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Signed as a lanky, 16-year-old amateur free agent by the Detroit Tigers in December 1992, Juan Encarnación was the embodiment of a five-tool, can’t miss prospect. He could hit for average and power, run, play any of the three outfield positions with above-average range, and throw. He was blessed with all the tools for success. […]

A person arriving at Elmwood High School near Bloomdale, Ohio, and looking at the pictures of students who had attained all-state status in various sports might see Chris Hoiles’s picture as a third team all-state football player in 1983 and assume he went on to play college and NFL football, but that person would be […]

When the legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was growing up in Arkansas in the 1920s, he and his friends eagerly followed the exploits of quarterback Carey Selph of Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia.1 Then called “the greatest football player in Arkansas,”2 Selph was a fierce competitor who “simply believed no team […]

On September 19, 1968, at Tiger Stadium, Detroit right-hander Denny McLain was cruising along in the top of the eighth with a 6-1 lead over the New York Yankees. He had won his 30th game five days earlier, and the Tigers had already clinched the American League pennant. When Yankees first baseman Mickey Mantle came […]

Former Detroit Tigers righthander Leslie Clyde “Les” Mueller may be best remembered for his single-game record of pitching 19 2/3 innings against the Philadelphia Athletics on July 21, 1945. When he walked off the mound for the last time that evening at Shibe Park, Mueller, the hard-throwing Bengal sidearmer, had surrendered only one run to […]

For someone who always preferred the simple things in life, James Augustus Hunter was a complex man. To most of the world, he was Catfish, the big-game, big-money, right-handed ace who anchored an Oakland A’s pitching staff that won three straight World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. It was Catfish who in May 1968 […]

The resume accumulated by the investor was something less than the model envisioned by Ban Johnson for club ownership in the fledgling American League. Nor was a bankroll amassed via saloon ownership, bookmaking, horse racing stables, casino operation, and service to Tammany Hall the preferred source of the financial wherewithal needed for relocation of the […]

The earliest known connection between dentistry and the Boston Red Sox is Fred Anderson, a pitcher. You’ll find him in the record books, as playing for the Red Sox in 1909 and then again in 1913. It is said that he passed up an opportunity to join the Red Sox until he finished his dentistry […]

Henry J. Killilea is one of those men who were important in their time and are almost forgotten today. If he is mentioned at all in baseball circles, it is usually to credit him with putting together the first World Series of the twentieth century. But Henry Killilea was involved in baseball as an investor, […]

At the baseball field in Memorial Park, in Middletown, Maryland, a rural community about fifty miles northwest of Washington, D.C., stands a monument that townspeople erected in honor of Charlie Keller. It’s a bronze plaque affixed atop a waist-high, circular concrete pillar. Beneath a raised profile of Keller is a legend: “Charlie Keller … Middletown’s […]

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Goodwin “Goody” Rosen is that the diminutive former National League All-Star spent the entirety of his career drawing strength from his identity as “the other” in baseball. On the one hand, Rosen was a Jew, one of only 25 Jews to play in the major leagues during the […]

In 1941, the book on 23-year-old Eddie Pellagrini was as a “good field, no hit” shortstop. “[He] may not hit as well as [others] but he’s certainly a fine prospect … ‘Pellagrini is a faster fielder than [most],’” said San Diego Padres player-manager Cedric Durst. It thus came as a surprise five years later when […]

Author’s note: Many a night, when I should’ve been doing my homework, I spent valuable time “studying” the encyclopedia of baseball. I especially became fascinated with obscure players having brief careers. I didn’t get far into the alphabet before coming across Buzz Arlett; how could someone with seemingly good numbers play only one season in […]

During the early 1880s, fireballer Jim Whitney ranked among baseball’s most accomplished pitchers, notching two seasons with 30-plus wins and pitching the Boston Beaneaters to the National League pennant in 1883. But afterwards, events conspired to undermine Whitney’s productivity. After the 1885 season, he was sold by Boston and thereafter consigned to labor for dismal, […]

In the early years, baseball had its share of Buck Weavers, but the most famous among them was not the “original.”  That distinction, according to sportswriter Fred Lieb, goes not to the White Sox infielder, but to William Clinton Bond Weaver, known more commonly today by his other nickname, “Farmer.”1 This Buck Weaver started his […]

After the first game of a doubleheader against the visiting Chicago Cubs on July 4, 1928, rookie outfielder Wally Roettger of the St. Louis Cardinals was hitting a robust .341. In the second game, however, he dislocated his right ankle and broke both bones in his lower leg sliding into third base.1 The injury ended […]

Thrust into a starting role with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a teenager, Aramis Ramírez blossomed after a 2003 trade to the Chicago Cubs, providing the franchise’s best long-term play at third base since Ron Santo. As of 2021, his 386 career home runs, hit over 18 seasons with three National League Central Division teams, lead […]

A prominent third baseman of the 1890s, Bill Joyce hit for average and power, and drew a lot of walks; his .435 career on-base percentage ranks seventh all-time.1 He was a smart and magnetic leader who inspired his teams with his aggressive style of play, though his disputes with umpires were excessive. The oft-quoted Joyce […]

Perhaps no Virgin Islander made a greater lifetime contribution to baseball than Elrod Hendricks (1940-2005). The native of St. Thomas also embodied Baltimore Orioles tradition; only Brooks Robinson wore the orange and black for even half as many games. Ellie’s major-league career spanned 12 seasons from 1968 to 1979, but he also spent a remarkable […]

When baseball fans first encountered Ed “Peanuts” Davis, also known as “Peanuts Nyasses,” they knew right away that he was not the typical athlete. He wore his baseball cap sideways, and when he was pitching, his windup sometimes featured “flapping of the arms and jerking of the legs.”1 In addition, he was a member of […]

The Houston Astrodome was the first fully enclosed, air-conditioned major-league ballpark. It was formally unveiled in an exhibition game that pitted the Houston Astros against the American League champion New York Yankees on April 9, 1965. Unlike previous sports venues, the Astrodome was built to be a massive all-purpose, climate-controlled facility that would serve as […]