that Hollywood star Robert Redford might film his adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural at Rochester’s venerable ballpark, Silver Stadium.1 The movie is widely remembered for a scene in which fictional slugger Roy Hobbs knocks out the lights […]

Jim Perry set down the final 17 batters he faced to notch his 20th win of the 1969 season, a 3-2 decision over the Seattle Pilots before a Saturday afternoon crowd of 12,797 at Metropolitan Stadium. Perry surrendered just six hits and two walks and struck out eight on the way to his 12th complete-game […]

“So baseball is dead, like watching grass grow,” wrote Clif Keane in the next day’s paper, after the Boston Red Sox held off the Oakland A’s for a one-run win. “It would take the greatest of script writers three weeks of head scratching to come up with the drama that unfolded at Fenway Park last […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“One of the most durable and dependable catchers in the Negro Leagues era, Larry ‘Iron Man’ Brown was a master behind the plate, yielding a quick release and an arm to be envied.”1 Brown never pulled his mask off for a pop fly. Never staggered under foul balls like other catchers. Brown described the art […]

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 […]

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 […]

“Judy Johnson was the smartest baseball player I ever came across.” — Ted Page1   Despite his father’s aspirations for William “Judy” Johnson to become a boxer, Judy never entered the ring. Instead, Johnson took his game to the diamond. For that, baseball owes him a debt of gratitude. In the Negro Leagues, if Satchel […]

In a life that spanned 101 years, Shan Deniston made a mark as an athlete, a Marine, a high school and college coach, a teacher, and a husband and father. From a baseball standpoint, though, Deniston owes most of his notability to a single night of work – a two-hour, 27-minute sliver of his lengthy […]

“He’s too young to throw a no-hitter!”1 With the words of Cincinnati Redlegs manager Birdie Tebbetts still ringing in his ears, 17-year-old southpaw Dave Skaugstad took the mound on September 29, 1957 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Appearing in his second major-league game, he relieved 20-year-old rookie Jay Hook, who’d held the National League pennant-winning Milwaukee […]

In the wee hours of July 7, 1920, near Wawa, Pennsylvania, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, prodigious New York Yankees baseball slugger and notorious automobile speeder, careened his $10,000 Packard around a tight corner, lost control, and overturned. Ruth’s passengers were his wife Helen, Yankees coach Charlie O’Leary, and two teammates: backup catcher Fred Hofmann and […]

Timon1 Bowden had nine at-bats in September 1914 for the second-division St. Louis Browns and manager Branch Rickey, a former opposing collegiate skipper. Yet that wasn’t Bowden’s greatest athletic achievement. Prior to his short time in the majors as an outfielder, he was considered “one of the finest of Southern athletes in his era, 1910-13” […]