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Marvin “Twitch” Rickert’s career was typical of that of many players in the first half of the 20th century. Before the days of free agency and long-term contracts, Rickert was a useful piece that several clubs plugged in, and then discarded, over his six-year big league career. The speedy, left-handed-hitting outfielder reached 100 hits only […]

Al Barlick rose from a Midwestern coal-mining family to a long career as a major-league umpire and eventual election to baseball’s Hall of Fame, the sixth umpire to be so honored. He gave his adult life to baseball and umpiring, working 57 years (1936-1993) in the game. Albert Joseph Barlick was born on April 2, […]

Gene Krapp, a diminutive right-handed spitballer, holds an iconic spot in the legendary halls of baseball journalism. Celebrated baseball writer Fred Lieb wrote in his memoir about the influence that writer Charley Dryden had upon Lieb’s career. Lieb was especially impressed with Dryden’s ability to occasionally slip a double entendre past an editor. Lieb wrote, […]

One of the most influential figures in the history of the sport, Charles Comiskey had a 55-year odyssey through professional baseball that ran the gamut: captain of one of the greatest teams of the nineteenth century; league-jumper during the 1890 players’ rebellion; one of the chief architects of the American League’s emergence in 1901 as […]

It was no surprise that Eddie McNichol would play professional baseball. Born on January 10, 1879, in Martins Ferry, Ohio, he grew up on Wheeling Island surrounded by baseball and baseball players. Wheeling Island, a tiny strip of land in the middle of the Ohio River between Ohio and West Virginia, produced several young men […]

Dusty Baker has spent a lifetime in baseball. After a productive career as an outfielder for four teams over a 19-year career, Baker joined the managerial ranks. As a major league manager over most of the period since 1993, he developed a reputation for helping teams win, although it took him until 2022 to capture […]

One of the greatest defensive shortstops of the Deadball Era, Donie Bush used quick feet and soft hands to lead the American League in assists five times and putouts three times, and his 425 putouts in 1914 established an American League record and tied a major league mark which has never been broken. At the […]

In 1964, a 24-year-old Dominican strongman named Ricardo Adolfo Jacobo (Rico) Carty burst into the major leagues like a tropical storm. After two hitless at-bats in 1963, Carty’s batting average (.330) in his first full season was the second highest in the majors. Only Roberto Clemente hit better, and only a phenomenal year by Philadelphia’s […]

Tony Kubek was a bit anxious. Not just because he was the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, or that he was a rookie who was participating in his first World Series. But the series had shifted to his hometown of Milwaukee. For the first time, his family would see him play in […]

His name sounded like a contradiction – his last name was Schlitzer and at some point he’s said to have picked up the prototypical WASP nickname “Biff” – though we never came across a single mention of the nickname in our research. He was a 5-foot-11, 175-pound right-handed pitcher who worked in 41 American League […]

On October 28, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals won their 11th World Series championship. Among those celebrating with the team was 88-year-old Red Schoendienst, who had first tasted World Series victory as a young second baseman for the Cardinals in 1946. Sixty-five years after he savored his first World Series win, Schoendienst was still an […]

When considering the life of Dick Armstrong, most contemporaries think only of his ample accomplishments in the theological world. This is for good reason. Armstrong spent six decades of his life as a noted Presbyterian minister, pastor, educator, author, and humanitarian. Yet he had more than one career, and there is so much more, from […]

Four decades after being banned from Organized Baseball for life, Chicago White Sox great Eddie Cicotte said, “Nobody can hurt me anymore. … I’ve tried to be a good father, a good grandfather and a good husband.”1 He could easily have added a good uncle. In 1953, when his great-nephew Al Cicotte was making an […]

It would have been fun to see Gene Brabender wrestle with Frank Howard: “a polar bear versus a grizzly,” suggested his old teammate, Jim Bouton. At 6 feet, 5 1/2 inches and 225 to 240 pounds, “Bender” gave away roughly two inches and 30-40 pounds to “Hondo.” Yet the big man from Black Earth, Wisconsin, […]

Major League Baseball’’s revenue generating power exploded during the 1950s and 1960s due in large part to franchise relocations and expansion, though in truth it had to be dragged into the lucrative expansion era. William Shea drummed up support, at least on paper, for a third major league to be called the Continental League in […]

In his ninth game as the Chicago Cubs player-manager in 1951, Phil Cavarretta came off the bench on July 29 to smash a pinch-hit grand slam off the Philadelphia Phillies’ Robin Roberts and propel the Chicago Cubs to an 8-6 victory in the second game of a doubleheader at Wrigley Field. Cavarretta had a hand […]

Game Five of the 1957 World Series had everything a fan wanted to see: nail-biting tension, high-stakes drama, unsung heroes, excellent fielding, aggressive base running, clutch hitting, and lights-out pitching. In what was described as the “fiercest struggle of the World Series thus far,” Milwaukee’s Lew Burdette hurled a masterful shutout, needing only 86 pitches […]

Between May 5, 1969, and July 22, 1973, Freddie Velázquez went 0-for-4 as a major leaguer. Not hitless for four at-bats, but hitless for four years. A big-league debutant at 31, Velázquez collected two hits in six appearances for the Seattle Pilots in the early weeks of the 1969 season.1 He then returned to the […]

The play sparked immediate controversy and remains one of the enduring questions in World Series history. Did Sam Rice catch Earl Smith’s deep fly while falling into the stands to preserve the Washington Senators’ 4-3 victory in Game Three of the 1925 World Series? Sportswriter Chester L. Smith described Rice’s feat as “one of the […]

Like all the other major-league teams, the Boston Red Sox had lost many of their best players to military service during World War II. In 1945 five pitchers who had been regulars, Tex Hughson, Joe Dobson, Mickey Harris, Earl Johnson, and Mace Brown, were serving in the military. The Red Sox had finished in fourth […]

Excitement filled the Baltimore air in early September as the Orioles fought for a playoff spot. They had last played postseason baseball in 1983, when they defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. During the ensuing 12 seasons, the Orioles finished above .500 six times but consistently missed the playoffs. After an August in […]

If one were to rate the excitement of various baseball plays, inside-the-park home runs (IPHR) would most likely rank very near the top. One of the game’s longest-fused events, thanks to the batter’s 360-foot trip around the diamond, IPHRs have an evergreen presence in highlight and blooper reels alike with dramatic elements like misplays or […]

Yogi Berra played in 2,120 major-league games. All but four of them were in a New York Yankees uniform. The three-time American League MVP ended his playing days with the crosstown Mets; his final effort came on May 9, 1965, in the first game of a Mets-Braves Mother’s Day doubleheader at Shea Stadium. Berra went […]

Editor’s note: The following is a sample chapter from the Deadball Era Committee’s World Series Project. Learn more about it here: http://sabr.org/content/deadball-era-committee-world-series-book-project. 1918 Allan Wood, Series Editor {The 1918 World Series took place in early September due to the “Work or Fight” order that forced the premature end of the regular season on September 1. […]