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George Magerkurth was a National League umpire from 1929 to 1947, one of the best of the era. “He had bulldog features and disposition to match,” said sportswriter Arthur Daley. “He had many faults but he was a colorful man of unassailable integrity who made rich contribution to baseball lore and legend.”1 The New York […]

Bobby Maier would have been forgiven for harboring some bitterness toward manager Steve O’Neill and the Detroit Tigers. For most of 1945, the 29-year-old rookie had started at third base for the Tigers, doing a consistent if unspectacular job at the plate while proving perhaps less reliable with the glove. But as Detroit entered the […]

Willie Smith is best remembered for his game-winning pinch-homer on Opening Day for the 1969 Chicago Cubs, but he surely deserves to be recalled for a much more enduring achievement: He was the last major leaguer — and the only African-American player ever — to have pitched and played different positions in the field in […]

A 22-win season in his second year of professional baseball earned righthander Lou Koupal a trial with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1925. The eventual World Champions featured a starting rotation of Lee Meadows, Ray Kremer, Vic Aldridge, Johnny Morrison, and Emil Yde, so the inexperienced Koupal was unable to get consistent work. He later also […]

In the 2001 Baseball Prospectus annual, this comment was penned for a White Sox prospect: “He’s credited with a strong arm and the athleticism to play center field and has been compared to Larry Walker and Dale Murphy.”1 Joe Borchard didn’t have a career on the level of those greats, but still managed to put […]

Al “Two Gun” Gettel pitched in 184 major-league games over the course of seven seasons between 1945 and 1955. The 6-foot-3 right-hander was frequently traded or sold during his career, pitching for six franchises: the New York Yankees (1945-1946), the Cleveland Indians (1947-1948), the Chicago White Sox (1948-1949), the Washington Senators (1949), the New York […]

Outfielder George Stumpf was a .235 hitter in the major leagues, playing for both Sox teams, albeit in just 260 at-bats in 118 games. In a 19-year minor-league career, Stumpf hit .289 in 8,509 plate appearances. Of German ancestry, Stumpf was born 10 days before Christmas in 1910 – December 15 – in New Orleans. […]

“Call me Red.” That’s apparently what William Russell Rollings always told people. Rollings, primarily a “bats left/throws right” infielder, played for both of Boston’s major league teams and no others during his few years in the majors. He didn’t have a lot of formal education. In completing his player questionnaire for the National Baseball Hall […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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. […]

It was still relatively early in the season and only 6½ games separated the American League-leading New York Yankees from the sixth-place Cleveland Indians. The 16-10 Tigers and 14-13 Red Sox were in third and fifth place. Managers Red Rolfe of the visitors and Steve O’Neill of the home team announced their starters for the […]

Defending their first World Series championship in 35 years, the Pittsburgh Pirates were in fourth place in the National League in June 1961 when general manager Joe L. Brown restructured their bench with a flurry of transactions. The moves included calling up 29-year-old catcher Don Leppert, whose .386 batting average was leading the Triple-A International […]

Saturday dawned warm and uncharacteristically humid in the Pacific Coast League’s “most notorious bandbox ballpark,”1 where the homestanding Colorado Springs Sky Sox stayed hot with a 4-3 win over the Salt Lake Stingers. Things looked good early for Salt Lake, as the Anaheim Angels’ Triple-A affiliate scored two runs in the top of the first […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers had every reason to feel confident as they approached the 2021 National League Championship Series. Not only were they the defending World Series champions (albeit in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season), but they had also amassed an impressive 106-56 regular-season record, second only to their division rivals, the San Francisco Giants (107-55). […]

“My club is not going to win the National League pennant,” admitted Brooklyn Robins manager Wilbert Robinson as the 1924 season began. “It is simply going to make every effort to considerably better its [sixth-place] showing of last season.”1 Few batted an eyelash at Robinson’s modest expectations. But the season went far better than predicted […]

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, […]