If you are not happy with the results below please do another search
Ovid Nicholson’s chief baseball skills were bunting and speedy base running. In 1912, he stole 111 bases in 123 games, vaulting from Class-D ball to a six-game stint in the majors. A contributor to the SABR/Baseball-Reference Encyclopedia quite reasonably posed the question as to what else Nicholson could have done to win a job with […]
He could be considered one of the most reluctant, or perhaps contradictory, players to have ever walked on to a ball field. In July 1942 Buddy Rosar wore out his welcome with the New York Yankees after bolting the team to sit for a police department entrance exam (anticipating postcareer employment) and to visit his […]
Boston fans who liked the way Jason Varitek handles the Red Sox pitching staff would have loved Sammy White. Sammy, who was selected as an American League All-Star catcher in 1953, was the team’s number one catcher from 1952 to 1959. White was a credible hitter, averaging .264 during his eight full seasons with the […]
Following the Pittsburgh Pirates’ loss to the Chicago Cubs on October 1, 2000, 60-year-old Willie Stargell emerged to throw a ceremonial final pitch at the soon-to-be-demolished Three Rivers Stadium. Even though most people who followed the Pirates knew “Pops” was in poor health his frail, spectral appearance that afternoon was shocking. He was almost unrecognizable, […]
Butch Nieman had a short but productive major-league career. Considered a replacement player during World War II, Nieman patrolled the Boston Braves outfield on a regular basis from 1943 to 1945 and can best be described as a streak hitter with a penchant for delivering the big hit in the clutch. In his three-year stint […]
Pack your bags. Frank Lane’s in town. The compulsive trader known as Frantic Frank shuffled at least 690 players in 414 transactions with five teams.1 Wherever Lane went, turmoil followed. He traded one manager for another. He traded a home run champion for a batting champ. He traded local heroes and future Hall of Famers. […]
During right-hander Lerrin LaGrow’s final year in the majors, he quipped “Hillerich & Bradsby” when asked to identify his toughest opposing hitter.1 By naming the company that manufactures Louisville Sluggers, he perhaps inadvertently referenced the moment for which he’s arguably most remembered – being the target of Bert Campaneris’s thrown bat during the 1972 AL […]
In various ways, the life of right-handed pitcher George Pechiney typified the existence of the late-nineteenth-century journeyman player. Pechiney’s abilities were modest, and his major-league career was a relatively brief one, abbreviated by abuse of alcohol. Once his playing days were over, Pechiney returned to the arduous everyday working life from which he had sprung, […]
The New York Yankees of 1946 had many of the same stars who made them the dominant team of the pre-World War II years, but they finished in third place, seventeen games behind the Boston Red Sox, under three different managers. After the season, Bucky Harris, an experienced and well-traveled skipper, was brought in to […]
John Wockenfuss was a powerful right-handed hitter with a unique closed batting stance, He spent most of his dozen years in the majors (1974-85) with the Detroit Tigers. Primarily a catcher/first baseman, he also appeared as both an outfielder and designated hitter more than 100 times, though he played that many games in a season […]
Fred Schulte played center field for the pennant-winning 1933 Washington Senators. His three-run homer in Game Five of the World Series against the Giants pulled the Senators even. But New York won on a 10th-inning homer by Mel Ott that tipped off Schulte’s glove. The victory gave the Giants the championship. In his 11-year big-league […]
The first World Series game on the South Side since 1959. Attendance 41,206. (Courtesy of Ron Vesely / Chicago White Sox) Game One of the 2005 World Series featured a matchup between two strong right-handers: José Contreras of the host Chicago White Sox and Roger Clemens of the Houston Astros. Contreras finished the regular season […]
In 1911, their 11th year in the American League, the Nationals had yet to have a winning season. The team had been so lackluster in its years in Washington that its ownership solicited fan suggestions and changed its name from the Senators to the Nationals in 1905 in hopes of inspiring a change in fortunes.1 […]
On August 22, 1959, Cincinnati manager Fred Hutchinson finished writing out his lineup card for the Saturday afternoon tilt versus St. Louis. Hutch was familiar with the Cardinals’ personnel since he had piloted them for nearly all of the previous three seasons. Now, as the relatively new skipper of the Redlegs, he felt that his […]
Smoky Joe Wood had quite a season in 1912, his fourth full year with the Boston Red Sox. Coming off a strong 23-17 campaign in 1911 with a 2.02 earned-run average, the 22-year-old right-hander did even better by going 34-5 with a 1.91 ERA in 1912. He pitched 35 complete games, 10 of them shutouts. […]
After competing for the 1948 National League pennant before finishing in fourth place, the Pittsburgh Pirates, on January 29, 1949, purchased right-hander Murry Dickson from the St. Louis Cardinals for $125,000 in an effort to improve their pitching staff for the 1949 season. Regarded as one of the craftiest pitchers in baseball, Dickson had made […]
When one thinks of baseball’s hardest-throwing starting pitchers in the 1960s, several names immediately come to mind: Bob Gibson, Sam McDowell, Sandy Koufax, and Don Drysdale. Often overlooked is Bob Veale, the Pittsburgh Pirates southpaw who burst on the scene as a 28-year-old in 1964 to lead the National League with 250 strikeouts and then […]
The Rangers’ May 17 game against the Royals in Kansas City was their 11th consecutive road game and the eighth in eight days. The team was already fatigued from their travels, as was evidenced by their four-game losing streak, and had not planned on playing the equivalent of a doubleheader on this evening, but they […]
“That’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Mets slugger Dave Kingman. “Do you have to hit it out of the stadium to be ruled a home run?”1 Kingman had good reason to be annoyed after the June 1, 1977, game at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.2 He had just become the first player to hit a ball off the concrete service […]
The Cincinnati Reds signed Ryan Joseph “Scooter” Gennett late in 2017 spring training after the Milwaukee Brewers released him on March 28, five days before Opening Day. Gennett was Milwaukee’s regular second baseman for three years, but the team felt that he didn’t fit into their future any longer. After joining the Reds, the 27-year-old […]
Steve Blass was arguably the best pitcher on the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 1970, 1971, and 1972 seasons, when the Pirates won the National League East each year. In 1971, Blass helped the Pirates to their World Series victory over the Baltimore Orioles by pitching complete-game victories in Games Three and Seven, allowing only 11 […]
Major League Baseball’s revenue generating power exploded during the 1950s and 1960s due in large part to franchise relocations and expansion, though in truth it had to be dragged into the lucrative expansion era. William Shea drummed up support, at least on paper, for a third major league to be called the Continental League in […]
The baseball team known as the Braves makes its home in Atlanta, but traces its diamond ancestry back through Milwaukee and to Boston, where it began in 1871. In fact, the Atlanta Braves are the only baseball team that has played every season consecutively since 1871, outdating even the National League itself. While forgotten by […]
This article was originally published in the June 2023 edition of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. First baseman Hal Chase was implicated in the Black Sox Scandal and the subject of many accusations of game-fixing during his major-league career. But how crucial was his role in the fixing of the 1919 World […]