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Who was the fastest man ever to step on a major league diamond?  This question would surely provoke a heated debate among diehard baseball fans, with many names surfacing.  It is a safe assumption that Billy Stage’s name would not come up, yet he is almost certainly the only man to hold world records in […]

Al Blanche pitched only 33 1/3 innings in the major leagues, all in relief for the woeful Boston Braves/Bees of 1935-36. A star at Providence College who attracted no major league scouts, the tall, slender Italian right-hander pitched batting practice for the Braves until given his own opportunity. While having a short baseball career, Blanche […]

Everyone has their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. For Mickey Stanley they came during two weeks in the fall of 1968 when he was cast under the intense spotlight of the baseball world. The shift of a career outfielder to the unfamiliar position of shortstop during the 1968 World Series has been called one of […]

It is a sports cliché that records are made to be broken. But in baseball, changing times and modern playing strategies seem to have put certain major-league bests permanently out of reach. The holders of unapproachable all-time records include immortals like Cy Young, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Zip Zabel, … Zip Zabel? Indeed, just as […]

Bobby Hofman spent a lifetime in baseball. Over a career roughly divided into three distinct phases, he played major-league baseball for parts of seven seasons, and then managed and coached at various levels, including Oakland, for the next 20. He transitioned from there into a career as a big-league executive until his retirement in 1989 […]

On September 21, 2001, amid heavy security, 41,235 fans1 filed into Shea Stadium for the first baseball game to be played in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Only a week before, the ballpark had served as a staging and relief area for rescue workers, and at the time there was debate […]

Russ Snyder inked his first professional baseball contract with the New York Yankees in August 1952, just three months after graduating from high school.1 The next summer he was the top hitter in the minors – compared at the plate, on the bases, and in the outfield to Mickey Mantle,2 possibly a cross-pollination of Ted […]

Harvey Hiller was the son of a steam railroad engineer from East Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, the youngest of seven children of George and Elizabeth (Bayson) Hiller. Both parents were Pennsylvania natives, of German and Irish parents, respectively. Harvey Max Hiller was born in Carbon County on May 12, 1893. After his baseball career, he himself […]

In an issue published a few days after the grand opening of Forbes Field, Sporting Life extolled Pittsburgh team owner Barney Dreyfuss: “[he] had the mind to conceive and the courage to execute the plans which have given the world the grandest and most costly ball park in existence, deserves the greatest credit, highest praise, […]

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis called the 1935 World Series “the greatest ever.”1 Goose Goslin was the man of the hour after smacking a clutch ninth-inning single to cap the victory. Teammates mobbed the Goose; the incessant backslapping accompanied a bloody nose, mussed hair, and a torn uniform. The mood in the Chicago Cubs’ clubhouse […]

You could think of Al Huenke as another Moonlight Graham. Archie “Moonlight” Graham had one of the briefest major-league careers on record — two innings in right field for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905. He became posthumously famous when he turned up as a character in W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel Shoeless Joe […]

Life isn’t always a fastball down the middle. Sometimes it is unpredictable, with all the ups and downs and erratic sharp curves of a Wiffle Ball thrown into a still breeze. An original Seattle Mariner, Danny Meyer experienced the full gamut of life’s changes both on and off the field. Through it all, Meyer adjusted, […]

It wasn’t unusual that Chris Speier was a Bay Area dude who played for the San Francisco Giants, nor that he was discovered by a major league scout while playing semi-pro ball. But for a California dude to be discovered playing ball in a Canadian town better known for its annual Shakespeare festival than for […]

The Polo Grounds was an odd name for an odd series of stadiums in different parts of New York. The final Polo Grounds opened on June 28, 1911, less than three months after the previous one was destroyed by fire. The first Polo Grounds was aptly named, as it was a polo field, extending from […]

When fireworks launched on America’s 196th birthday, the nighttime celebration was an afterthought for Mets fans. Earlier in the day, Tom Seaver gave them another reason to rejoice when he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres; Leron Lee’s one-out, broken-bat single prevented the Mets ace from getting his first […]

When Monty Stratton opted to take a solo hunting trip for rabbits around the family home where he grew up during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 1938, it was supposed to be a simple venture. But the hunt around the expansive Texas farm quickly turned tragic, when the 26-year-old Chicago White Sox pitching ace failed […]

“We’re just like everyone else. When good things are happening, sad things happen as well.” – Joe Torre, October 27, 19991 “Making good on your moves does make you seem smart. Getting help from everyone makes you even smarter.” – Writer Shaun Powell describing Joe Torre and his cast of heroes after the 1999 World […]

In 1892 Colonel Thomas P. Robinson was the 30-year-old owner and manager of Oakland’s entry in the four-team California League. Was he a colonel? Probably not,1 but the press called him “Colonel,” and his team was called the Colonels. The year before, the Oakland Colonels had played home games in Emeryville, about three miles north […]

It was almost as if sportswriters had a sense of relief following Bob Groom’s no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox in the Gateway City. Nothing “remotely resembled a hit,” declared beat writer W.J. O’Connor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch;1 Groom’s gem was “free from stain or taint,” offered the Chicago Tribune’s I.E. Sanborn.2 A day […]

It was “a baseball burlesque … a wild slugfest with a flock of pitchers being rushed in and out of the box.” — James M. Gould, St. Louis Star, May 11, 1923   The Philadelphia Phillies hosted the St. Louis Cardinals at Baker Bowl on Friday, May 11, 1923. It was the final game of […]

Overview The origins of the Negro League All-Star Game date from 1933 when sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier championed the idea. Not coincidentally, their brainchild surfaced around the same time as the inaugural major-league All-Star game, which was to be held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in […]

The underachieving Milwaukee Braves were on the verge of losing their eighth consecutive game and falling further behind in the pennant race. They trailed by a run in the bottom of the ninth of their July 22, 1959, contest against the Cincinnati Reds. Second baseman Roberto “Bobby” Ávila, acquired one day earlier and in the […]

“Bender’s control, his absolute mastery over the batters and his speed were almost ideal,” gushed the Philadelphia Inquirer about Charles Bender’s no-hitter, the first in the history of Shibe Park.1 Cleveland Naps batters were “Benderized and hypnotized” by the Athletics hurler, opined the Cleveland Plain Dealer, noting in the racially insensitive parlance of the era […]

High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) June 2017, Volume 2, Number 1 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley From the Directors From the Editor Guest Columnist: Andrea Long Project Profile: Norm King Project Poobahs   From the Directors The BioProject Committee will be meeting at the SABR […]