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In a four-year voyage to an all-too brief career in big league baseball, Val Heim embarked in 1938 from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He sailed on to Jackson, Mississippi, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Waterloo, Iowa, before commencing his big-league career at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, in late August 1942. His excursion began with an […]

Baseball was in his blood. At a very early age Tommy Helms became involved in baseball, serving as a batboy for a semipro team managed by his father in Leaksville, North Carolina, at a time when mill-town baseball was the dominant form of entertainment in the textile region. The mill towns furnished far more than […]

Ellis Clary played in the majors for nearly four seasons during World War II, and he had an at-bat during the St. Louis Browns’ only World Series appearance in 1944. Once his playing career ended, he spent six years as a coach with the Washington Senators and more than three decades as a scout for […]

Best known as the host of the 1960 television series, Home Run Derby, Mark Scott’s career encompassed acting, serving as a television broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds in 1956, and five-seasons (1952-55; 1957) as the radio play-by-play voice of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Scott was born Samuel Marks Solomon on February […]

You’ve seen him on television and in movies. You’ve perhaps enjoyed his beer or seen him on his web series. Oh yeah, he was a pretty good baseball player too. Kevin Edmund Youkilis was born on Thursday, March 15, 1979, in Cincinnati to Carolyn (Weekley) and Mike “Bear” Youkilis, who was himself a “well known […]

Perhaps no other player in major-league history has been blessed with as much talent and at the same time burdened by such erratic impulses as José Canseco.1 Amassing borderline Hall of Fame numbers with 462 home runs and 1,407 runs batted in during a 17-year major-league career, the former American League Rookie of the Year […]

J. Leslie Wilkinson (1878-1964) was one of the most respected and influential figures in the history of Black baseball. His trailblazing role in helping to found the Negro National League in 1920, in addition to his establishing and operating the renowned Kansas City Monarchs for many years, earned him a plaque in the National Baseball […]

When John Hiller retired in 1980 after 15 seasons, all with Detroit, he was the last member of the 1968 world champion Tigers still playing in the majors. Best known, perhaps, for his work out of the bullpen, Hiller in fact started 43 games for the Tigers, 12 of them in the star-struck 1968 season. […]

“YOU CAN’T MAKE IT!” Bob Humphreys once wrote that in large letters on the wristband of his baseball glove. The words summarized an early 1963 evaluation of his pitching skills by a major-league team.1 Although the glove subsequently wore out in 1963 winter ball,2 Humphreys continued to use those words as a motivator to fashion […]

Between 1840 and 1930, roughly one million French Canadians emigrated to the United States.1 A majority settled in nearby New England, drawn by employment in the textile industry which actively recruited Canadian workers in the boom following the Civil War. According to Smithsonian Magazine, by 1900 one in 10 New Englanders spoke French.2 Children from […]

During his nine-year major-league career, all with the Boston Red Sox, Willard Lee Nixon never won more than 12 games in a season, and he lost more games than he won. Yet, when he died more than 40 years after his career ended, Time magazine noted his passing in its “Milestones” section, which typically features […]

Bobby Bragan was a backup catcher whose pinch-hit double in Game Six of the 1947 World Series was his final moment of glory as a major-league player. However, Bragan left an enviable legacy as a manager and executive at the major and minor-league levels. He managed three major-league clubs, developed the farm system of the […]

Serious major-league fans know that Jack Chesbro was the last 40-game winner, posting 41 victories in 1904. Others are aware that Carl Hubbell won 24 consecutive games from July 1936 into 1937. These are major-league records, but at the lower levels of baseball, Rip Hagerman posted 46 wins in his first year of professional ball […]

Frank O. Mancuso was the younger brother of a better-known big league catcher, August “Gus” Mancuso, a two-time All-Star who enjoyed a 17-year major league career and produced his best seasons with the New York Giants from 1932 through 1938. Gus spent more than 40 years in baseball, serving as a minor league manager, a […]

Few men were employed in organized baseball longer than Cy Slapnicka. His career lasted over 50 years from his days pitching in the bushes in 1906 through his days as a major league general manager until his retirement from scouting for the Cleveland Indians in 1960. Today, he is mainly remembered as the man that […]

A baseball lifer, Mel Stottlemyre burst on the scene as a midseason call-up for the New York Yankees in 1964, helping the club win its fifth consecutive pennant and starting three games in the World Series. One of the most underrated and overlooked pitchers of his generation, Stottlemyre won 149 games and averaged 272 innings […]

Although there are better known examples, Lyman Lamb typified a certain type of 1920s ballplayer: the batsman who piled up gaudy stats in the high minors but whose major-league career was brief and undistinguished. In one torrid three-year span playing for the Tulsa Oilers of the Class A Western League, he averaged .358, with an […]

His father was a Texas Ranger half a century before the baseball team was formed. Mark Langford was a real Texas Ranger, according to the 1920 census, a “state ranger” who worked the “Tex-Mex border”. Mark Langford’s mother immigrated from Sweden and his father came from Kentucky. Mark married a woman from Mississippi, and he […]

Tex Vache was a reasonably sizable ballplayer for his era who performed well at the plate during his one year in big-league ball, with the 1925 Boston Red Sox. Even though the Red Sox of the day were in no position to be too selective with their signings, one can reasonably guess that Vache’s poor […]

Smoky Joe Wood was truly beginning to blossom as a Boston Red Sox pitcher in 1911. After reaching double-digits in wins in both 1909 (11-7) and 1910 (12-13, but with a 1.69 ERA), the 21-year-old right-hander came into his July 29 start in the first game of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns with […]

The romantic affection which Boston always has for the players who have made big league history throbbed into thunderous beat.” – Burt Whitman, Boston Herald.1   The band began to play some old familiar favorites, including “Silver Threads Among the Gold” and “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” a grand beginning on that picturesque Boston day. Then, […]

The Milwaukee Braves and the Minneapolis Millers were both optimistic heading into their 1957 seasons. The Braves, who had finished one game behind National League champion Brooklyn in 1956, were the favorite to win the 1957 pennant, according to an Associated Press poll. “The club looks good,” said Braves manager Fred Haney, “I feel we […]

The first series of the 1916 season between the Washington Senators and the Boston Red Sox began on April 17. The Red Sox were the defending champions, coming off a four-games-to-one mastery of the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Senators, perennial residents of the second division from 1903 through 1911, had begun […]

James Paxton’s reputation for being calm, cool, and collected was cemented just prior to the Minnesota Twins’ 2018 home opener. During the national anthem, a falconry-trained bald eagle mistook Paxton for one of his handlers and flew directly at him. After initially ducking to protect his face, the 29-year-old native of Ladner, British Columbia, calmly […]