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During a playing career that spanned a remarkable six decades, Jim O’Rourke did much to advance baseball as our national pastime. A key member of championship teams in both the National Association and the National League, O’Rourke was a versatile performer in the field and a reliable .300 hitter at the plate. Thereafter, as his […]

Frank Strong Lary, a talented, hard-throwing right hander for the Detroit Tigers, proved to be one of the American League’s best pitchers from 1955 through 1961. An All-Star hurler in 1960 and 1961, he was best known as the “Yankee Killer.” While fashioning a major league lifetime record of 128-116 with an ERA of 3.49, […]

During the first 25 years of the club’s existence, the public face of major league baseball in Brooklyn proceeded from team president Charles H. Byrne to pennant-winning field manager Ned Hanlon to front office functionary-turned-club boss Charles H. Ebbets. Throughout that period, the club’s chronically depleted treasury was regularly replenished by a far less visible […]

The 2017 All-Star Game was played in Miami, so it was natural for major media outlets to give some attention to the franchise hosting it. As one example, less than two weeks before the big event, Fox Sports reposted a FanSided article on the top five candidates among former Marlins to have their uniform numbers […]

For an obscure two-season pitcher, mid-1880s left-hander Cyclone Miller had a disproportionate effect on the major league record book. For example, without Miller and his contribution to the troubles of the 1884 Providence Grays, it is improbable that teammate Hoss Radbourn would have won 60 games that year, the all-time major league single-season record. Nor […]

The first of three Grillis to play major-league baseball, Guido John Grilli had the briefest career of the three. In 1966 he was 0-1 for the Boston Red Sox and 0-1 for the Kansas City Athletics.    Grilli put in his time in the minor leagues. He was first signed by Red Sox scout George […]

A temperate Pacific Coast climate and rich baseball tradition have made San Diego a longtime spawning ground for major-league talent. As of 2019, the city has sent some 115 of her sons to the bigs. The second, and by far the greatest, of these San Diegans was Ted Williams, whose march to Cooperstown began with […]

In 1945, The Sporting News reckoned Eddie Mayo as “an excellent example of the Salvation Army adage, ‘A man may be down, but he is never out.’”1 Acquired by the Detroit Tigers a year earlier after he had failed in several attempts to stick in the big leagues, the 34-year-old infielder helped pace the club […]

Like a host of other marginal talents, pitcher John Connor owes his place in major league player ranks largely to the profusion of clubs accorded major league status during the 1884 season. At one time or other that year, no fewer than 33 different organizations claimed a National League, American Association, or Union Association franchise. […]

A member of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, Pete Donohue was a right-handed pitcher from Texas who won 127 games for them over a 10-year stretch, including three years of 20 or more wins in the early to mid-1920s. He led the league with 27 complete games in 1925 and wins in 1926. By […]

Benny McCoy was the talk of every town in 1940 when the obscure rookie became baseball’s first big-money free agent. He failed to live up to the hype — who could? — and crumpled under the weight of great expectations. “Benny’s problem was too much attention,” Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Cy Peterman wrote.1 We’ll never know […]

The obituary published in The Sporting News when Gene Moore died centered on his having made his only World Series appearance because of “a weird circumstance.”1  Although accurate, the article overlooked the fact that Moore was a player of All-Star caliber, the type of player any manager would want on his team.  Statistics did not […]

The case of 1920s Negro League pitcher Dave Brown provides a classic example of the oft-quoted line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” a maxim that stems from a John Ford-directed film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In that movie, reporter Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young) discovers that his subject, Senator Ransom Stoddard […]

To certain chroniclers of the Black Sox Scandal, the actor most deserving of censure is not 1919 World Series fix organizers Chick Gandil or Eddie Cicotte, gamblers Abe Attell or Bill Burns, or even New York City underworld kingpin Arnold Rothstein, the reputed fix financier. Villain-in-chief, rather, is Chicago White Sox owner Charles A. Comiskey. […]

The son of a longtime major leaguer and the younger brother of another, Roberto Alomar was immersed in the world of baseball from an early age. Roberto’s father, Sandy Alomar, spent 15 years as a major-league infielder, and Roberto and his brother, also Sandy, spent most summers in major-league locker rooms. It was during these […]

When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]

Bert Thiel pitched four games for the 1952 Boston Braves, the extent of his major-league career. He had a long minor-league pitching career with 145 wins. He pitched two seasons of winter ball with Caguas, in Puerto Rico; managed in the minors; and scouted. His baseball mentors were George Selkirk, his manager with the 1953-55 […]

The career of Henry “Hunky” Hines spanned more than 20 years, from 1887 at the age of 19 through 1910 at the age of 42.1 His career took him from Minneapolis to St. Louis, and from Brooklyn to Oakland. When he was signed to play for the club in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903, the Davenport […]

The New York Yankees dynasty began with Jacob Ruppert Jr. When Ruppert purchased the franchise in January 1915 with his partner, the improbably named Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston, it was one of the American League’s most hapless teams. The previous owners, a gambler and a shady ex-police chief with Tammany Hall connections, had run a shoestring […]

No essay-length biography could possibly do full justice to John Montgomery Ward. His life, both on and off the diamond, was entirely too eventful. His playing career was replete with notable achievements. When he joined the Providence Grays in 1878, an 18-year-old Ward was the National League’s youngest player. During the 1880 season, he hurled […]

As he walked to elementary school in La Jolla, California, Bruce Robinson tested his throwing arm with rocks. “I had to hit every sign from a certain distance or I couldn’t go to school,” he said. “I was on a mission from the time I was about 10 years old to become a major league […]

Although the home grounds of the Baltimore Orioles of the nineteenth century occupied several locations, the team found a permanent setting at Union Park between 1891 and 1899. Baseball in Baltimore began around 1855. In 1882, as a charter member of the American Association, they were known as the Lord Baltimores. They won only 19 […]

When the Washington Senators1 were founded in 1891, they played their games at Boundary Field in Northwest Washington. Boundary Field was named for its location on the northwest boundary line of the District of Columbia at Boundary Line and Seventh Street. The field is labeled on the 1904 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map as “Athletic Fields,” […]

If you needed to check some baseball oddities off your lifetime list, this was your game. Inside-the-park home run? Intentional balk? “Little League”1 grand slam? A 41-year-old slugger scrambling around the bases—three times? All that, and more! The 26,512 fans at Fenway Park on Labor Day 2021 saw a five-hour2 slugfest—26 position players with 33 […]