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The 1920 Boston College-Holy Cross football game was an important milestone in New England sports history. Sometimes the most intense rivalries are between family members. The annual game, which began in 1896, always attracted enormous interest among Catholics. Cardinal William O’Connell, the leader of the Archdiocese of Boston, took a personal interest in the annual […]

Griffith Stadium was the home of the Washington Senators from 1911 until the club relocated to Minneapolis-St. Paul after the 1960 season, and then for the inaugural campaign of the expansion Senators in 1961; but only one Senators hurler ever fired in a no-hitter in that mammoth steel and concrete structure. The author of that […]

Rusty Staub’s 23-season career was dotted with distinctions that established him as a consistently productive hitter, though not quite a Hall of Famer. Staub retired in 1985 as the first man to have collected at least 500 hits with each of four different teams.1 And he trailed only the legendary Ty Cobb as the second […]

1915 Holy Cross Baseball Team   Coming off a 16-2 victory over Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the College of the Holy Cross baseball team traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, to play St. John’s College for the first time on March 30, 1915, the second day of Holy Cross’s nine-game Southern Trip.1 This was likewise […]

In 1946, 11 years after the Cincinnati Reds had hosted the first night game in major-league history, the Boston Braves and New York Yankees installed lights in their home ballparks. Just three teams would continue to play all of their home games during the day that season: the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, and Chicago […]

Hall of Famer John Clarkson’s only major-league no-hitter came on July 27, 1885, for the National League’s Chicago White Stockings against the Providence Grays in Providence, Rhode Island. Providence’s starting pitcher was fellow Hall of Famer Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn. The White Stockings entered the game in first place with a 48-14 record and victories […]

On Saturday night, April 10, 2004, the Boston Red Sox evened their record at 3-3 with a 4-1 win over the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. The win went to Pedro Martínez, his first of the year. The hit that drove in Boston’s first two runs, making it the game-winner, was a two-run homer by David […]

The 1915 Red Sox won 101 games and the American League pennant, and needed only five games to beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, but they didn’t really get going until June. They had a losing record in April and were 15-15 entering the final day of May. The Red Sox were 3-3 […]

Ted Williams hit 12 home runs in 123 career at-bats against Virgil Trucks, more homers than he hit off any other pitcher. Needless to say, you have to be a good pitcher to even get into that many games.1 Trucks won 177 games in his 17-season major-league career, but not his start at Detroit’s Briggs […]

The Oakland A’s had a pair of young speedsters in their farm system in the late 1970s. Rickey Henderson went on to a 25-year career in the big leagues, becoming the all-time leader in stolen bases and runs scored en route to the Hall of Fame. By contrast, Darrell Woodard, Henderson’s minor-league teammate in 1977 […]

While playing in the Western Association in 1906, Harry Cheek was reportedly “one of the best catchers in the league notwithstanding that he is one of the smallest in stature. He is always full of pepper and is fast in chasing fouls. He knows how to handle a pitcher and pegs to second with the […]

In the late 1930s, Monty Stratton of the Chicago White Sox was one of the best and most praised pitchers in major-league baseball and was about to enter the prime of his career. “Monty Stratton looks as if he is going to furnish many a page in baseball history before he gives up,” Philadelphia sportswriter […]

Merrill Combs was a graduate of the famed Fremont High School of Los Angeles, which has sent 25 players to the major leagues. He was one of three big leaguers named Combs, including Hall of Famer Earle Combs and pitcher Pat Combs.1 Merrill Combs was an infielder who played shortstop and third base, and three […]

He was a “little chap with dynamite in powerful wrists”, a ballplayer who suffered through great personal tragedy but played on for 14 major-league seasons before dying at age 39 of a heart attack. Donald Eric McNair was his name; he called himself Eric, though others called him by different nicknames — “Boob” and “Rabbit” […]

How is it that someone who weighed 160 pounds and stood five feet, 8 1/2 inches tall attracted the nickname “Moose”? It’s not as though he came from northern Wisconsin or near the northwest Maine/Canadian border. Elmer Albert Eggert was born and died in Rochester, New York – born on January 29, 1902 to parents […]

University of Tennessee football and baseball star Hunter “Dodo” Lane darted in and out of professional ball in less than 24 months, yet still ascended to the major leagues. The infielder became a “one-hit wonder” with a 1-for-15 performance for the 1924 Boston Braves, before opening a successful politically-involved law practice in the Memphis area. […]

One of the greatest pitchers in minor-league history, lanky righthander Louis “Crip” Polli compiled a minor league lifetime record of 263-226 over 22 seasons. After a late start in professional ball, Polli had the mixed blessing of spending his prime years in the juggernaut New York Yankees organization of the late 1920s and early 1930s. […]

He is Dick Culler in the baseball encyclopedias, but at home in High Point, North Carolina, he was Broadus Culler, star athlete, schoolteacher, basketball referee, entrepreneur and civic leader. Richard Broadus Culler was born on January 15, 1915, in High Point, a community in the state’s central Piedmont region that today calls itself “the Home […]

Forever poetically linked to Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers by F. P. Adams’ “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon,” Frank Chance made his mark as the Cubs’ player-manager from 1905 through 1912 as part of the “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance” double play infield. Although not widely regarded as one of the game’s greatest fielders, Chance holds a special place in the […]

Left-handed pitcher George Zackert was one of a trio of 1911 St. Louis Cardinals who made their major-league debuts on the same day. He was also released by the same Cardinals organization three times in eight months, and had one trade that was negotiated by unauthorized personnel director Roger Bresnahan get “busted up.” He surrendered […]

In the California winter leagues of 1929, California resident and Toledo Mud Hens manager Casey Stengel spotted a hard-hitting shortstop named Bill Knickerbocker. Stengel convinced the teenager to try out for the Mud Hens in the spring. The youngster hitch-hiked across the country in 1930 to join Toledo at spring training in Anniston, Alabama. Knickerbocker […]

George Weiss presided over the greatest sustained run of excellence in baseball history. Under Weiss’s leadership, from 1948 through 1960, the New York Yankees won ten pennants and seven World Series. After a slip to third place in 1959 Weiss retooled his squad and returned to the top the following season. For this accomplishment The […]

The Boston Red Sox have had two Kelletts play for them, ten years apart. Al Kellett had more success as a professional basketball player, turning to that sport after his brief baseball career was done. Red Kellett had an extremely brief baseball career as well, later making more of a mark in football. Though the […]

The game at Griffith Stadium was pretty much a lost cause, after Walter Johnson’s Washington Senators had scored eight times in three innings off starter Danny MacFayden and relievers Jim Brillheart and Big Ed Morris. Walter Murphy was the fourth pitcher in the game, and he threw a scoreless bottom of the eighth, facing four […]