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The Red Sox party boarded the train in Boston on February 28, 1927, bound for spring training in New Orleans. During a four-hour layover in Cincinnati, eight more players got on. Among them was a prospect, F. A. Bennett. He didn’t make the team, but was “loaned” to Portland, Maine.1 About 3,000 people turned out […]

When the curtain rose on the New York Yankees’ 1929 season, for the first time in team history each ballplayer wore a numbered jersey. Catching for New York that day was John Grabowski, the large block 8 on his back signifying his spot in the batting order. One of three backstops that Yankee manager Miller […]

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 […]

There are many middle infielders who are tagged by scouts as “good field, no hit.” For the most part, these players are steady performers in the field. They make all of the routine plays with ease and the more challenging ones seem as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Their offensive contributions are minimal; […]

As of 2010 he had won more major-league games than all but one left-hander born in his native Cuba, but when considering that he had 14 victories by the end of August as a 21-year-old rookie, his 31-40 career mark could be seen as a disappointment. Though he did not establish himself further as a […]

With a major-league record of a single subpar season for one of the worst teams of the 20th century, Scotty Ingerton might seem like an obscure one-year blunder. While hitting, however, Ingerton showcased first-class power over parts of two seasons, suggesting that he might have prospered had he more quickly escaped the clutches of the […]

As a young pitcher, Frank Viola frequently beat himself. But after failing to pitch to his potential for years, Viola learned to get out of his own way. Once he did, the southpaw called “Sweet Music” reached the apex of his profession — he was, inarguably, one of the best pitchers of his era. Viola […]

Cliff Heathcote spent 14 of the 40 years of his life in the major leagues, and is largely remembered as half of one of the more memorable trades in baseball history; He was swapped for Max Flack between games of a 1922 doubleheader between the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. That sliver of  memory […]

Bill Monbouquette grew up just a few miles from Fenway Park and was signed by his hometown Boston Red Sox, but his first day with the team, the cops threw both him and his father into a holding cell at the ballpark. “I remember sitting out in the right-field stands at Fenway watching a game […]

Who was George Whiteman? This is oversimplifying things, but in some ways he was a cross between Roy Hobbs and Crash Davis. Eleven years after having a cup of coffee with Boston and five years after having another one with the Yankees, he became an unlikely World Series hero for the 1918 Red Sox. Then he went back […]

Just five months before Cleveland’s Ray Chapman was hit on the head and killed by a pitch, Chick Fewster had his own brush with death. It was during spring training, in March of 1920. He was in his fourth season with the New York Yankees, still hoping to become a regular but coming off a […]

The young prospect was having a hard time adjusting to the backstop position in the major leagues. Offensively, he was a threat from the beginning of his career.   He was a classic bad-ball hitter who could get wood on the ball no matter where the pitch was: high, low, outside.   He hit them […]

When Ben Cantwell took the mound for the Boston Braves at Braves Field on Saturday, September 15, 1928, it was the start of what would become his team’s major-league record ninth consecutive doubleheader played. The first eight had not gone so well for the seventh-place Braves, who would go 50-103 for the season and finish […]

The first game of the Sunday doubleheader at Comiskey Park was a close, well-played, low-scoring affair until everything suddenly fell apart for the hosting Chicago White Sox. Starting for the White Sox was Buck Ross, a 27-year-old veteran wrapping up his seventh year in the big leagues. The North Carolina native was 5-5 coming in […]

The College World Series is the desired destination for every Division I collegiate baseball player. Eight teams and thousands of fans from around the country descend on Omaha, Nebraska, each June, giving the CWS an atmosphere unlike any other baseball event in America. Founded in 1947, the CWS was played in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for two […]

Alyssa Nakken was prepared for the possibility that she would appear in a coaches’ box during a major-league game.1 She had trained alongside San Francisco Giants first-base coach Antoan Richardson since she was hired as an assistant coach in 2020, and had served as their first-base coach in an exhibition game and a spring-training game.2 […]

The 1939 Boston Red Sox fell from first place to second on their May 10 offday, when the New York Yankees won in St. Louis and advanced from second place to first, overturning a half-game deficit in the American League standings. Four months later, on September 10, the Red Sox’ demotion in the standings had […]

For the first time in seven years, the Yankees and the Dodgers resumed their World Series rivalry in 1963. In the decade from 1947 through 1956, they had met six times. Since the Dodgers had moved to Los Angeles in 1958, they had missed postseason competition with each other. The New York Yankees entered their […]

“I think these two fellows can help us make some money and win the pennant and the World Series. I am going to say one thing. I don’t care what color you are. If you can play baseball you can play on this club. That’s all I am going to say about color.” – Leo […]

Dave “Boo” Ferriss, began his major-league career with an astonishing eight consecutive wins in 1945. The start of his career was as unlikely as any player before him, since Ferriss had minimal time as a professional player prior to his debut. In his first six starts for the Boston Red Sox, Ferriss hurled four shutouts […]

In the second half of 1945, no pitcher in baseball had been as hot as Chicago Cubs right-hander Hank Borowy. Acquired from the New York Yankees in late July, the strapping 29-year-old went 11-2 from that point on, leading the National League in earned-run average at 2.13. In Game One of the 1945 World Series […]

In the 2003 season, when the Boston Red Sox fell just one win short of making the World Series, their starting rotation had little reliable depth behind superstar Pedro Martínez and veterans Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield. GM Theo Epstein sought to bolster the rotation and over Thanksgiving weekend visited with right-hander Curt Schilling. On […]

On Tuesday, June 21, 1927, at Sportsman’s Park, the reigning World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals hosted the Chicago Cubs in a doubleheader. The Cardinals trailed the Cubs by two games for second place and were four behind the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Chicago, recently off a recent 12-game winning streak, had lost three of its […]