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San José de la Sabana might as well be a Hamlet from a Latin American magical realism novel. Is there something in its water? Or perhaps a spell cast by the village witch? The small town of Caruao, La Guaira on Venezuela’s central coast is the cradle of a family tradition started by José Elías […]

Strong quick wrists, an open, positive demeanor, and unwavering confidence made young Ed Spiezio an outstanding baseball prospect. Cardinals Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst once told The Sporting News that Spiezio was the “the finest looking young hitter” he had ever seen.1 In five seasons with the Cardinals (1964-1968), Spiezio played on three National League […]

Apart from a lackluster stint with the 1910-1911 St. Louis Browns, first baseman Pat Newnam spent his long professional career in the minor leagues, mostly in his native Texas. His principal shortcoming as a player was a common one: marginal ability. The righty batting and throwing Newnam had good size (6-feet, 180 pounds), exceptional foot […]

On athletic fields – both baseball and football – John Clifford Happenny was eclipsed by Hall of Famers. Only after his retirement from sports did his light fully shine, as the former Chicago White Sox infielder (32 games in 1923) became a senior executive at utility companies in Oklahoma and Illinois, and a leader in […]

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 […]

Left-hander Herb Thormahlen won 29 games in the major leagues and 159 in the minors, pitching from 1916 through 1933. (Baseball databases list Thormahlen as Hank, but in the several thousand news stories scoured in the preparation of this biography, never once was he described as Hank.) He hailed from Jersey City, New Jersey, born […]

In the first 150 years of professional baseball, more major leaguers came from Pennsylvania than any state but California.1 Only one — John “Brode” Shovlin — was born in the tiny coal-mining town of Drifton.2 A diminutive middle-infielder with only 18 games spread over nine years and a .209 career batting average, Shovlin went eight […]

In 1964, a 24-year-old Dominican strongman named Ricardo Adolfo Jacobo (Rico) Carty burst into the major leagues like a tropical storm. After two hitless at-bats in 1963, Carty’s batting average (.330) in his first full season was the second highest in the majors. Only Roberto Clemente hit better, and only a phenomenal year by Philadelphia’s […]

Selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the second round of the 1983 MLB amateur draft, Bob Milacki garnered little attention with a pedestrian record of 16-21, 3.79 in his first 290 innings in the minor leagues. “I’d been in the organization [three] years and never impressed anybody,” the right-hander later acknowledged.1 In 1988, as the […]

A boxer turned ballplayer, Ira James “Pete” Flagstead became a 13-year major-league outfielder who hit .290 over the course of his career, mostly spent with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox from 1917 through 1930. He was raised a long way from the major leagues of the day, in Olympia, the capital of the […]

Tabbed “the best young catching prospect to try for a major league berth in many years” in the spring of 1948 by Pirates rookie manager Billy Meyer, Ed Fitz Gerald went on to have a 12-year major-league career as a backup catcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Senators, and Cleveland Indians.1 The gangly, six-foot, 170-pound […]

Denny Lyons hammered the baseball and played fine defense in his 13-season 19th-century major-league career. His outstanding performance at the plate, now obscured by a century-plus of intervening baseball history, ranks him with the top third basemen of all time, at least as measured against his contemporaries. David Nemec’s profile of Lyons in Volume 1 […]

When thinking of multi-sport athletes from Toronto, the first name to come to mind is likely Lionel Conacher. Conacher was voted Canada’s top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, and excelled in hockey, baseball, and football. He also played lacrosse, wrestled, and boxed. However, another versatile athlete was unjustly lost in his […]

The Monster. It wasn’t a nickname Dick Radatz liked but the minute it was out there, it stuck. For three seasons (1962-1964), he was one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game, a supernova.1 He may have been overused, perhaps burning out after facing more than 500 batters for each of four seasons […]

Following a promising rookie year in 1989, pitcher Kevin Ritz found his career on shaky ground after struggling with extreme control problems for the Detroit Tigers over his next couple of seasons. This was exacerbated by a serious elbow injury suffered at the end of his tenure in Detroit that sidelined him for a full […]

Sadly, there are many stories like that of pitcher Roy “Dixie” Walker in the annals of baseball. He was a gifted athlete, said “to have as much speed as Walter Johnson.”1 His failing was that he lacked control. Not just of his fastball, but of his life. He had a temper, a proclivity to drink, […]

Chris Carpenter spent 15 seasons in major-league baseball, first with the Toronto Blue Jays and then with the St. Louis Cardinals .His won-lost record was 144-94 with an earned-run average of 3.76, and in 2005, his 21-5 season and 2.83 ERA won him the National League’s Cy Young Award. But statistics alone don’t tell the […]

Both Ray Grimes and his brother Roy broke into the majors in the same year, 1920. Ray and Roy were twins, both born in Bergholz, Ohio, on September 11, 1893. Ray played in just one 1920 game, with the Boston Red Sox on September 24. Ray was properly Oscar Ray, and Roy was Austin Roy. […]

Johnny Marcum was a farm boy from Eminence, Kentucky, the son of Kentucky natives Ben and Grace Marcum. The second oldest of five children, three boys and two girls, he was born on a farm at Campbellsburg, about a dozen miles north of Eminence, on September 9, 1909. When John was three years old, the […]

There are countless stories about how baseball players broke into the game. Some made spectacular first impressions while others left no impression at all. The year was 1918 and 20-year-old Rube Lutzke was badgering manager Mike Kelley of the St. Paul Saints of the American Association for a chance to show his talent. Finally, on […]

If charted, the seven-season American Association career of shortstop Frank Fennelly would present an intriguing picture: a slightly above-average baseline with peaks of circuit-best and valleys of circuit-worst performance. When he broke into the major leagues in 1884, Fennelly had a live bat. His .311 batting average placed him in the AA’s top ten. The […]

After four seasons of double-digit victories as a starter for the Dodgers (1946-1949), left-handed pitcher Joe Hatten started only twenty-eight games over the next three seasons. He then departed the Major Leagues for a long career in the minors.  When Hatten was asked what single thrill he remembered from his days as a major leaguer, […]

From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, Toronto was considered a potential major-league expansion city.1 Shortly after New Year’s Day 1976, a Toronto consortium purchased the struggling San Francisco Giants, intending to relocate the club north.2 However, a San Francisco court granted a restraining order that prevented the Giants from leaving and then a local […]

As the 1924 season progressed, fans of the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League began wondering why the two leagues didn’t have an end-of-season playoff, or as the press referred to it, a “Negro World Series.” (The Black press alternated between calling the proposed competition a Negro World Series and a Colored World […]