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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The opener of a season-ending doubleheader between Wright State University and Indiana Central University in 1978 ended up being a notable moment in both baseball and rock music lore, thanks to an outstanding outing by a Wright State pitcher later known as a prolific, critically acclaimed songwriter and performer. With Indianapolis’s Indiana Central already bound […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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” […]