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Kory DeHaan played professional baseball for seven years, including 2000 with the San Diego Padres as a Rule 5 draftee, and has coached in minor-league baseball since 2010. Korwin Jay (Kory) DeHaan was born on July 16, 1976, in Pella, Iowa and has two younger sisters, Kara and Kami. His father, Guy, taught German at […]

For over four decades, Stan Kasten has been a highly respected sports figure who developed a reputation for creating winning franchises by relying on three pillars – scouting and player development, enhancing the fan experience, and community outreach – to establish franchises built for long-term success on and off the field.1   This strategy has apparently […]

Baseball history is filled with stories of Irish American players, particularly in the 19th century, whose promising careers were derailed by alcohol abuse. Few stories are more tragic than that of Dan Lally. Called “Handsome Dan,” Dapper Dan,” and “the Adonis of the diamond” during his playing days, Lally was a consistent .300 hitter during […]

For two years, 5-foot, 9-inch Bob Saverine teamed with 6-foot, 7-inch Frank Howard on the Washington Senators. But, that’s not all. The talented pair, along with several other Senators players, formed a basketball team.1 Prior to the 1968 season, newly named manager Jim Lemon watched as they played an exhibition game and defeated a team […]

In 1915, America’s leading syndicated sportswriter, Hugh Fullerton, published a forgettable baseball novel in which a star left-handed pitcher named Williams is bribed and threatened by gamblers to lose the pennant for his team.1 Fullerton, who dedicated the novel to his friend and mentor, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, had been writing about the […]

This rare left-handed catcher had a cup of coffee in the major leagues in the fall of 1888. In his two games, though, he managed to get a hit off a Hall of Famer, Hank O’Day (later inducted as an umpire). As an outfielder, he threw another one, Connie Mack, out at the plate. In the minors, he […]

Before the Wizard of Oz, the St. Louis Cardinals had Mr. Shortstop. Marty Marion never turned a backflip, but he was the National League’s premier defensive shortstop in the 1940s and is the only man to win a Most Valuable Player award with his glove. No Scooter or Rabbit or Pee Wee, he was a […]

After college Bill Essick had to choose between life as a musician and one in baseball.  He chose baseball and left his native Illinois to begin his minor-league pitching career in Salt Lake City.  After a brief promotion to the major leagues and roughly a dozen years as a successful minor-league manager, Essick joined the […]

When Jeremy Hermida stepped up to the plate for his first at-bat in the major leagues on August 31, 2005, he wasn’t thinking about accomplishing something no one in baseball had done for more than a century. With the bases loaded and the game out of reach for the Florida Marlins, the 21-year-old rookie was […]

Mexican League president Jorge Pasquel, right, sits with the son of catcher Mickey Owen on his lap and outfielder Danny Gardella, left, during a 1946 game in Veracruz, Mexico. (SABR/The Rucker Archive)   Cardinals owner Sam Breadon called him likeable and said he was “the most dynamic fellow I’ve ever met.”1 Branch Rickey said he […]

In 1902 Cleveland manager Bill Armour raved about his pitcher Bill Bernhard: “Critics may choose [Rube] Waddell or Cy Young and be welcome, but neither of these two men has anything on ‘Berny.’”1 From 1899 to 1907, Bernhard compiled an impressive 116-81 major league record. The fury of his fastball contrasted with his calm demeanor. […]

Certain types of ballplayers have always populated baseball history. Slow footed sluggers, crafty lefthanders, flame throwing relievers and flashy infielders all make up important baseball clichés. Hall of Famer Max Carey demonstrates all of the qualities of one such type—a hard working, fundamentally sound outfielder with great speed, sure hands, and good contact with a […]

Eduardo Green (1920-1980) never played in the majors. In fact, he played only 11 games in Organized Baseball at the Class B level. Yet under different circumstances, he almost certainly could have been a big-leaguer. La Gacela Negra — The Black Gazelle — still stands as one of the greatest players in the history of […]

Before the designated hitter, the major leagues had little use for a slugger who could not field, such as Moose Clabaugh. One of the greatest hitters in minor-league history, Clabaugh received only a “cup of coffee” in the big leagues – 15 plate appearances with the Brooklyn Robins in 1926. That opportunity came after he […]

In the summer of 1909, Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb won the Triple Crown, his Tigers won their third straight American League flag, and Ty was involved in the infamous spiking of Frank “Home Run” Baker. Because of that slide, Baker’s manager, Connie Mack, accused Cobb of being the dirtiest player in the history […]

Holler “Holy Cow!” in the Eastern United States and people might think of Phil Rizzuto, the New York Yankees’ shortstop-turned-broadcaster, while a cry of “Holy Cow!” in Chicago brings Harry Caray to mind. In the Upper Midwest, though, “Holy Cow!” remains synonymous with Halsey Hall, who, if not the first to use the expression on […]

June 15, 1977 is a black day in the history of the New York Mets. On that date, in what came to be known as The Midnight Massacre, M. Donald Grant, the team’s chairman of the board, traded away Tom Seaver, a/k/a “The Franchise,” to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Dan Norman, […]

In December 2020, the Negro Leagues were recognized as major leagues. The Amaro family might thus have retroactively become the first to send three generations of players to the top level,1 ahead of the Boones, the Bells, the Hairstons, and the Colemans.2 Their worthy heritage started with their big Cuban patriarch, Santos Amaro, who had […]

In the locker room celebration after the New York Mets won the 1969 National League pennant, he was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying, “I’ll walk down the street in New York now and people will say, ‘There’s Art Shamsky of the Mets.’ People used to laugh. They won’t anymore.’”1 Indeed, after his performance […]

“No more pitiful case exists in the annals of base ball than that of Arnold Hauser,” stated The Sporting News on April 9, 1914.1 Hauser, since debuting with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1910, had emerged as one of the game’s finest young shortstops. By 1913, however, injuries and personal tragedy began to derail both […]

In October 1919 Joe Jenkins found himself embroiled in the Black Sox Scandal, the fixing of that year’s World Series by eight of his Chicago White Sox teammates. It was the biggest black eye in baseball’s history. Yet Jenkins, who didn’t make an appearance in the World Series, couldn’t even claim bragging rights within his […]

Well, what difference does it make what name you play under so long as you get your money? “Bell” is a good baseball name and an easy one for the sporting writers to remember. 1 — New York Highlanders manager Clark Griffith (1907)   Contract jumper, manager, umpire, scoreboard operator, and weekly fungo wielder baseball […]

Over its first five decades, the Kansas City Royals have had only three ownership regimes. Pharmaceutical entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman landed the Royals expansion franchise for the 1969 season and believed that the team could and should be competitive in a previously unprecedented time frame. He was willing to innovate and spend to boost the Royals […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 37, in 2008.   When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1918, it was their fifth triumph in the fifteen years of the modern classic. The club had the best player in baseball, outfielder-pitcher Babe Ruth, another top hitter […]