Search Results

The dreaded trip to the woodshed altered many a young life; however, in the case of a young Washington, D.C., native, the effort was futile. Luzerne Atwell Blue was born on March 5, 1897, in the District of Columbia. Lu always claimed he was the youngest of seven sons; however, a look at the 1900 […]

“It’s a thankless job, this catching business,” sighed Charley Schmidt in 1908.1 The stocky Tiger was not one of the era’s more dexterous backstops, but instead demonstrated an often overlooked physical bravery in helping his team to three memorable American League pennants. Yet, more so than many of his Detroit teammates, Schmidt is better remembered […]

He was always Johnny Tobin in St. Louis but is listed in standard reference sources as Jack, which he was occasionally called on the road. Contemporary news coverage and players who knew him invariably called him Johnny. Tobin played his first 11 seasons in the major leagues for hometown teams – first the Federal League’s […]

Words cannot contain Mike Burke. A man of boundless courage and matchless charm, by the time he became president of the New York Yankees in 1966, he had already fought the Nazis with the French Resistance, tried to overthrow communist governments for the CIA, served as the model for a movie spy, and run the […]

Farmer Vaughn was “a strapping big fellow,”1 standing 6-foot-3 and in his prime weighing in at 180 pounds. Outspoken and fun-loving, he was also highly competitive and, at times, combative. He drew quite a few fines over the years for arguing with umpires both as a player and as a manager. While guiding his 1906 […]

George Webb Yantz was a bricklayer, journeyman catcher, and tough negotiator who reached the major leagues for one game and retired with a 1.000 career batting average. Yantz was born on July 27, 1886, in Louisville, Kentucky, the second oldest of five children born to Josephine and Charles Yantz. Charles worked as a bricklayer and […]

Urban “Red” Faber, one of the last pitchers to legally throw a spitball, persevered through illness and injury, a world war, and the Black Sox Scandal to win a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The right-hander played his entire 20-year major-league career with the White Sox, one of the league’s strongest teams […]

Earl Randolph Ashby Powbett led a fascinating baseball life. He was a backup catcher for the 1945 Negro champion Cleveland Buckeyes. He was given a chance to replace Josh Gibson as Homestead Grays catcher in 1947. He played in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States and perhaps other lands as well.  But he also […]

 Most famous today for being the second of three baseball-playing brothers, Mateo Alou was part of the first wave of Dominicans who helped change the very culture of American baseball in the 1960s. After years of sporadic playing time, often competing with his brothers, he finally left them and became a batting champion, and one […]

Jim Dyck’s major-league career was relatively short and undistinguished. It spanned six years, four of which involved stints in the minors, only one season with more than 400 at-bats and a mediocre .246 average. In his brief stint with the 1954 Indians, Dyck had only two plate appearances. Yet during his career Dyck helped set […]

He had just 11 big-league at-bats in 1990, but Brian Traxler was still a cult figure. Over 13 years as a pro, the first baseman delighted fans across the minors, the Caribbean winter leagues, Asia, and independent circuits. His immediate appeal was visual. “Trax” was rotund — leniently listed at 5-feet-10 and 200 pounds, he […]

The story of a hometown boy making good is firmly entrenched in baseball lore. Lloyd Merritt was born and raised in St. Louis, guided his American Legion team to the national championship game, and led the Cardinals in appearances in 1957, the crafty sinkerball reliever’s only season in the big leagues during his nine-year professional […]

John “Fats” Dantonio is representative of many ballplayers whose promotion to the big leagues was facilitated by the exit of major-league players called into military service during World War II. He was an average minor-league player before the war years, 25 years old with only four professional seasons under his belt when he first appeared […]

There is no definitive record of precisely when Charles Douglas Bair began playing baseball, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he was working on his two-seam fastball before he could walk. Simply put, Doug Bair is a baseball man. He always has been, and it’s a good bet that he always will […]

People who saw Carl Furillo play most often talk about his throwing arm. He was given nicknames because of it, including “The Reading Rifle,” and “The Arm.” On August 27, 1951, Pirates pitcher Mel Queen learned about Furillo’s arm the hard way—thrown out at first base after hitting an apparent single to right. It was […]

Shoeless Joe Jackson was a country boy from South Carolina who never learned to read or write much (“It don’t take school stuff to help a fella play ball,” he once said1) but is widely hailed as the greatest natural hitter in the history of the game. A left-handed batter and right-handed thrower, Jackson stood […]

The young prospect was having a hard time adjusting to the backstop position in the major leagues. Offensively, he was a threat from the beginning of his career.   He was a classic bad-ball hitter who could get wood on the ball no matter where the pitch was: high, low, outside.   He hit them […]

“Not all veteran fans remember him. Credit it to the fact that he was simply too good at what he did, which was use his voice with the range and subtlety of a concert violinist,” wrote TV Guide of Ray Scott. “CBS’s National Football League coverage didn’t make a move to any big game without […]

(On arriving at Kauffman Stadium for the first time) “As we drive up we see the Crown. There was a little mist and I’m thinking ‘this is an unbelievable sight.’ The lights are on. It doesn’t get any better than that. Then all of a sudden we pull in, we go into the clubhouse, and […]

Jim Mecir pitched professionally for 15 years, from 1991 to 2005, including all or part of 11 seasons in the major leagues, with a permanent disability that would have kept most people on the sidelines. Mecir (pronounced Mah-sear) was born with a club foot, a condition that was only partially corrected by medical procedures in […]

Although there isn’t a strong correlation between hair color and personality, it’s fair to say that the stereotypical redhead is hot-tempered, fiery and passionate. With his carrot-topped thatch, Wade Killefer personifies this description and was a natural to be called “Red” from birth. Add to the mix a stocky 5’9″ 175-pound frame, a keen intellect, […]

If somebody claimed that a person could simultaneously throw three baseballs with one hand accurately to three different catchers, or, with one hand could throw two balls, one a curve and one a fastball, accurately to two catchers, it would sound too weird to be believed. How about a claim that a person, suspended upside […]

The Houston Astrodome was the first fully enclosed, air-conditioned major-league ballpark. It was formally unveiled in an exhibition game that pitted the Houston Astros against the American League champion New York Yankees on April 9, 1965. Unlike previous sports venues, the Astrodome was built to be a massive all-purpose, climate-controlled facility that would serve as […]

In baseball history there have been certain street corners that through the years have become synonymous with the ballparks located at them. At the corner of Michigan and Trumbull was Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. 21st and Lehigh was Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Findlay and Western was Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. On the South Side of Chicago, 35th […]