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Cincinnati Reds right-handed pitcher Johnny Cueto started his windup, his hips twisting to allow his chest to face second base. He delivered a slider to San Diego Padres rookie catcher Eddy Rodríguez. Rodríguez had just been called up to the majors after six years in the minors (including two years in independent ball) with two […]

In an era filled with pitching stars, many of them working for the Baltimore Orioles, it took Jim Palmer a few years to rise to the top of the heap. Once he did, he became the greatest pitcher in his league for a number of seasons, and one of the best pitchers who ever lived. […]

Marty McManus lived a life in baseball, spanning the years 1920 through 1948. He played as a major-league infielder for 15 years and was player-manager for the Boston Red Sox for most of the 1932 and 1933 seasons. When women began to play pro baseball during World War II with the launch of the All-American […]

Infielder Carlos Rodríguez Márquez may not have had a bat and glove in his mother’s womb, but he acquired those shortly after his birth on November 1, 1967.1 Born in Mexico City to distinguished Mexican baseball player Leo Rodríguez, Carlos could not recall a time when the game did not consume his thoughts. His mother, […]

“Errors of the hands, mind, feet and errors of omission followed one another in such rapid succession that only a mental genius could keep a record of them,” reported the Detroit Free Press of the Cleveland Naps’ exceedingly poor play in their blowout loss to the Detroit Tigers on August 16, 1914.1 Making the most […]

As sports editor of the Boston Globe from 1884 to 1910, William D. Sullivan evolved the newspaper’s baseball coverage from basic game accounts into one of the nation’s most comprehensive outlets for reporting and analysis of teams, players, and issues. William Dunning Sullivan was born on July 17, 1862, in Somerville, Massachusetts, the second oldest […]

Immersed in a pennant race that would go down to the wire, the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers took the field at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on September 28, 1966, in hopes of putting distance between themselves and their two closest competitors. The St. Louis Cardinals had no intention of making this endeavor any easier […]

Though Thomas Austin Brewer Jr. was a lifelong resident of Cheraw, South Carolina, he was born in North Carolina on September 3, 1931.1 Cheraw lies in the northern part of South Carolina and was a town of a few thousand inhabitants in 1931 so it happens that the nearest hospital was in Wadesboro, North Carolina, […]

In September 1976 Hall of Fame inductees Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn were only the two most prominent names among a large field of managerial candidates available to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays. But the Jays startled the baseball world by selecting the hardly-household-name Roy Hartsfield as the franchise’s first skipper. But the surprise may […]

When considering the life of Dick Armstrong, most contemporaries think only of his ample accomplishments in the theological world. This is for good reason. Armstrong spent six decades of his life as a noted Presbyterian minister, pastor, educator, author, and humanitarian. Yet he had more than one career, and there is so much more, from […]

If you were lucky enough to bring Ron Darling to a party, how would you introduce him? Especially if the party was outside the New York City area, it’s possible you would have to do just that. While he has numerous accomplishments on and off the baseball field, he hasn’t grabbed the headlines (for all […]

Elston Howard was born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Emmaline Webb and Travis Howard. A schoolteacher in Sikeston, Missouri, Emmaline fled to St. Louis when Howard, her principal, refused to marry her. She worked to become a dietician, and when Elston was 5 years old, she married Wayman “Big Poppy” […]

A few years before the New York Yankees had a Murderers’ Row in their lineup, George Perring was proud owner of a bat carved from the hangman’s gallows of a prison. So the story went, at least, back in mid-1915. The tale made the news from coast to coast, and was even printed in Hawaii […]

During the 1890s southpaw Bert Inks pitched for six different major league clubs – but posted a winning record for only one of them. More than a century later, that performance prompted a 19 th century baseball scholar to declare, “Bert Inks exemplified the lengths to which teams often go to give a left-handed pitcher […]

A five-year veteran of the Negro Leagues, Ernesto Vibert Clarke was a one-hit wonder who followed the adage If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The phrase may be a cliché, but in Clarke’s case it’s an accurate one.  The native of Panama recorded his first and only hit in the major leagues […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers were all smiles after they swept the Yankees at Ebbets Field, leaving them just one game away from their elusive World Series championship. Duke Snider, the hero of the fifth game after hitting two home runs, was asked if it was his biggest day as a player. Snider responded, “No, that’ll be […]

Backed by stout defense,1 Dick Rudolph easily won his second game of the quartet, throwing just 94 pitches in a complete game as the Miracle Boston Braves shocked the baseball world by sweeping Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, 3-1. Although Philadelphia finally cooled the scalding bat of Hank Gowdy, Boston captain Johnny Evers delivered a clutch […]

Skipper Connie Mack was tired of waiting. Eleven days after his Philadelphia Athletics (102-48) played their last regular-season game, they finally took the field for Game One of the World Series.1 The delay was caused by the National League, which had concluded its regular season just two days earlier with the juggernaut Chicago Cubs (104-50) […]

With his chokes-up-on-the-bat stance, second baseman Félix Millan built a career as a singles hitter. His 12-year tenure in the majors ended with 1,617 base hits. But extra-base hits and home runs numbered 289—less than 20 percent of the total. Millan’s performance on July 21, 1975, may best represent this cornerstone of his contributions, which […]

Though Ken Harrelson of the Boston Red Sox got the game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the ninth and Bill Harrelson of the California Angels was the losing pitcher, there was no Harrelson vs. Harrelson last-minute drama at Fenway Park in August 1968. As the Red Sox and Angels resumed the suspended second game […]

It was supposed to be a getaway game for both teams, scheduled for 4:05. Mother Nature had other ideas: The game started at 6:37 due to rain. Those of the announced crowd of 24,338 who stayed were treated to a tense, well-pitched game and some baseball history. The visiting Cardinals (20-10) were leading the NL […]

Virgil Trucks’s 1952 season has been described by Gregory H. Wolf as “one of the most incongruous and surprising ones imaginable.”1 Trucks had missed almost the entire 1950 season with a serious arm injury and struggled in 1951 to regain his well-regarded fastball. In his first four starts of 1952, Trucks was tagged for 30 […]

The 1949 World Series opened with Allie Reynolds facing Brooklyn’s best pitcher, Don Newcombe. Yankees manager Casey Stengel wanted the 1950 World Series to start that way as well. Reynolds against Philadelphia’s best pitcher. But it did not work out that way as Jim Konstanty rather than Robin Roberts started Game One. Eddie Sawyer’s gambit […]

SABR Online On July 19, 1995, the SABR-L listserv went public, when around 600 SABR members with email addresses were added to the SABR-L list and welcomed by John Gregory, the first chair of the Internet Committee. SABR-L was begun in order for SABR members not only to have a forum for the exchange of […]