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Mike Blyzka was part of one of major-league baseball’s biggest trades – a 17-player mega-swap between the Orioles and Yankees in the fall of 1954. Headlining New York’s acquisitions were future Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley and Don Larsen – the pitcher who later twirled the only (as of 2022) perfect game in World […]

Over the years, the Red Sox have had players on their roster who were perhaps better known for the uniqueness of their name than for anything they did on the playing field. You may recall Jennings Poindexter, Carmen Fanzone, Creighton Gubanich, Gar Finnvold, Izzy Alcantara, Win Remmerswaal, Osee Schrecongost, Hipolito Pichardo, and Arquimedez Pozo, to […]

Big right-hander Sig Jakucki was once described as having a “$100,000 arm and a million-dollar thirst.”1 Converted to a pitcher while a minor leaguer, Jakucki had a cup of coffee as a 27-year-old with the St. Louis Browns in 1936. Out of Organized Baseball for almost six years, Jakucki returned to the Browns in 1944, […]

Gregory Winston McMichael was born on December 1, 1966, in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was the youngest of three children and a multisport athlete growing up. He always hanging around ballfields with his older brothers while they played. He enjoyed sports and competition and developed his skills as a ballplayer. McMichael’s father, Allen owned an insurance […]

Born into a baseball family on September 2, 1933, during the first year of the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, Glenna Sue Kidd grew up playing ball and working with her close-knit family on the Kidd farm near Choctaw, Arkansas. She had three brothers – the youngest was Joe – and two older sisters, Juanita and […]

A picture of Tony Batista at the plate perhaps deserves some recognition in a corner of Cooperstown. When the right-handed batter came to plate, he had an open stance that caused his chest to face the pitcher. His left leg was nearly even with his right leg. His hands were at eye level with the […]

Outside MCU Park in Coney Island, there stands a statue of two baseball players. Both are famed Brooklyn Dodgers. Both are Hall of Famers whose legends transcend batting averages and fielding percentages. One is a white Kentuckian. The other is an African-American from California. They are Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson. The statue depicts […]

A decade before the Ray Chapman tragedy, another infielder from Cleveland met a similar fate. Charles “Cupid” Pinkney was playing for Dayton in the Central League, and just 21 years old, when a pitch from Casey Hageman of Grand Rapids struck him in the head. Pinkney died the next day and was buried in Cleveland’s […]

Martin Flaherty was a major-league owner, player, and umpire during the 1880s – sort of. Mostly, he was a fan. For six innings in 1881, he played outfield as an emergency substitute for the Worcesters, a National League team he partly owned. The following season he umpired a single game: the Worcesters’ final nine innings […]

With his last-place team hopelessly out of pennant contention, Washington Nationals manager Joe Cantillon used the final month of the 1909 season to audition recently acquired minor-league prospects. Among those given playing time was Bill Yohe, a third baseman obtained from the Class C Texas League. Although he did little in the field or at […]

Tony Kubek was a bit anxious. Not just because he was the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, or that he was a rookie who was participating in his first World Series. But the series had shifted to his hometown of Milwaukee. For the first time, his family would see him play in […]

After three years of college, Jake Flowers spent most of his life in Organized Baseball. He was a major-league infielder for seven full seasons and parts of three others; a minor-league player, manager, and executive; a coach with three major-league clubs; and a scout for three organizations. As a major-league player, Flowers was plagued by […]

On October 10, 1924, Virgil “Zeke” Barnes stood on the mound in Griffith Stadium, poised within tantalizing reach of a rare and coveted prize, just four outs shy of a Game 7 World Series win. Palpably close, but it was not to be. His moment of reckoning came with an improbable, aberrant bounce of the […]

James Bradley “Brad” Mills was born on January 19, 1957, in Exeter, California, in the state’s Central Valley. As a young boy, he and his three brothers took frequent trips with their father, a cattle rancher and orange farmer, to San Francisco or Oakland to see the Giants or Athletics. The car rides were often filled […]

Ornery, rambunctious, and immensely talented, Leslie Nunamaker became one of baseball’s stoutest hitting and best throwing catchers during the last decade of the Deadball Era—and one of the game’s colorful personalities. Cut from the same temperamental cloth as contemporaries Ty Cobb and John McGraw, Nunamaker was prone to explosive on-field behavior that resulted in an […]

Cuban outfielder Carlos Paula parlayed an all-star tour in the United States into a full-time minor-league role in the early 1950s. With his chiseled frame and stylish flair, he became the man who integrated the Washington Senators on September 6, 1954, making the Senators the 12th of the original 16 major-league teams to do so. […]

July 15, 1933, should have been the greatest day in Jim McCloskey’s sporting life – or, perhaps, the first in a string of great days. The 23-year-old lefty was in Buffalo, New York, where he’d grown up, pitching for the visiting Jersey City Skeeters of the International League. July 15 was Jim McCloskey Day at […]

As major-league debuts go, Mark Grant’s did not lack in drama. On April 27, 1984, the former first-round pick got the start for the San Francisco Giants, squaring off against Joe Price and the Cincinnati Reds at Riverfront Stadium. Grant took the loss despite working six innings. It was a 9-3 contest between two teams […]

Frank Sadecki, the son of Polish immigrant parents, spent his childhood working in the family grocery store rather than playing baseball. As a result, his greatest wish for his son Ray from the beginning was to be “left-handed, (to) like baseball, and become a major leaguer.”1 Frank’s wish was granted as his son, after just […]

In many ways, it was a typical Coors Field contest. On September 20, 2000, the San Diego Padres jumped out to a 14-3 lead after 4½ innings in the Colorado Rockies’ hitter-friendly ballpark.1 In classic Coors Field fashion, the 11-run lead nearly disappeared, and the Padres were forced to use their closer in the bottom […]

Sometimes even a 10-run lead isn’t enough. This was especially true in May 2004 when the Detroit Tigers, whose pitchers had the second-worst team ERA (4.93), traveled to Texas to face the Rangers, fourth in the American League in runs scored (5.31 runs per game). The Rangers’ starting pitcher was future Cy Young Award winner […]

The first frost would not arrive in Cleveland for another six days. Two thousand fans officially attended the pennant-clinching game against the defending champion Beaneaters. The attendance, slightly above average, was pretty respectable for a fall Wednesday afternoon game in northern Ohio when the home team’s pennant chances were long gone. Because the Spiders departed […]