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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 […]

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 […]

Right-handed pitcher Bill Hogg seemed destined for stardom when his 33 wins on the Pacific coast in 1904 earned him a ticket to the New York Highlanders in the American League. Two years later combined with Al Orth and Jack Chesbro to help the Highlanders climb to second place. But like so many other tragic […]

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 […]

It took Oscar Judd until he was 33 years old to make the big leagues. When he did, being that age enabled him to stay in the game throughout the Second World War. His talent, though in decline, enabled him to play three more years in the postwar period.   Judd was Canadian, born 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 […]

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,” […]

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 […]

Right-handed pitcher Chuck Hartenstein was a good, solid minor-league pitcher who enjoyed significant success in the National League, but struggled in the American League. He later moved on to work as Toronto’s minor-league pitching instructor and the major-league pitching coach for the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers. Basically, Hartenstein reached the major-league level in three […]

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. […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“A little more experience is all you need.”1 So wrote Brooklyn Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson to Oscar Roettger of the Double-A St. Paul Saints (American Association) before the 1927 season. It didn’t quite happen — Roettger played in five games for Uncle Robbie’s squad and 37 games in the major leagues over four seasons. A substantial minor-league […]

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 […]

Kenneth Jerry Adair was born to Kinnie and Ola Adair on December 17, 1936, at Lake Station, an unincorporated area named for a station on a trolley car line between the northeastern Oklahoma cities of Sand Springs and Tulsa. Jerry claimed Sand Springs as his hometown. He was a fair-skinned, blond-haired descendant of mixed-blood Cherokee […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

When the 1959 season opened, the Milwaukee Braves were favored to win their third consecutive National League pennant. Picked for first by 147 (65 percent) of the 226 writers polled by The Sporting News, they were listed no lower than third place on the remaining ballots. A similar consensus had the Los Angeles Dodgers pegged […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]