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Pitcher Jack Sutthoff, whose 90-game career in the major leagues spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, recorded his best big-league season in 1903, when he went 16-9 for his hometown Cincinnati Reds. His status as a former Red, the pitcher who in 1904 broke the Reds’ losing streak on Opening Day, and his pleasant personality […]

Ed Moriarty was a .324 hitter, rising star, and fan favorite with the Boston Braves in 1935. Well, in his first eight games, anyway. He then shocked the Boston baseball world by suddenly calling it quits, saying he had a higher calling and was going to enter the priesthood. This player with 34 at-bats was […]

Paul Snyder was the indispensable man behind the scenes of the Atlanta Braves’ success. If anyone has said a bad word about him, it has not been recorded in the hothouse world of baseball. A baseball lifer since he started his career as a Braves minor-league outfielder-first baseman in 1958, Snyder is a rarity in […]

In his short major-league career, Albert Edward Kaiser played only 155 games and batted only .216. Yet from 1909 through 1914, he was known in the Midwest as an exceptionally fast outfielder, daring baserunner, and somewhat reckless player. In fact the Indianapolis Star, reviewing the 1913 season, said that “his great speed enabled him to […]

The obstacles a rookie follows to become a major leaguer are daunting. Add to that the pressure of being described as a can’t-miss prospect or the next Joe DiMaggio and that process can be overwhelming. Johnny Groth faced such a situation with the Detroit Tigers in the spring of 1949. He would become and remain […]

The best curve ball that Babe Ruth ever saw came not from Walter Johnson, Dazzy Vance, or Firpo Marberry. It was from Walter Beall, a DC sandlot baseball legend who was a teammate and hunting buddy of Ruth’s — the pair used a West Virginia cabin owned by Beall’s paternal grandfather.1 “His curve broke down, […]

Nicknames in baseball are tricky, especially in the Deadball Era, because the name a player carried while he was active may be different from the one he carries now. James Callahan was seldom referred to as “Nixey,” pitcher William Kennedy was called “Roaring Bill” much more often than “Brickyard,” and William S. Wright of the […]

Outfielder Don Mueller was a hard man to strike out – in five of the eight years in which he played in at least 120 games for the New York Giants in the 1950s, he led the league in fewest strikeouts per at-bats. He was a two-time All-Star who participated in some of the most […]

In 1950 Casimir James Konstanty, a sometime gym teacher and baseball nomad, and Edwin Sawyer, a manager who had never played in the big leagues, led the Philadelphia Phillies to their first pennant in 35 years. Eddie Sawyer summoned Konstanty from the bullpen 74 times that season to set a record for appearances. Along the […]

Dorian “Doe” Boyland was a good prospect who never got a proper chance to show what he could do in the major leagues. The first baseman received three trials with the Pittsburgh Pirates — in 1978, 1979, and 1981. He got into a total of 21 games, but started none of them and played in […]

Tillar “Pug” Cavet won 302 games in a career that spanned two decades. He won 11 games in the majors, with the 1914-15 Detroit Tigers, and 291 in the minors. He was a four-time 20-game winner, with Mobile in 1913, Nashville in 1917, and Indianapolis in 1919 and 1921. The 6-foot-3, 175-pound southpaw pitched side-arm […]

Throughout his 12-year major-league career, Ted Sizemore was known for his versatility and competitiveness, as well as for his love of baseball. When he was playing youth sports, some skeptics told him he was too short to be a major leaguer (sources would later claim he was either 5-feet-9”1 or 5-feet-10”; but in high school, […]

Normally when a pitcher sustains a serious arm injury, it might have a career-ending ramification. But adversity did not seem to bother Ted Abernathy. Instead, he made a habit of treating setbacks like challenges. He adapted by becoming a sidearmer and then a submariner. He appeared in 681 big-league games, saving 148 of them, from […]

Never known for his hitting ability, catcher El Tappe played 145 games of major-league baseball over parts of six seasons with the Chicago Cubs. In addition, his suggestion in December 1960 to use a rotating system of instructors turned into owner Philip Wrigley’s decision to employ the College of Coaches in 1961 and 1962. Tappe […]

The initial third baseman enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Jimmy Collins was an outstanding fielder and above-average hitter during his 14-year major-league career in the Deadball Era. As the first manager of the Boston franchise in the American League, Collins gained widespread acclaim when he led the team to consecutive pennants in 1903 […]

Mike Goliat has long been the answer to a popular trivia question about the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies: Who was the second baseman on the Whiz Kids? Since 1950 was the only full year that Goliat spent in the major leagues, the answer to that question eludes many.1 But Goliat was a solid-fielding second baseman (a […]

Peanuts Lowrey, who was the 1964 Phillies’ first-base coach, enjoyed a 13-year career as a player with the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, and Philadelphia Phillies, playing in 978 games. Regarded as one of the best utility players and pinch-hitters of his generation, he was usually found roaming the outfield but he also […]

Ask casual baseball fans which Tigers player drove in the run that clinched the 1984 World Series, and you can’t blame them if they answer Kirk Gibson. After all, Gibson’s blast off Goose Gossage gets replayed time and again and is perhaps the most memorable hit in Tigers history. But the game-winning RBI, an official […]

“Gus Weyhing is one of the swiftest pitchers in the business. He is, comparatively speaking, a small man and his appearance gives no indication of the muscular power necessary to manipulate the ball at the speed with which he delivers it.”1 The 145-pound Weyhing was a true rabble rouser, often as mischievous off the field […]

Twenty-four-year-old Milt Nielsen was surprised when his wife, Marilyn, handed him his father’s phone in late September 1949. “Some guy says he is calling from the Cleveland Indians,” she said.1 They had just returned home with their young son to Windom, Minnesota, after Milt finished a very successful season with the Oklahoma City Indians of […]

John Young carried an impressive 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame during his baseball playing days. Even more impressive than his physical stature on the field, however, was the stature he later gained as a baseball ambassador for the underprivileged. In founding the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program, Young left an indelible mark on the game that […]

For every 30-home-run hitter and 20-game winner, there is often a role player who, though contributing less, is embraced by the fans and given nearly unconditional support in return for those elusive attributes scrappiness and hustle. For the pennant-winning White Sox of 1959, that player was Sammy Esposito. Despite spending the majority of his career […]

This multi-purpose facility has been called “The Madison Square Garden of Puerto Rico.”1 Its use in boxing and basketball is a big reason, but the parallel extends to track and field, as well as political conventions. Baseball, however, forms an especially rich chapter in the history of Estadio Sixto Escobar (as it is known to […]

Ulysses S. Grant said, “I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.”1 His sentiment rang true in major-league baseball after the American Association and National League repealed rules that limited pitching motions in the midst of the 1885 season. The change unleashed pitch […]