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Mookie Wilson stood at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning, arcing his bat, focusing intently on Red Sox pitcher Bob Stanley. He realized that he represented the potential winning run in the most important game of his life and he was determined not to make the final out. Wilson had come a […]

“My big idol was Larry Kopf, who played with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 World Series. They’re still my team. That’s a big thing for a town our size to have a guy in the big leagues.” So said Abraham A. “Abe” Ribicoff, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and a former Governor of […]

The Saskatoon Quakers welcomed a new catcher in 1913, 20-year-old Roxy Walters. He was never a large man; his listed playing height when he reached the majors was 5-feet-8 and he weighed 160 pounds, a stature at which he might have proved a target for a baserunner who confronted him blocking the plate. But he […]

Mickey Haefner was a decent lefty pitcher for an up-and-down Washington team from 1943 into 1949. He won 10 or more games five seasons in a row, topping out at 16 in 1945. No taller than 5-foot-7 (not 5-foot-8, as he himself confirmed in 19431), his nickname was “Itsy-Bitsy.” Haefner featured a knuckleball, although he […]

In June 1947, three months before his husky right-handed hurler delivered the fifth no-hitter in franchise history, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack forecast the expected stardom of 26-year-old Bill McCahan. “[Y]ou will see another great pitcher in this boy,” Mack said. “Let me make a prediction. He will be another [Spud] Chandler.”1 Being compared to […]

From the predicted goat to the arguable hero of the 1931 World Series was quite an accomplishment for a somewhat stoic Dib Williams. Dr. Earl Williams, an Arkansas country doctor, really enjoyed baseball, and a couple of the players he helped develop made it to the major leagues: Otis Brannan, an infielder for a couple […]

In 1922, pitcher Karl Schnell became the first graduate of Palo Alto High – a school with several notable alumni in athletics1 – to make it to the majors in baseball. The son of German immigrants had starred in college for the Saint Mary’s Phoenix ball club. Playing with and against future Hall of Famers, […]

Gustave “Gus” Getz was perhaps the personification of the “good field, no hit” player. Typical of the Deadball Era, Getz relied on his glove, his ability to make contact with the bat, and his speed on the base paths to make it in professional baseball. Though he never achieved outstanding baseball success, he possessed a […]

Through the 2012 season the Cy Young Award has been bestowed to relief pitchers on only nine occasions, the first time in 1974. Eleven years before, three relievers were cited as potential candidates for the prestigious honor – “Dick Radatz of the Red Sox, Ron Perranoski of the Dodgers and, perhaps the most surprisingly improved […]

William Barney McCosky, a Pennsylvania native who grew up in Detroit, was a talented and speedy all-around center fielder who broke into the major leagues with a bang in 1939, hitting .311 for the Detroit Tigers. Barney, who stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 185 pounds in his prime, threw right and batted left, and he did […]

Erv Palica, a laconic Californian, was little more than a bit player during the 1947 season, but four years later he was at the epicenter of a midseason controversy that may have cost the Dodgers the 1951 pennant. Palica was born on February 9, 1928, in Lomita, California, a small town west of Long Beach. […]

Chicago fans were outraged when the White Sox traded their most popular player, Minnie Miñoso, to Cleveland in December 1957 with Fred Hatfield for Early Wynn and Al Smith. Wynn was a 37-year-old right-handed pitcher who had posted a losing record for the Indians that season, and his best days appeared to be behind him. […]

Goro Mikami, aka Jap Mikado, was the first known Japanese national to play professional baseball in the United States. He first played in the US in 1911 when Tokyo’s Waseda University club barnstormed the country. Two years later, Mikami returned to the U.S. as a graduate student at Knox College in Illinois. He starred at […]

Baseball and football are very different games. In a way, both of them are easy. Football is easy if you’re crazy as hell. Baseball is easy if you’ve got patience. They’d both be easier for me if I were a little more crazy – and a little more patient. – Bo Jackson1   No record […]

Righthander Ray Burris spent parts of 15 seasons (1973-1987) with seven major-league teams and won 108 games with his sinker/slider repertoire. Twice the Opening Day pitcher during the first half of his career with the Chicago Cubs, he nearly pitched the Montreal Expos to a pennant in 1981 with two outstanding National League Championship Series […]

John Gibbons has seen a lot of ups and down in his career. A highly touted prospect for the Mets who was expected to be their future catcher, but a lack of production and the acquisition of Gary Carter stood in the way. Gibbons became a major-league manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, but mediocre […]

Four cutouts of larger-than-life baseballs adorned the royal blue outfield wall at Cleveland Stadium. Each baseball sported a player’s name and the corresponding jersey number that had been retired by the Indians. Even the most casual of Cleveland fans would be familiar with Bob Feller’s number 19 and Lou Boudreau’s number 5. They may have […]

The New York Mets were trying to return to relevance in the National League East after finishing no higher than third in their division over the previous three years. Willie Randolph had been hired as their manager in the offseason in the hopes that he would bring some energy to the club. After finishing the […]

Mop-up duty and long relief. They are two of the most thankless and unenviable tasks for a pitcher. For Cincinnati Reds 30-year-old journeyman Tom Sheehan, it was another chance to prove that he belonged in the major leagues. He had broken in with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1915, but after compiling an unsightly 5-25 record […]

Oakland’s Reggie Jackson entered the 1969 season as one of the game’s more promising young players. The 22-year-old hit 29 home runs (fourth in the AL) in 1968 and finished in the top 10 in several other offensive categories, while also leading the league with 171 strikeouts. In the A’s first year in Oakland, they […]

It was the 101st game of the 1933 season for the Philadelphia Athletics. They were consistently average, having spent much of the first four months of the season around the .500 mark.1 Manager Connie Mack’s dynasty was beginning to end. From 1925, when Mack added future Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove […]

It’s not so much what Ernie Banks did on Thursday, September 17, 1953. Rather, it’s what the game meant to the Chicago Cubs’ franchise and major league baseball in general. The 22-year-old Dallas, Texas, native went hitless in three at-bats, scored one run, and made an error at shortstop in his major league debut. The […]

Hurling baseballs back after opponents’ home runs, flinging caps onto the rink after a hat trick in hockey, and tossing flowers onto the ice in honor of a figure skater’s performance are three traditions where throwing things onto the field of play is acceptable behavior at sporting events. However, take an unlikely baseball power hitter, […]

If “What’s past is prologue,” as Shakespeare wrote,1 Ruppert Stadium’s in Newark began with Charles A. Davids, a Bayside, New York, promoter.2 To most of the public, though, it begins with the baseball original for whom the park was named, ultimately housing two teams so good that to some they seemed better than several teams in […]