Search Results

The 1932 baseball season in Pittsburgh saw a strong challenge to the Homestead Grays’ decade-long lock on the city’s Black baseball supremacy. Professional ball was Grays owner Cumberland Posey Jr.’s sole source of income. But the Depression had wiped out the financial support that businesses and industries in the Smoky City had been pouring into […]

On the very last day of the 1975 season, the Oakland Athletics employed four pitchers to no-hit the California Angels. Before a home crowd of 22,131, Oakland’s manager Alvin Dark had a plan to have Vida Blue, his ace starter, go only five innings and then rest him for the playoffs. Relievers Glenn Abbott, Paul […]

On September 23, 1970, Paul Splittorff,1 a star in Chicago-area American Legion baseball in his teenage years, pitched his first major-league game for the Kansas City Royals against the Chicago White Sox at White Sox Park. It wasn’t a dream debut for the local kid: Splittorff gave up five runs in seven innings and took […]

The 1911 season began well for the Detroit Tigers. By May 19 they already had two six-game winning streaks and a nine-game winning streak, and their 27-5 record was 9½ games ahead of the second-place Chicago White Sox. They cooled off with two losses to the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics and another loss […]

It’s never been duplicated in the majors or minors and might be baseball’s most unbeatable record. In just his 21st big-league start, the Reds Johnny Vander Meer recorded his second consecutive no-hitter, holding the Dodgers hitless in the first major-league night game at Ebbets Field.1 New York sportswriter Hy Turkin hailed the accomplishment as the […]

To fully appreciate the events of Thursday evening, May 12, 1966, one should look back to May 11, 1954. The St. Louis Cardinals had started their 34th season in Sportsman’s Park, rookie Henry Aaron had hit his first two career home runs with the Braves (still in Milwaukee), and Gary Geiger pitched the final game […]

“We were a rock star baseball team,” said right-hander Orel Hershiser about the 1995 Cleveland Indians. “You’d drive around and see Wahoo signs in almost every front yard. You’d walk into restaurants, and there were pictures of the players on the walls. I’d never quite seen anything like it. I get the chills just to […]

As Roberto Clemente’s career was entering its twilight period, a Puerto Rican prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system was drawing rave reviews from the future Hall of Famer. Though the prospect was traded to the Oakland Athletics in a controversial swap in 1970, he never forgot the lessons Clemente taught him in Pittsburgh, and on […]

It is a universally acknowledged truth in baseball that pitching at Coors Field is challenging.1 The thin air allows baseballs to fly farther once hit, and the reduced movement on off-speed pitches makes the pitchers’ arsenal less effective.2 Yet some pitchers succeed there—Germán Márquez being one. Not only was he a top contributor to the […]

The Mayor’s Trophy games began in 1946 as a way for the three New York teams to meet on the playing field. It was an in-season exhibition game originally for the Yankees and Giants, with the Brooklyn Dodgers being added to the mix as well. The series ended in 1955 and was played one more […]

Stanley Robison, owner of the Cleveland Spiders, pushed the issue of Sunday baseball in 1897. When Robison lost in court, he sabotaged the team. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   All Frank Robison and Stanley Robison wanted was for their Cleveland Spiders to make as much money as possible. That meant scheduling home games […]

The first superstar in American League history, Napoleon Lajoie combined graceful, effortless fielding with powerful, fearsome hitting to become one of the greatest all-around players of the Deadball Era, and one of the best second basemen of all time. At 6’1″ and 200 pounds, Lajoie possessed an unusually large physique for his time, yet when […]

Salty Saltwell was a baseball lifer — not between the lines on a baseball field but in the front office of the Chicago Cubs and four minor-league teams from 1950 to 2005. Along the way, he served as assistant general manager of the Sioux City (Iowa) Soos, executive secretary of the Western League, president and […]

For an eight-year period before, during, and after World War II, Bucky Walters was the premier pitcher in the National League and one of the best in the major leagues. Over the years from 1939 to 1946, Walters led the majors in wins (141), innings pitched (2,030), complete games (178), support-neutral wins (146), and, among […]

For Red Sox outfielder Tommy McBride, the 1946 World Series between Boston and the St. Louis Cardinals had some great moments mixed with some bad memories. One high point came on Sunday, October 6, at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis when McBride, playing alongside Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio, started in right field in the […]

In announcing the March 1921 indictments of the players and gamblers involved in the Black Sox Scandal, Cook County (Illinois) State’s Attorney Robert Crowe announced that the World Series fix originated in St. Louis, specifically with Carl Zork and Benjamin Franklin, rather than in Boston and New York by the Eastern clique of Arnold Rothstein, […]

Sometimes nice guys finish first. Chuck Tanner, an eternal optimist who was known as baseball’s Mr. Sunshine, managed the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series title in 1979. He won more than 1,350 games as a manager of four teams between 1970 and 1988. Tanner also played for eight years in the majors, with the […]

To say that Alexander Schacht was obsessed with baseball is to understate. He was possessed by it. Schacht was an undersized man with an oversized heart and love of baseball. It consumed him as he traveled from hamlet to hamlet trying to sell his wares as a pitcher. When he did finally make it to […]

Charles Jamerson came to the Boston Red Sox at the age of 24, in 1924, having played semipro baseball and professional football for the Milwaukee Badgers. The left-hander was signed by team owner/president Bob Quinn and reported to Boston on August 15. He’d been coaching that summer at Johnson City, Tennessee, and had pitched some […]

He established his “Touch ’Em All” call for home runs in New York and had it resonate with fans in his first year at Minnesota, when the Twins won the World Series in 1987. John Gordon had also broadcast for a world championship team in Baltimore, in 1970, joining Chuck Thompson and Bill O’Donnell in […]

Al Barlick rose from a Midwestern coal-mining family to a long career as a major-league umpire and eventual election to baseball’s Hall of Fame, the sixth umpire to be so honored. He gave his adult life to baseball and umpiring, working 57 years (1936-1993) in the game. Albert Joseph Barlick was born on April 2, […]

Lefty Glover was one of the players who followed the Elite Giants when they relocated from Washington to Baltimore in 1938. Though he pitched for the Elites for over seven seasons, until recently Glover’s background and even his real name were clouded in mystery. However, the discovery of his death certificate in 2020 uncovered his […]

Prior to 1923, the largest attendance at a baseball game was 47,373 at Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. This record was shattered on Opening Day, April 18, 1923, when 74,200 fans filled the brand-new Yankee Stadium to see the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. The Seventh Regiment Band, led by […]

Bill Killefer began his 48-year career in Organized Baseball in 1907 as an unlikely professional, weighing only 125 pounds when he played with Jackson of the Southern Michigan League. According to his brother Wade, “the bats he used were almost as big as he was.” It would be years before he grew to be 5’10 […]