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Jim King started in left field for the San Francisco Giants in the first major-league game played in California. His best seasons, however, came after he was selected by the expansion Washington Senators, with whom he remained for 6½ years, longer than any of the other 27 players the team drafted in December 1960. King […]

Allan Montreuil was the true definition of a baseball “phenom.” Unlike most amateur players who acquire the label when they are in high school or college, Montreuil first got attention as a two-year-old. He went on become one of the most celebrated amateur players in New Orleans baseball history as a result of his athletic […]

The earliest known connection between dentistry and the Boston Red Sox is Fred Anderson, a pitcher. You’ll find him in the record books, as playing for the Red Sox in 1909 and then again in 1913. It is said that he passed up an opportunity to join the Red Sox until he finished his dentistry […]

Certainly a pitcher, even in high school, who strikes out 32 batters in a game is going to attract attention. The pitcher in question was Danny MacFayden, pitching for Somerville High School in the Greater Boston area on May 7, 1924 – a 17-inning game against Everett High School. MacFayden lost the game, 2-1, on […]

Over a 50-year career in baseball, a man is likely to pick up a few nicknames, and for Jack Onslow this was no exception. He liked to call himself “The Travelling Man,” and the logic to that will become obvious. He also was referred to as “Happy Jack” and “Honest John,” names that could have […]

Bobby Malkmus was a small, light-hitting, versatile middle infielder who made his major-league debut for the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 during their frantic midseason search for a second baseman. Poor hitting (2-for 22) and the club’s acquisition of All-Star Red Schoendienst marked the end of the Malkmus experiment after less than four weeks. Malkmus returned […]

As the title of his 2013 autobiography showed, George Altman’s baseball journey took him from the Negro Leagues (1955) to the majors (1959-67) and beyond (Japan, 1968-75). The slugging 6-foot-4 outfielder, who also played first base from time to time, hit 101 home runs in the majors. He was a National League All-Star in 1961 […]

George Edward Jeffcoat, the older of two brothers who played in the majors, spent two full seasons and parts of another two others pitching in the National League. He had a record of 7 wins and 11 losses in 70 appearances between 1936-43 with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves. After his playing days, he […]

Clarence “Cito” Gaston was a National League outfielder from 1967 to 1978. At his best, he was an All-Star in 1970. He also made a vivid impression on the fans in Venezuela, where he won two batting titles in winter ball. However, Gaston attained much greater fame and respect as a manager. He became the […]

“These are the saddest of possible words: ‘Tinker to Evers to Chance.’” Thus begins the iconic eight-line poem written in 1910 by Franklin Pierce Adams. Joe Tinker was a rookie in 1902. That was the year that Ed Glenn, whose only major-league hit had come four years earlier, was called up by the Chicago Orphans/Cubs […]

From his debut in the majors to his fifth and final game spanned a mere 11 days in April 1947, despite his getting two hits in that last game. But Frank Strickland Shofner played nine years in the minor leagues. Though both were Texans, Strick Shofner was no known relation to pitcher Milt “Pinky” Shoffner, […]

Cleveland manager Kerby Farrell rushed to the mound after pitcher Herb Score was struck in the face by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Gil McDougald on May 7, 1957. “He was bleeding from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. All we could think of doing was trying to save his life,” […]

An excellent place-hitter, slick fielder, and brainy baserunner, Eddie Collins epitomized the style of play that made the Deadball Era unique. At the plate, the 5-foot-9, 175-pound left-handed batter possessed a sharp batting eye, and aimed to hit outside pitches to the opposite field and trick deliveries back through the box. Once on base, Collins […]

If the NBA was as big in the 1940s as it is today, Ernie Andres might have been a star basketball player. He was a guard for Indianapolis in the National Basketball League, a forerunner of the NBA, and in 1974 was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.1 And in 1942, he played […]

George Case was a four-time major-league All-Star who devoted almost 50 years of his life to the game he loved. His playing career, cut short by injuries, spanned 11 years (1937-47), ten years with the Washington Senators and one with the Cleveland Indians. After his playing days ended he remained in the game in various […]

The Miracle Mets of 1969 rode their powerful young pitching to an improbable World Series championship, and the man who developed and nurtured that staff was an easygoing ex-catcher named Rube Walker. Despite not being a pitcher himself, he had an innate sense of the mental side of pitching and he used this to help […]

When Willie Royster debuted for the Baltimore Orioles in 1981, he was already 27. The catcher only saw action in four major league games, but he was fortunate to be able to see at all. Seven years earlier, he had been almost blinded in one eye by a bunt gone awry in Single-A ball. Willie […]

June 14, 1908, South Side Park, Chicago. The White Sox had won 10 straight games. Manager Fielder Jones might well have uttered what would become a Hawk Harrelson catchphrase more than a century later: “Don‘t stop now, boys!”1 But Jones could see win 11 slipping away. After four innings, the New York Highlanders led 4-1. […]

This article was originally published in the December 2024 edition of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter.   Judge Hugo M. Friend presided over the Black Sox trial during the summer of 1921, less than a year after he was tabbed to fill a temporary vacancy on the Cook County circuit court bench. (Photo: […]

Forty-year-old Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves was only three victories shy of 300 for his career when he faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 22, 1961. Spahn pitched just three innings that day, preventing him from pushing even closer to the magical pinnacle, but he did hit a second-inning blast into Forbes Field’s right-field […]

On the Saturday before graduating from high school in June 1961, 18-year-old Lew Krausse Jr. watched from a box seat at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC, as hurler Norm Bass tossed the Kansas City A’s first shutout of the season.1 Sitting with Krausse was his father, former major-league pitcher Lew Krausse Sr., and their host, […]

In a classic pitching duel between a bonus youngster and a veteran, the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 1-0, at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, before “a howling crowd of 16,041.”1  The hometown Phillies sent 23-year-old Robin Roberts to take the mound against the Reds’ perennial All-Star, Ewell “The Whip” Blackwell.2  Roberts retired three first three […]

With the Milwaukee Braves having won the opening game of the 1958 World Series the day before, the narrative was simple for both teams. If the Braves were to win again, they would take a 2-0 lead in the series and start to feel really confident about capturing their second straight title. If the New […]

The Braves’ move from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, the major-leagues’ first franchise relocation in 50 years, installed a rival just 90 miles north of Wrigley Field. The timing was terrible for the Cubs; their new neighbor ascended to dominance in the National League while the Cubs were stranded near the cellar. By 1957, the […]