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After losing two games at home, the St. Louis Cardinals headed to New York in a deep hole in the National League Championship Series. No other team had come back from a two-game deficit in the NLCS after losing the first two at home (although it had happened several times in the World Series.) Mark […]

As June started in the 1950 season, the Detroit Tigers traveled to Philadelphia for a two-day, three-game series against the Athletics at Shibe Park, which included a doubleheader played before a crowd of 17,449. Winners of four of their last five, the second-place Tigers (22-12) trailed the New York Yankees by three games in the […]

Talk about a spree, in which one player had a huge impact in three consecutive games. The second of the three games was the greatest comeback in Red Sox history. The Boston Red Sox entered the first game of the June 18, 1961, doubleheader with a dead-even record of 30-30. The sixth-place Washington Senators were […]

The St. Louis Cardinals were operating at a deficit as the 1946 World Series unfolded, having won Game Two with a 4-0 shutout but losing Games One and Three to the Boston Red Sox. They scored only a total of five runs over the first three games. The Cardinals batters faced Tex Hughson in a […]

As the spring of 1974 turned to summer, the San Francisco Giants were slumping. They were 33-36 and in fifth place in the six-team National League West Division, already 12 games behind the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers. By Friday, June 21, as they arrived in Los Angeles to open a three-game series with the Dodgers, […]

It seems appropriate somehow that Henry Aaron’s last moonshot came on the anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind. No one knew it at the time, but the 10,134 fans at County Stadium who saw Aaron’s mighty swing propel a ball over the fence for the 755th […]

When Roberto Clemente watched a Ferguson Jenkins pitch on the inside corner of the plate pass for a strike on September 13, 1972, young teammate Fernando Gonzalez didn’t understand. The pitch was in Clemente’s wheelhouse, and when Gonzalez questioned his mentor about why he held up on such a pitch, Clemente, an 18-year veteran, told […]

Cincinnati’s Crosley Field was crammed with 30,640 spectators for Game Two of the 1940 World Series to watch the Reds take on the Detroit Tigers, who were looking for their first championship since 1935. The Reds, meanwhile, hadn’t won a title since they defeated the Chicago White Sox in 1919 and were trying to break […]

1988 World Series program cover. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The Los Angeles Dodgers weren’t supposed to be there. Even after claiming the 1988 National League West crown by seven games, they were picked to fall to the heavily favored New York Mets in the National League Championship Series. The Mets, who won the NL East by […]

On July 12, 1938, approximately 10,000 fans entered Griffith Stadium to see their Washington Senators take on the league-leading Cleveland Indians. Just six days earlier, the 1938 All-Star Game had been held at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. Washington’s third baseman Buddy Lewis and Cleveland’s center fielder Earl Averill had started in the midsummer classic for the […]

A turn-of-the-20th-century left-hander with a singular first name, Welcome Gaston’s brief major league career included events out of the ordinary, as well. During his October 1898 audition with the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, for example, Gaston started four National League games – but only two made the record books; his other two outings were called off before […]

Bud Beasley Elementary School in Sparks, Nevada, opened in the fall of 1995. It was named for Arvel Lewis “Bud” Beasley, who served northern Nevada for more than 60 years as a schoolteacher and athletic coach. From 1944-54 he was also a minor-league pitcher, a colorful left-hander who delighted fans with his antics. Southpaws have […]

It was a dreary, overcast day in Brooklyn on April 15, 1954. The visiting Pirates were at Ebbets Field to face the Dodgers. The home team had jumped out to a 7-1 lead courtesy of home runs by Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam and Jackie Robinson. Tex Ricard, the Dodger PA announcer announced a pitching change […]

Tommy Tucker’s career highlight came in 1889, when he hit .372, becoming the first switch-hitter to win a major league batting title. But scant attention was paid to such arcane matters then; he was a household name during his time not because of anything he accomplished on the diamond, but because a nursery rhyme bearing […]

John Thomas Winsett was the son of a farming couple, John D. and Ida M. Winsett, in McKenzie, Tennessee – a small community of just over 1,300 people, 120 miles due west of Nashville. He was born on November 24, 1909, the fifth child in the Winsett family. Jack (the nickname he himself reported, and […]

Many major leaguers who have died while still active have met their ends in dramatic accidents. Their careers have been cut short by cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, guns, and—in one case—the Niagara Falls. George Prentiss’s death in 1902, one of the first recorded in the American League, was less sensational. Yet the 26-year-old Prentiss had […]

Hardworking, spirited, and optimistic are all apt descriptions of Jim Lefebvre. The switch-hitter spent more than 40 years in professional baseball, including eight years (1965-72) as a Los Angeles Dodgers infielder and six seasons managing the Mariners, Cubs and Brewers. Perhaps determined would be the best adjective of all for the former National League Rookie […]

 The fourth man from the Bahamas to play in the major leagues, Ed Armbrister was a spare part in Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine. His career was modest (265 at-bats in 224 games), but he won World Series rings in 1975 and 1976. Yet for Boston Red Sox fans, Armbrister was in the wrong place at […]

Ron Kline is one of a number of professional athletes who entered politics after their professional athletic careers came to a close. The most notable baseball player turned politician is Jim Bunning, US Senator from Kentucky (1999-2011), though others (Vinegar Bend Mizell and Fred Brown, for instance) also served in political office.1 Ron Kline became […]

Few players have managed to overcome greater challenges to succeed in professional baseball than Gary Ryerson. In 1952 an outbreak of poliomyelitis, more commonly called polio, swept the United States. The infectious virus attacked mostly the legs and caused muscles to become weak, poorly controlled, and ultimately paralyzed. The epidemic struck 57,628 Americans.1 Of those […]

Right-hander Tom Murphy pitched parts of 12 years (1968 to 1979) in the major leagues with six teams and enjoyed his greatest success with the California Angels and Milwaukee Brewers. Initially a starter when he broke in with California, he spent the second half of his career in the bullpen. Overall, Murphy won 68 games […]

Hitting a round ball with a round stick is generally regarded as one of the most difficult feats in sports. Baseball players must certainly have physical talents superior to the average person. But personality is nearly as important as physicality in making a memorable player. Fans are drawn to the personable, but maybe even more […]

Hal Kolstad had an unfortunate record as a major-league pitcher, losing four games without a win to his credit. It certainly didn’t help that he pitched for the eighth-place Boston Red Sox in 1962 and the seventh-place Sox in 1963. But he had a very solid 67-67 record in minor-league baseball, mostly at a high […]

Any objective summary of Eddie Bennett’s contributions to baseball makes him seem at best a minor figure in the game’s history. Yet during the 1920s and early 1930s, his evident devotion for the game made him a powerful symbol to many fans. Although his time in the limelight was brief, there are signs that he […]