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“Dependable Al is Brooklyn’s second line of defense behind the plate. He’s as smart a backstop as you’ll find in baseball and handles pitchers expertly.” – 1957 Topps Al “Rube” Walker card (#147)1   As their battle with the Phillies for the 1950 National League pennant came down to the last day of the season, […]

The White Sox needed a win badly. After splitting the first two games of the World Series against the Dodgers in Chicago, they lost the next two games in Los Angeles. Their backs were at the wall and they needed a win to keep their championship hopes alive. Chicago Tribune writer David Condon wrote that […]

The first frost would not arrive in Cleveland for another six days. Two thousand fans officially attended the pennant-clinching game against the defending champion Beaneaters. The attendance, slightly above average, was pretty respectable for a fall Wednesday afternoon game in northern Ohio when the home team’s pennant chances were long gone. Because the Spiders departed […]

Kevin McReynolds and Rich “Goose” Gossage were teammates for three years with the San Diego Padres and were major contributors to a Padres team that played in the 1984 World Series. After McReynolds was traded to the New York Mets during the 1986-87 offseason, Gossage had some unkind words for his former teammate. The outspoken […]

“When Red Sox slugger Jim Rice gets impatient, look out.” So began Bill Liston’s game story in the next day’s Boston Herald.1 The Boston Red Sox started the 1978 season on the road, losing their first two games to the Chicago White Sox, both 6-5, picking up a win, then splitting a pair in Cleveland. […]

Solly Hemus’s place in New York Mets history is exceedingly small by most measures. He served as a coach under Casey Stengel for the Mets’ first two seasons, 1962-63, during which the expansion team set a twentieth-century record for losses in a season.1 Hemus, formerly the scrappy player-manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, holds one […]

“Things just kept happening, unexpected things, rare things, exciting things, dramatic things,” wrote John Wilson of the Houston Chronicle after the Astros doubleheader split with the visiting San Diego Padres that involved everything from dramatic home runs, controversial plays at home plate, and game-interrupting disputes to stellar defensive plays and even occasionally good pitching.1 “It […]

“I saw Robinson coming in. I didn’t move because I had to stay to make the call on the pitch first. That’s why I stayed crouched over. I saw it perfectly. Yogi put the ball at the back of the plate and Robinson slid across the plate into the glove. I’m satisfied I made the […]

The second-place St. Louis Cardinals arrived in Pittsburgh for a three-game series, August 5-7, 1901, against the first-place Pirates. At the beginning of the season, few thought that the Cardinals had any chance to contend. The team finished in fifth place in 1900 and then lost Cy Young and John McGraw to the American League. […]

Thunder Thornton hit the ballOver and against the wall.Cleveland copied Boston styleSmashing them a Fenway mile.1   Spring had arrived in New England, and with it Red Sox baseball sprang anew. It was early in the 1978 season and optimism was high for a return to October baseball in Boston. Just three weeks earlier, the […]

“As a diehard Yankee hater and former Yankee killer, I even helped to germinate the seeds of the feud by spreading some fertilizer of my own.” — Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Boston Red Sox pitcher, 1969-1978.1 Books have been written, blogs have been posted and newspaper accounts have captured the intensity of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, […]

Most high-school or college pitchers with dreams of a major-league career think about pitching in the World Series, an All-Star Game, hurling a no-hitter, or getting a strikeout to end a big game. Besides these, Mark Wohlers had something else on his mind while growing up — throwing a pitch 100 miles an hour in […]

Since major-league baseball began, no player has ever enjoyed a debut to match Ted Cox’s. In every one of his first six at-bats, he got a base hit. Other players have made a hit in their first time at bat. Some of the greatest hitters of all time took a long time to get established. […]

He was being compared to Eddie Stanky, because of his short, stocky, build. But he also played the game with a reckless abandon like Stanky, and was given the moniker “Scrappy Jack.” He was also referred to as the “The Hammer,” if for no other reason than it was an abbreviation of his surname. But […]

A strong, quiet leader. Steady and determined. One of the best minds in baseball. All apt descriptions of the often-overlooked player, coach, and manager Bob Lillis. In 1928, Perry Reed Lillis, born in Michigan, married Lillian Pearl Porterfield, from Oklahoma. The couple had two sons: Jack Howard Lillis, born in 1928, and Robert Perry “Bob” […]

Steve Crawford was a pitcher who spent most of his 10 major-league seasons fighting for a job on a major-league roster, the majority of them with the Boston Red Sox. He was a once-promising prospect, but became almost a forgotten man by 1986. He would have been left off the Red Sox’ postseason roster that […]

Mike Paxton, a right-hander for the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians, pitched for parts of four seasons in the major leagues and never had a losing record. Like most pitchers in the 1970s, he began his career as a starter. Once in the majors, he split time as a starter (63) and reliever (36). […]

Sam Bowen was a hard man to get. Four teams — the Indians, Expos, Braves, and Angels — devoted a draft pick to him from 1970 through 1972. Each time, he chose not to sign, despite being a high second- or third-round pick of three of the teams. The Red Sox selected the right-handed outfielder […]

When looking back at the career of Rick “The Rooster” Burleson, the fiery, intense shortstop of the Boston Red Sox, California Angels and Baltimore Orioles from 1974 to 1987, a quotation from former teammate Bill Lee perhaps sums it up best: “Some guys didn’t like to lose, but Rick got angry if the score was […]

Keith MacWhorter was a right-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who appeared in 14 games during the 1980 season. He was perhaps handicapped by a limited sinking fastball-slider pitching arsenal. A native New Englander, MacWhorter was born on December 30, 1955, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and spent most of his youth in Rhode Island. In […]

“I think I was put on this earth to be a coach.”1 “Have you ever had an itch you can’t scratch? Athletes have one for life, a ‘jock’s itch’ that a ton of Tinactin won’t cure.”2 So writes Tom House, former left-handed pitcher who, after he retired from baseball, went on to pursue graduate studies. […]

Don Cardwell seemed the definition of a journeyman pitcher, but his career intertwined with the stuff of legend. He threw a no-hitter two days after being traded, he grabbed love beads off Ron Swoboda’s neck at the height of the 1960s culture clash, and Cardwell, who always liked to swing the bat, became the back […]

James Arthur Willoughby was a right-handed pitcher perhaps best known for his contributions to the 1975 Boston Red Sox (including being pinch-hit for in Game Seven of the World Series). Willoughby also pitched for the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago White Sox. “Willow,” as he was often called, was born in Salinas, California, on […]

Rubén Gómez was the second pitcher from Puerto Rico to reach the majors — and the first to start and win a World Series Game. He led the New York Giants to a 6-2 win in Game Three at Cleveland on October 1, 1954. A limber 6 feet even and 170-175 pounds, Gómez was amazingly […]