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Growing up in Covington, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Johnnie Heving enjoyed a long career spanning more than 30 years in professional baseball as a catcher and as a manager. His younger brother, Joe, worked as a pitcher, appearing in 430 major-league games to Johnnie’s 399, but spent fewer years in the […]

Two brief stints in the major leagues with six years in between. But right-handed pitcher Paul Musser also enjoyed a full 15 years in the minor leagues, with four 20-win seasons. He began pitching professionally in 1909, the year he turned 20. He was born on the 24th of June in 1889 in Millheim, Pennsylvania. […]

On June 12, 1996, the Birmingham Barons returned to historic Rickwood Field after an eight-year absence for the first Rickwood Classic. Before the game with the Memphis Chicks, the team honored former Baron Walt Dropo and Birmingham baseball legend Lorenzo “Piper” Davis. As the capacity crowd of over 10,000 cheered Davis, he must have reflected […]

Arthur Soden was like many nineteenth century capitalists: He had a near single-mindedness when it came to the bottom line. He saw baseball as a business, pure and simple, though he did admit later in life that he had a fondness for the game. Controlling costs and expanding revenues were his priorities. The well-being and […]

Jacob “Jake” Wood Jr., an African American from Elizabeth, New Jersey, starred at shortstop for the baseball team at Thomas Jefferson High, played one season at Delaware State University, and signed with the Detroit Tigers in 1957. Jake was a natural, one of two outstanding athletes in the family. Youngest brother Richard enjoyed a 10-year […]

One can statistically evaluate with some degree of accuracy the worth of a baseball player to his team. However, sometimes a player stands out because of characteristics that inspire his teammates and draws the admiration and respect of fans. Eddie “The Brat” Stanky was one of those. Stanky was a gritty, scrappy player, not gifted […]

Gary Waslewski woke in his Peabody, Massachusetts apartment on the morning of October 11, 1967 as the starting pitcher in Game Six of the World Series. “I was reading the papers that morning, and one guy wrote that Gary Waslewski has as much chance of winning as Custer had of beating the Indians,” Waslewski said. […]

Baseball has had its share of lifers whose longtime broad-based associations with the game have provided continuity across generations, but few have matched the breadth of experience of John McLaren. His playing career stopped just short of the majors, but in his post-playing career he filled almost every role imaginable and interacted with players from all […]

Richard Leo Gedman fulfilled his childhood dream in his tenure in the major leagues, suiting up for over a decade for the team he grew up rooting for. Gedman, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, spent parts of 11 seasons (1980-1990) as a catcher for the Boston Red Sox. The two-time All-Star also played for the […]

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 […]

A big-league career is often a product of fate, luck, and timing.  Bob Keely would attest to that.  In 1944 the St. Louis Cardinals signed the 34-year-old sandlot star as a third-string catcher. Six months later, Keely was a world champion. Keely was originally signed by the Redbirds in 1936, but a knee injury ended […]

In 2019 Justin Verlander led the major leagues with 223 innings pitched. His workload was less than half of the post-1900 major league record 464 innings by Ed Walsh in 1908. And it was less than one-third of the all-time mark — 680 innings by Will White in 1879. It is hard to imagine a […]

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 […]

If the NBA was as big in the 1940s as it is today, Ernie Andres might have been a star basketball player. He was a guard for Indianapolis in the National Basketball League, a forerunner of the NBA, and in 1974 was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.1 And in 1942, he played […]

LEE ELIA SPENT 47 years in baseball. He played in the minor leagues and in the major leagues. He coached and managed in the minors. He coached and managed in the majors. While his volatile temper often got the better of him, he cared about his players, and he taught and utilized his knowledge and […]

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 […]

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 […]

A well-known ancient proverb, attributed to Lao Tzu, asserts that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” For Ed Kranepool, an 18-season baseball journey spanning 2,009 appearances began with a single game. That game took place in Buffalo, New York, on July 6, 1962, when Frank Verdi1 — manager of the […]

As the 49-year-old midtown Cincinnati ballpark hosted Game Five of what proved to be its final postseason, it sported a new paint job, applied after the end of the 1961 regular season. Crosley Field was all dressed up in its gaudiest colors in years. The outside of the ballpark had a gleaming coat of white […]

It was the “first opening game since our energies have been actively hurled against the heartless Hun on the blood-stained and shell-bitten fields of France,” wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer somberly as the Pittsburgh Pirates took on the Reds at Redland Field to inaugurate the 1918 major-league baseball season.1 Given the news of the unimaginable destruction […]

A person who coaches in major-league baseball but never plays or manages at that level, is a shadowy figure in an otherwise statistic-rich sport. He or she1 compiles no wins, losses, runs, hits, errors, or any other numerical record that they ever reached the majors. There’s only one tracked statistic that a coach in this […]

As the 1980 MLB season was winding down, the Houston Astros paid a visit to Dodger Stadium in hopes of accomplishing the one feat that eluded the franchise since its inception in 1962: clinching a playoff berth. By winning six of their last seven games, the Astros extended their lead in the NL West by […]

On the night of June 14, 1949, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus was shot in the chest by a deranged admirer, Ruth Ann Steinhagen, in a Chicago hotel.1 Hours earlier, at Wrigley Field, Waitkus – a Chicago Cub until a December 1948 trade brought him to Philadelphia – had a hit, a walk, and […]

High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) April 2021 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long   From the Directors (1) In Memoriam: Chris Rainey Welcome, Alan Cohen From the Directors (2) The BioProject on Social Media Update on BioProject Submissions From the Editor Project Team From Co-Directors, Rory […]