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Joe Cambria was one of the most prolific scouts in major-league history, signing hundreds of men to professional contracts as a scout for Clark Griffith and the Washington Senators. He also inked countless others as a promoter of semipro and Negro Leagues baseball in Baltimore and minor-league teams throughout the country. He was one of […]

Infielder Ted Schreiber was #10 in the long list of New York Mets third basemen. He played just 39 games as a utilityman for Casey Stengel in 1963. Of his 55 plate appearances, the most significant was his next to last — the final regular-season out made in the Polo Grounds. Second base was his best […]

“(Jim) Hardin is one of those pitchers who doesn’t have an overpowering fastball or an outstanding breaking pitch. But his physical ability is of major-league caliber, make no mistake about it, and he’s the type who squeezes every ounce out of what he has.”1 Jim Hardin began his baseball life as a catcher, but made […]

When Ned Garver won his 20th game on the last day of the 1951 season for the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1951, he became the first pitcher in major league history to win 20 games for a team which lost 100. One of the most durable pitchers of his era, the right-handed Garver led […]

Russ Scarritt enjoyed an exceptional rookie season for the Boston Red Sox in 1929, leading the club with 71 runs batted in, second (to Jack Rothrock) in average with .294, and legging out 17 triples – a single-season Red Sox total that has not been topped since 1914. He was born in Pensacola, Florida, on […]

Tom Hanks made sure we all know “there’s no crying in baseball.” In addition to “crying,” the words “forgiveness” and “compassion” seldom are used regarding the game. Yet those two words are central to the career of Win Clark. As manager of the South Atlantic League Columbia (South Carolina) Gamecocks in 1908, he was tasked […]

On the last day of the 1955 regular season, 18-year-old Roger Marquis played one inning in right field and batted once for the seventh-place Baltimore Orioles. That was his only major league appearance, and he was out of professional baseball altogether by age 21. Roger Julian Marquis was born on April 5, 1937, in Holyoke, […]

Jug Thesenga was sick through the entire flight from Kansas to New York City. This boy from South Dakota was on his way to Yankee Stadium to start for the Washington Senators the next day. That was September 1, 1944, and the Senators were desperate for pitching during those World War II years. Scouts plucked […]

Baseball writer Jack Ryder covered the Cincinnati Reds with unfailing dedication. He was a keen observer and witty commentator. From 1905 to 1936, his eloquent prose graced the pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The Reds were mostly mediocre during this period. Managers came and went, 14 in 32 seasons. Through thick and thin, fans could […]

Relentless desire and unshakable determination define Carmen Hill’s 17 years in Organized Baseball. In 1915, the 19-year-old bespectacled hurler jumped from a Class B league to debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates, becoming the just the second major-league pitcher to wear glasses on the diamond in more than a quarter-century. For 12 years, Hill endured a […]

Personal problems rooted in a car accident stopped Dinny McNamara from fulfilling what might have been a legendary Boston sporting career. Still, before his troubles intervened, McNamara became a multisport high-school and college star, an outfielder with the 1927 and ’28 Boston Braves, and head football coach at Boston College – all before his 30th […]

A three-time All-Star with the Milwaukee Brewers, Dan Plesac was a left-handed pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and a biting slider who became one of the game’s dominant closers during the late 1980s. In addition to the time spent with the Brewers, Plesac’s 18-year major-league career included stints with the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto […]

Elmo Plaskett had only two cups of coffee in the major leagues, but those brief stints barely hint at the full picture of a talented hitter who was devoted to baseball all his life. Plaskett, who died in November 1998 at the age of 60, remains a hero in the Virgin Islands. The city of […]

At age 17 he signed his first professional baseball contract. Several years later he helped the Cincinnati Reds win two National League pennants. For a while, Jim McGlothlin was one of the best pitchers in baseball. However, a series of injuries and a debilitating illness brought his career to a premature close. At the age […]

Donald Wayne Hankins, a tall, lanky right-hander who suffered a broken elbow as a teenager, enjoyed an 11-year professional baseball career — including ten seasons in the minors — during the 1920s. Hankins finished with a lifetime minor league record of 75-87. But during the four seasons he hurled in the Double-A (the highest classification […]

Ron Jackson was a tall, impressive slugger who debuted in the major leagues the day he was signed. The 6-foot-6¾-inch, 225-pound right-handed hitter held the interest of a number of ballclubs because of the gaudy numbers he put up in the minor leagues, but he never truly stuck in major league ball. Ronald Harris Jackson […]

President John F. Kennedy was said to have correctly answered a trivia question that had been floating around for years: Who is the only man to ever hit a home run off Sandy Koufax and catch a pass from Y.A. Tittle? The guess was always Alvin Dark. “It’s not quite accurate, however,” Dark always said. […]

From 2001 through 2013, Brian Roberts was a solid fan favorite with the Baltimore Orioles. He earned that status as one of baseball’s premier second basemen and leadoff hitters. Known as B-Rob to fans and players, the two-time All-Star led the American League in doubles twice, with 50 in 2004 and 56 in 2009. At […]

Throwing a complete game had become a remarkable event by 2004. In the entire season, Boston Red Sox pitchers threw a total of only four complete games. Curt Schilling had three of them, and Pedro Martínez threw this one, on August 12 at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.1 Martínez, in his seventh […]

“If the ball drops, I might have had an inside-the-park [grand-slam] home run. I was just a step away from second base when he [Tommie Agee] caught it.” — Paul Blair after the second of Tommie Agee’s iconic catches.1   On October 12, 1969, the Mets had returned from Baltimore with the World Series tied […]

Willie Mays is arguably the greatest baseball player of all time.1 He was the quintessential five-tool player. He could hit for power (660 career home runs), hit for average (.301 career batting average), run quickly (338 stolen bases), play great defense (“The Catch” in the 1954 World Series), and had a tremendous arm. He was […]

It would have been fitting if Rod Serling had gone to a baseball game in Geneva, New York, on August 22, 1961, and found himself trapped in some kind of twist ending – hit in the head by a foul ball, perhaps, to wake up alone in a deserted ballpark. After all, the danger of […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 18, in 1998. For additional commentary about this story, read “The Veracity of Veeck,” by Robert D. Warrington and Norman Macht in the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal and Warren Corbett’s SABR biography of Bill Veeck.   Baseball is a game in […]

With the weather turning crisp in October of 1916, sports fans across North America were looking forward to the World Series. There had been great pennant races in both leagues, and the upcoming battle between Brooklyn and the Boston Red Sox looked like a good one. Though Toronto was still more than sixty years away […]