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When the Baltimore Orioles won four American League pennants in six seasons (1966-1971), no Baltimore pitcher earned more saves or appeared in more games than right-hander Eddie Watt. A short, chunky Midwesterner, usually with a pronounced wad of Red Man chewing tobacco bulging in his left cheek, Watt held right-handed hitters to a .200 batting […]

Asked by a sportswriter in January 1912 which pitcher was giving him the most trouble in the American League, Ty Cobb did not mince words. “I believe I have never in my life faced a pitcher who bothered me so much as that man O’Brien,” he growled. “O’Brien has everything. He has a ‘spitter’ the […]

During my career I answered to a Peach, a Doc, and a Street. My age always kept me away from war. Collins put me on the Hall of Fame hill. I collected four World Series rings. I married a babe named Ruth. If Shoeless Joe would have stayed in the game, I might have “seen” things differently. I was a professional […]

Eddie Basinski always conceded that he never looked much like a baseball player. He sported a slender frame and bottle-thick steel-rimmed classes, prompting many fans to view him as a Mr. Peepers in flannels and Brooklyn Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey to describe him as “the escaped divinity student.”1 “Inside, I had the […]

It was one of the most bizarre batting races in National League history. Three players on the same team were competing for a batting championship, none of whom today would qualify for the honor. Not until December of 1926, nearly three months after the season ended, was it decided whether Bubbles, Cuckoo, or Rube had […]

Ken Suarez, one of the “can’t-miss” catching prospects of the 1960s and a member of the Rangers’ inaugural squad in 1972, took a roundabout trip to arrive at his Arlington destination. Kenneth Raymond Suarez was born on April 12, 1943, in Tampa, Florida, the son of Joseph R. and Gladys M. (Wadsworth) Suarez, who married […]

The greatest shortstops in Negro League history were John Henry Lloyd (first), Willie Wells (second), and Dick Lundy (third), according to a 1952 Pittsburgh Courier poll of Negro baseball experts. Today Lundy is less well known than Lloyd and Wells, who are in the Hall of Fame, but during his career, everyone following Negro League […]

In 1942 St. Louis Cardinals’ farm director Branch Rickey singled out a particular right-handed hurler among a small army of top-flight pitching prospects: Max Surkont “can become another [Bob] Feller for us,”1 declared the future HOF executive. But by the end of spring training the Cardinals, blessed with the major leagues’ best pitching, assigned Surkont […]

John J. Quinn spent 47 years working for major-league baseball teams, 28 of those as a general manager. During his tenure as GM of the Boston and Milwaukee Braves (1945-58), the franchise won three National League pennants and the 1957 World Series. After owner Bob Carpenter brought Quinn to Philadelphia in 1959, the savvy executive […]

Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was the geographic center of Boston Red Sox catcher Howie Storie’s life. He was born in the Western Massachusetts city, grew up there, worked there after baseball, died there, and is buried there. He played six games for the Red Sox in 1931 and six in 1932. That was it, Storie’s major-league career. […]

Joe Mulligan began to make headlines in the Boston area while pitching for Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Throwing a six-hit shutout against Providence College on June 10, 1933, while striking out 11 and not walking a batter earned some attention. So did being driven off the mound when Boston College scored seven times […]

Approximately 200 diehard fans returned to a cold and cloudy Ebbets Field on February 23, 1960. Among those present were former players Ralph Branca, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, and Tommy Holmes, reminiscing about the glory days in the iconic ballpark — opened in 1913 and vacated following the close of the 1957 season. Attendees sadly […]

Fred Burchell pitched in 49 major-league games over four seasons and never once posted an earned-run average as high as 3.00. Burchell was born into a large family at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on July 14, 1879. His father, William, worked as an engineer, and his mother, Emily, bore at least eight children, of whom […]

Some major league players are blessed with good fortune. Their talents are discovered early, they remain relatively healthy throughout their careers, and they always seem to be in the right place at the right time. Bob Ramazzotti was not one of those guys. His career began late, was interrupted by war, and was stifled by […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

For someone who participated in only 855 major-league games spread over nine seasons, Ed Abbaticchio has had more questions raised about his life than most baseball fans might expect. Was he the first Italian American big leaguer? Was he the first professional dual-sport athlete? Was he the creator of the spiral punt? Why did he […]

In 1883 the Worcester Ruby Legs became the Philadelphia Quakers and shortly the Phillies. From then until 1980, there were no World Series titles for the Phillies. They won just two National League pennants, in 1915 and in 1950, when a quiet, scholarly but rugged man named Eddie Sawyer led the club called the Whiz […]

Eight major-leaguers died while serving in World War I.1 The third of these casualties, Eddie Grant, had the longest playing career and is also well remembered because he received a plaque in center field at the Polo Grounds. The shortest career on this list belonged to Alexander Thomson Burr, a pitcher who played just one […]

Edwin Díaz fired another fastball, but Teoscar Hernández fouled it off, the third in a row on a 3-and-2 count. Díaz—who had been credited with 32 saves in each of the last two seasons with the New York Mets—was trying to close out a 5-2 win for Puerto Rico over the Dominican Republic in the […]

The Detroit Tigers “waited until late in the waning season to unlimber their greatest offensive show of the 1947 season,” as they swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. A small crowd of 11,170 gathered to watch the double defeat. The Washington Post declared, “Defeat is hardly the word to use to […]

The 25,882 fans who ventured to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on the evening of August 24, 1983, saw an exciting, extra-inning win by the home team in the midst of a tight pennant race. As a bonus, they also witnessed baseball’s version of The Twilight Zone. The Orioles came into that Wednesday night game against […]

For the first time since 1955, the Milwaukee Braves entered the final week of the season with National League pennant hopes out of reach. As they prepared to host the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, September 25, 1960, in their home finale, the Braves’ postseason hopes were already dashed despite their taking the first two games […]

In Game Two of the 1951 World Series, Eddie Lopat of the New York Yankees bested Larry Jansen of the New York Giants in a 3-1 complete-game triumph at Yankee Stadium, knotting the series after the Giants’ Game One win. But Mickey Mantle’s knee injury, which sidelined the talented rookie for the rest of the […]

The first-place Reds looked to expand a small lead in the NL pennant race against the perennially downtrodden Astros in a doubleheader at Crosley Field. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning of the first game on a double by Vada Pinson and a sacrifice fly by Pete Rose, Cincinnati stopped […]