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Trailing the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League standings in July 1921, the New York Giants bolstered their lineup by trading for star outfielder Irish Meusel. In his second game after the controversial deal, Meusel sparked New York to an early lead over the Pirates, but the Giants also needed Phil Douglas’s shutdown relief pitching […]

The 1958 World Series featured a rematch from 1957, the defending champion Milwaukee Braves once again facing the New York Yankees. The Yankees had taken charge of the American League early, gaining first place in the fourth game of the season and never losing it all year. A streak of 14-1 in May pushed them […]

It is one of the gold standards of major-league baseball: the 3,000-hit club. More than 16,500 players have participated in at least one major-league game. Of those, only 19 players had exceeded more than 3,000 hits in their career. On June 30, 1995, Eddie Murray became the 20th member to become immortalized on that coveted […]

The major leagues’ 2020 pandemic season, with its abbreviated 60-game schedule, was followed by the largest playoff field ever — eight teams per league, kicking off on September 29. While eight games on the second day of the playoffs captivated the sport, Minnesota Twins rookie Alex Kirilloff quietly made history. Game Two of the best-of-three […]

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 […]

“A perfect example of poetic justice in action,” wrote Lou Chapman of the Milwaukee Sentinel about right-hander Bob Buhl’s commanding 14-inning complete-game 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs.1 Buhl had surrendered only one hit over the first nine innings, but seemed destined to be on a short end of a 1-0 pitchers’ duel before pinch-hitter […]

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 […]

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 […]

Two-time minor-league batting champion Ralph Sharman enjoyed a productive late-season tryout with the 1917 Philadelphia Athletics. Eschewing a potential full-season roster spot for 1918, Sharman instead enlisted in the Army in order to serve his country. Tragically, the 23-year-old soldier became the second player who had reached the major leagues to die while serving in […]

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 […]

Guy “Moose” Morton Jr. made his major-league debut with the Red Sox on September 17, 1954. It was the only day he appeared in a big-league box score. His father, Guy Morton — the “Alabama Blossom” — was a right-handed pitcher in the majors for 11 years (1914-1924) with the Cleveland Indians, overcoming a 1-13 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In a 15-year major-league career filled with great stories and accomplishments of various stripes, Earl Torgeson was well known for getting in brawls. Even before he reached the major leagues, in the winter before his rookie season, he had faced assault charges for decking two men on a Seattle street who had used vulgar language […]

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, […]

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 […]

White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillén once said of A.J. Pierzynski: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”1 Pierzynski was a fierce competitor with a strong desire to win. This desire at times could rub teammates the wrong way and many times would get […]

Marvin Miller, the great labor leader of major-league baseball, shared fond memories of his youth: “One of my biggest thrills was sitting in the old left-field bleachers … at Ebbets Field in the 1920s. We’d watch the Dodgers take fielding practice. When fielding practice was over, Rube Bressler, the Dodger left fielder, would throw a […]

Jim Thorpe was the greatest all-around athlete of the Deadball Era. In addition to playing major-league baseball for six seasons, the 6-foor-1, 185-pound Thorpe was an Olympic champion in the pentathlon and decathlon and at one point the greatest American football player in history, according to a 1977 Sport magazine poll. One sportswriter called him […]

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 […]

In conjunction with SABR’s Eight Myths Out project, here are specific examples of factual errors or misinformation that appear in Eight Men Out, both the 1963 best-selling book written by Eliot Asinof and the 1988 film directed by John Sayles. Certain entries on this list may seem like pedantic nitpicking: surnames misspelled, Abe Attell’s boxing […]