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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 […]

Do we call him Junior or Gene? Was Junior his given name or a nickname? Could it be both? No matter. As a fresh-faced youngster Junior Thompson helped the Cincinnati Reds win two consecutive National League pennants. As a mature veteran Gene Thompson impacted the game of baseball for half a century. Junior Eugene Thompson […]

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 […]

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 […]

Hannah and Ernie Wright (Courtesy of Hagen History Center)   In an era when many African Americans lived in poverty and were treated as second-class citizens, Ernest Pearle Wright managed to rise and persevere as a successful businessman.   Born on October 7, 1901, in Zanesville, Ohio, Ernest was the only child to mother Jessie (Forney) […]

Over his 22-year career, fleet-footed center fielder Bernard “Frenchy” Uhalt knocked out more than 3,000 hits and was elected to the Hall of Fame. His name might not be familiar to many baseball aficionados, though, since 21 of those seasons and all but 40 of his hits came in the minor leagues, and because he […]

Alex Konikowski’s pitching career in major-league baseball was comparatively brief, but the three seasons – or portions thereof – he spent with the New York Giants are etched in diamond lore: 1948, 1951, 1954. As a 20-year-old rookie of promise, Konikowski was promoted from Jersey City of the International League to New York in June […]

Since 1931, Earl Webb has held the major-league record for the most doubles hit in a single season – 67. It is one of the longest-lasting records in baseball, despite the fact that when it was set, the season was eight games shorter than today’s 162-game schedule. As it happens, Earl’s team that year – […]

Long before Babe Ruth revolutionized the game with the home run, during a period when hitting a baseball was likened by some to swatting a cabbage, Harry Davis was one of the country’s most feared sluggers. Known today primarily for leading the American League in home runs four consecutive seasons, the right-handed Davis was as […]

As of 2016, 14 men from the U.S. Virgin Islands had played in the major leagues.i Calvin Pickering was the tenth, and the third of seven from the island of St. Thomas. He was an intriguing talent, with power to match his enormous size. “Picko” stood 6’5” and weighed 260 pounds at his fittest. As […]

Edmund Hearne enjoyed two cups of coffee in 1910, one on June 9 and one on June 10. That was the sum total of shortstop Hearne’s experience in the major leagues. Two games, two at-bats. “Hearn, a California recruit, played shortstop for Boston, and performed well in the field.” So read the wire-service note in […]

Many players played for National and American League teams in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia or St. Louis. Just a dozen men played for Washington teams in both leagues. Some of the best known are John Anderson, Jack Doyle, Win Mercer and Kip Selbach. Most of the rest are recognizable to fans of Deadball Era […]

The tale is familiar to followers of baseball legend: Young boy growing up in rough-and-tumble circumstances, running roughshod over parents and teachers, unrepentantly scoffing at law and decency, finally ends up in front of the local magistrate who has him declared incorrigible and packed off to the nearest reformatory. There, the lad discovers an outlet […]

Somewhere, back in the swirling mists of time, there existed a magical and wondrous age when aspiring athletes did not commit their lives to the fanatical and single-minded pursuit of one sport by the time they were five years old. Take, for instance, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, who were notable for having a number of […]

Was it nature or nurture? Plenty of both figured in the life of Milton Joseph Bolling III, a former Red Sox shortstop who spent 43 years with the organization. He was born on August 9, 1930, in Mississippi City, Mississippi, while his parents were on vacation; but he grew up in a baseball town – […]

Outside of the sixth inning, Walter “Monk” Dubiel of the Chicago Cubs held the first-place Philadelphia Phillies scoreless on three hits on July 26, 1950, at Shibe Park. But oh, that sixth inning. Dubiel walked six batters, including four in a row with the bases loaded – all while his manager, Frankie Frisch, watched passively […]

On a late-April Sunday afternoon at Crosley Field, the Cincinnati Redlegs hosted the Milwaukee Braves in a slugfest. Cincinnati battled from behind three times to defeat the defending National League pennant winners. A wild and loud crowd of 14,925 braved a chance of rain to cheer the Redlegs to victory. The seesaw game ended on […]

Having beaten the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series, holding a 3-games-to-2 edge in 1958, returning home, and lining up Warren Spahn (albeit on short rest) for Game Six and Lew Burdette (if necessary) to start Game Seven, the Milwaukee Braves seemed in prime position to take the 1958 title. New York had […]

“One swing of Del Crandall’s bat,” wrote Bob Wolf of the Milwaukee Journal, “transformed a gloomy occasion into a triumphant one.”1 Affectionately called Ned by his teammates for his all-American image, the 25-year-old Crandall stepped to the plate with the Milwaukee Braves trailing 4-1 against the Philadelphia Phillies in the first game of a doubleheader […]

The Milwaukee Braves opened the 1953 season on April 13 with a 2-0 victory in Cincinnati at a time when the first game in the Queen City was a season-opening tradition for the major leagues. The founding of the first fully professional baseball team in Cincinnati during the 1869 season paved the way for baseball’s […]

They lined up. In the small hours after the New York Yankees won Game Three of the 1949 World Series with a three-run outburst in the top of the ninth that broke a 1-1 tie, the Brooklyn faithful lined up. Solo shots by Luis Olmo and Roy Campanella in the Dodgers half of the ninth […]

After his brain cramp in Game Two of the 1951 World Series, Eddie Stanky used guile to spark the New York Giants to a 6-2 triumph over the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds in Game Three and a 2-1 Series lead. Rarely does a stolen base matter more than a three-run homer, but […]

Howard Ehmke “devastated the Mackmen like a lanky cyclone,” gushed the Philadelphia Inquirer after the Red Sox hurler’s no-hitter against the Athletics, adding “[He was] unquestionably in the fettle in which heroic deeds are born.”1 The Boston Globe described the submariner Ehmke’s gem as a “classy curving performance,” but noted that it was a “tainted […]

The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers in the 1907 and 1908 World Series, but lost to the Tigers in 1935. The teams met again in the 1945 World Series and were tied three games apiece heading into the deciding Game Seven on Wednesday, October 10, 1945, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. World War II […]