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Talk about your quick-starting careers. Billy Pierce didn’t play organized baseball until he was 15. Born in Detroit on April 2, 1927, Pierce attended Highland Park (Michigan) High School, but originally he was not a pitcher. As he recalled to Mark Liptak, “I was a first baseman when I was 14, and the kid who […]

Si Burick’s byline adorned the sports pages of the Dayton Daily News in seven decades, from the 1920s to the 1980s. Over that impressive span, he demonstrated that it’s possible to have a big-league career without ever working in a big-league city. In 1983 he received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award “for meritorious contributions to […]

Tall righty Nate Minchey pitched in parts of four major-league seasons (1993-1994, 1996-1997), though he never appeared in more than six games in a given year. He then built a successful career in Japanese baseball, earning 74 victories from 1998 to 2004. Following his playing days, he spent more than 15 years working as an […]

Charles Radbourn’s pitching achievements were hailed by contemporaries and sportswriters for decades as some of the greatest feats of nineteenth century baseball. Little known today, many considered an 18-inning game in 1882 as the finest athletic contest ever seen on a baseball diamond. That game was won, not by the pitcher Radbourn, but by the […]

Charlie Hartman was the first “cup of coffee” player – a one-game wonder – for the Boston Red Sox, playing in just one big-league game, on June 24, 1908. Hartman is enough of a mystery that before this author began researching him for Red Sox Threads, most standard sources didn’t indicate whether he batted left […]

Imposing, confident, complex, charismatic, and controversial, Dave Winfield ranks as the greatest multisport athlete to emerge from the state of Minnesota. Drafted by five teams in five leagues in three major sports, Winfield chose baseball and compiled a first-ballot Hall of Fame career. At 6-feet-6 and 220 pounds, the powerfully-built right-hander wielded a menacing black […]

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 […]

He is the answer to one trivia question and half of the answer to another, but there was nothing trivial about the life of Will White. William Henry White was born in Caton, a farming community in Steuben County, in western New York, just a few miles above the Pennsylvania state line. He was the […]

Veteran broadcaster Lanny Frattare was the “Voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates” for two generations of fans. He belongs to a special roster of long-serving Pirates on-air talent that includes Rosey Rowswell, Bob Prince, and the team’s current play-by-play man, Greg Brown.1 Frattare served the Bucs from 1976 to 2008. He never called a World Series […]

During the first seven seasons of the 2000s, no team in the National League won more games or enjoyed more success than the St. Louis Cardinals. Guided by Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, the Cardinals won 658 games, five division titles, and one World Series. During the 2004-2006 seasons, La Russa handed the […]

Jimmy Johnston piled up record-setting stolen-base numbers in the minors, played every outfield and infield position, and contributed to the first two Brooklyn World Series teams. In 1920 he battled brother Doc Johnston of Cleveland as part of the first World Series sibling rivalry.1 Rooted in Tennessee, Johnston’s ancestors farmed, prayed, and played baseball. His […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

Gifted with intellect, musical acumen, and athletic ability, Deadball Era pitcher Eddie Higgins deferred a life in dentistry for the opportunity to play professional baseball. Though he pitched in just 18 big-league games in 1909 and 1910, and he was just 22 when he made his final appearance at the top level, he enjoyed an […]

Right fielder Dick Porter played 5½ years with the Cleveland Indians, half a year with the Boston Red Sox, and 15 years in the minors – all but the very last one in the International League. That length of tenure in the I.L. helped him earn induction into the International League Hall of Fame. He […]

On the back of his 1955 Bowman baseball card, Mel Clark urges youngsters to have a glove, bat and ball at hand so they can be ready to play when the opportunity presents itself. When that opportunity arose for the war veteran from the sandlots of West Virginia, he seized it with a vengeance. Melvin […]

“Dave Roberts is a novice manager, but he seems born to the task,” longtime San Francisco sportswriter Bruce Jenkins wrote about the offseason Dodgers hire in mid-2016. “He took a disjointed clubhouse and made it whole, instilling a good-times brand of confidence and telling SI.com, ‘I put my hand on each player every single day […]

The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis became the home for the Minnesota Twins in 1982. The multipurpose stadium, whose main professional tenants were the Twins and the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings, replaced Metropolitan Stadium in suburban Bloomington, where both teams had played since 1961. The first Metrodome event was an exhibition game […]

Coming off a last-place finish in 2012, the 2013 Boston Red Sox held first place for the first three dozen games of the 2013 season. They lost a few games and dropped in the standings but reclaimed the top spot on May 26 and held it for the next two months before falling a half-game […]

Coming into the final day of scheduled games in the Jalisco pool of the 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC), Puerto Rico already knew it could move on with a win.1 The top two teams in each pool were advancing to the second round. By winning its first two games against Venezuela and Mexico, Puerto Rico […]

Baseballs were flying out of major-league ballparks in 1953. At the end of play on this Sabbath Day, the National League had smashed 1,008 home runs on the season. Batters needed to hit only 92 more to break the single-season mark, set in 1950.1 The Milwaukee Braves, who had moved from Boston in the offseason, […]

Bob Stanley filled many roles during his career with the Boston Red Sox. He pitched 17 complete games in 64 starts between 1977 and 1981, including a 10-inning shutout in 1979. In 1982 Stanley was used exclusively as a reliever, and set an American League record for relief innings pitched (168⅓) while averaging 3½ innings […]

On July 15, 1942, Washington Nationals1 manager Bucky Harris stuck by 22-year-old rookie right-hander Early Wynn for 11 innings, through 15 hits and 4 walks. Wynn rewarded Harris with a 4-3 win over the Detroit Tigers. Wynn first pitched for Washington in September 1939, making three late-season starts at age 19. He threw 20⅓ innings, […]

David Ortiz was gunning for home run number 500 as the 2015 season wound down. The 500 Club wasn’t as exclusive as it had been when Ortiz reached the majors with the Minnesota Twins in September 1997, a season after Eddie Murray became its 15th member. Since then, 12 more sluggers had reached the milestone, […]

After Travis Blackley won his last seven decisions for the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers to improve his record to 7-2 with a 2.63 ERA in 14 starts,1 the 21-year-old Australian received a surprise late-night phone call on June 30, 2004, from Seattle Mariners manager Bob Melvin. “He said he had a proposition for me,” Blackley recalled. […]