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Harry Arthur “Cookie” Lavagetto is best known for one swing of the bat against Bill Bevens of the New York Yankees on an October day in 1947. But his baseball career, as a player and manager, was much more than that. The six-feet, 170-pound Lavagetto played professional baseball for ten seasons over a fourteen-year span, […]

His baseball ability was once described as good mouth, no hit. Not known for his bat but a solid glove man, Jimmy Smith built an 8-year major league career with his wit and his mouth. Referred to as “Serpent Tongue,” Smith rode a great ability as a bench jockey to remain on rosters while compiling […]

In literature’s most famous soliloquy, Hamlet agonizes: To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? Hamlet chose to be. Willard Hershberger chose not to be. Why? The slings […]

Seemingly the only assured thing in Dave Campbell’s career as an infielder was the inconsistency. Over an eight-year career with the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, and Houston Astros, Campbell was only able to play one season as a full-time regular—with the Padres in 1970. Otherwise, his career was stalled by being […]

Standing only 5’5″ and weighing a good deal less during the Deadball Era than his listed playing weight of 155 lbs., Rabbit Maranville compiled a lifetime batting average of just .258 and is known as much for his zany escapades and funny stories as for anything he accomplished on the diamond, but his outstanding glove […]

He was a bundle of contradictions, this imperfect man who pitched a perfect game. Don Larsen disdained training rules and had a mediocre major-league career; yet he pitched the greatest game in World Series history. He married out of a sense of duty; yet he refused to support his wife and baby daughter. He kept […]

If Pants Rowland had gotten his way, big-league baseball would have reached California more than a decade before the Dodgers and Giants crossed the continent. As president of the Pacific Coast League, Rowland campaigned for recognition as a third major league as early as 1945. Personable and unfailingly optimistic, Rowland punched almost every ticket in […]

A slick fielder in the days before gloves, Ed Somerville was the top defensive second basemen in the inaugural season of the National League of 1876. A year later his death in Canada marked the first passing of a National League ballplayer. Edward G. Somerville was born in Philadelphia on March 1, 1853, as the […]

The New York Giants were known as the “Windowbreakers” when they smashed the single-season record for home runs in 1947. Leading the assault were the four big bats in the middle of the lineup: Johnny Mize with 51 homers, Willard Marshall with 36, Walker Cooper with 35, and Bobby Thomson with 29. Marshall, the left-handed […]

If the fates had been kinder to George “Kiddo” Davis, he would have had the opportunity to display his skills in five World Series during his eight major-league seasons. In two Series with the New York Giants, 1933 and 1936, the center fielder complemented his outstanding defensive work with 8 hits in 21 at-bats, a […]

In 1955 Cleveland News sportswriter Ed McAuley noted that “[George] Susce is a man of many admirable qualities, but the ability to hit a baseball frequently was not among his assets.”1 At the time this was offered, Susce was 11 years removed from his last major-league appearance and well along into a coaching career that […]

It was Game Six of the 1964 World Series. The Mayor and the town Treasurer of Alba, Missouri were relaxing in box seats behind the St. Louis Cardinal’s dugout at Busch Stadium. Both His Honor and the Treasurer enjoyed a singular advantage over all of the other spectators in the ballpark on this autumn day. […]

Third-string catcher Charlie “Legs” Dorman played in his lone major-league game on May 14, 1923, for the Chicago White Sox only after the starting catcher was removed and the backup split his finger open on a foul ball. Dorman took quite the circuitous route to his one moment on the big stage: from a San […]

Traded for Ted Williams. That’s the sort of distinction one could well dine out on for years. The trade occurred in December 1937. Al Niemiec’s major-league career was over at the time, though he was only 26 and naturally hoped to get back to the big leagues. He played five more years in the Pacific […]

Billy MacLeod was a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. He faced 10 batters in two games in September 1962, walking one, striking out two, and allowing four base hits. He only gave up one run, an earned run, but it was in the bottom of the 12th inning and resulted in him bearing […]

From 1978 through 1990, the Atlanta Braves were one of the worst teams in the National League, despite a surprise first-place finish in the NL West Division in 1982 followed by two consecutive seasons with a second-place finish. Within this 13-year span, the Braves finished in sixth (last) place for six seasons, fifth place in […]

He is Dick Culler in the baseball encyclopedias, but at home in High Point, North Carolina, he was Broadus Culler, star athlete, schoolteacher, basketball referee, entrepreneur and civic leader. Richard Broadus Culler was born on January 15, 1915, in High Point, a community in the state’s central Piedmont region that today calls itself “the Home […]

One of only a relative few major league players born in Nevada — perhaps fittingly given his surname — John Gamble had a very brief big-league career. Appearing in only 13 games, he still was nonetheless able to cement his legacy in the annals of baseball as a member of an exclusive club of players […]

When Nap Lajoie was a child, he earned the nickname Sandy from his baseball-playing friends in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The moniker had nothing to do with the game, but everything to do with shielding Lajoie from his mother’s wrath. Celina Lajoie did not care for baseball. The widowed mother of eight surviving children saw participating […]

Lew Burdette had been close twice before. He had hurled two one-hitters — in 1954 and 1957 — but the third time proved to be charmed as he no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 the night of August 18, 1960, in front of 16,338 fans. The day of the game had been a difficult one for […]

On the afternoon of June 10, 1944, just 3,510 individuals came out to Crosley Field for a contest between the Cincinnati Reds and the league-leading St. Louis Cardinals, who were working toward a third straight pennant. Cincinnati was tied for second place, percentage points behind the Pittsburgh Pirates and 3½ games behind St. Louis. The […]

The September 24, 1920, edition of the Akron Beacon Journal blared the following headline across its sports section: “Ban Johnson Called to Stand Today; Tell Plot Against Chicago.” Johnson, the American League president, was testifying before a Cook County (Chicago) grand jury about a plot to blackmail Chicago White Sox players. Johnson predicted that the […]

It was an epic pitchers’ duel between the Philadelphia Athletics’ Jack Coombs and the Chicago White Sox’ Big Ed Walsh. “Sixteen scoreless innings of desperate pastiming with dusk the winner,”1 declared the Philadelphia Inquirer, while the Chicago Tribune opined, “[N]either side had the shadow of a right to win against such pitching.”2 Windy City sportswriter […]

Chuck Tanner is a household name in much of Western Pennsylvania, after a 19-year major-league managerial career that included nine seasons with the Pirates and a championship in 1979. He was a much more remarkable manager than he was a player. In eight major-league seasons with four teams between 1955 and 1962, Tanner batted .261 […]