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Star player, manager, general manager, league president—only one man in baseball history has followed a career path like this one. Joe Cronin, one of the greatest shortstops in the game’s history, spent 50 years in the baseball without being fired or taking a year off. Every job was a promotion, and he came within a […]

At the time of his death in 1969, Lee Allen had been the historian at the Hall of Fame’s National Baseball Library for ten years. He was widely celebrated for his encyclopedic recall of persons famous and obscure, events large and small. “I care very little for statistics as such,” he always said. “My concern […]

On March 1, 2012, a businessman named Andrew W. Schmidt III died in Baltimore, Maryland, the city of his birth. He was 80 years old. For 38 years, until the company closed in 1991, Schmidt had operated A.W. Schmidt and Son, a wholesale meatpacking house on Harford Road in Baltimore. The company had been in […]

Milwaukee Brewers scout Felix Delgado “found [Ed Romero playing in the mountains of Puerto Rico two years ago.” Romero was 17 at the time. “After one workout, the Brewers signed … Romero, along with four others.”1 Edgardo Ralph (Rivera) Romero, born on December 9, 1957, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, was indeed signed at 17, in […]

As the 1929 season began, the Chicago Cubs were in trouble.  They were without the services of their starting catcher, 28-year-old Gabby Hartnett, whose arm had gone dead.  While Hartnett would eventually regain his throwing abilities, he played in only 25 games that year, just one as a catcher.1 Initially, 38-year-old Mike Gonzalez and Earl […]

By his second year in the majors in 1958, sweet-swinging Harry (The Horse) Anderson of the Philadelphia Phillies was one of the premier left-handed power hitters in the game. But after his fourth year, he was back in the minor leagues, struggling to regain the batting stroke that had abandoned him as quickly as it […]

Gary Wagner threw a no-hitter in the first game he ever pitched — for his college team. Wagner was a right-handed pitcher who worked in 162 major-league games over six years in the majors for two teams, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. Four of his games were starts; primarily he worked as […]

The Boston Red Sox have had two Kelletts play for them, ten years apart. Al Kellett had more success as a professional basketball player, turning to that sport after his brief baseball career was done. Red Kellett had an extremely brief baseball career as well, later making more of a mark in football. Though the […]

Born and raised in the historic city of Fredericksburg in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Randolph Rutherford Heflin became a professional pitcher, with a career interrupted by service in the United States Navy during the Second World War. Randy Heflin was a right-hander who batted left-handed, stood an even six feet tall, and weighed 185 pounds. […]

Right-hander Walt Masterson labored many years for the Washington Senators, almost always with losing records for a series of losing teams despite an earned run average of 3.98 over his 11 seasons with Washington. He also pitched in four seasons for the Boston Red Sox and in one (his final season) for the Detroit Tigers. […]

One night at Toots Shor’s restaurant, Edward Bennett Williams was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up — an odd question for a man in his mid-30s who’d already gained a reputation as a distinguished trial lawyer. “I want to own a ball club and be president,” said Williams,1 who as a […]

He never played a game of baseball until he was a freshman in high school, but his skills blossomed so quickly that he signed a professional contract after his junior year. Only 16, Wally Post started a baseball career that lasted 18 years and saw him transform from a pitcher-first baseman to a hard-hitting, superb […]

From the hot corner, Milt Stock made vital contributions towards the Philadelphia Phillies’ first two pennants. As a second-year player in 1915, he took over third base responsibilities when Bobby Byrne suffered a serious injury during the home stretch, and helped the Phillies capture their first NL flag. For another decade, with several teams, he […]

“Sal Maglie sat in the Dodger clubhouse and performed the ritual of anointing his pitching hand. First he applied a base of liquid rosin. Then he sprinkled the fingers with powdered rosin. And when he was done he was ready to pitch.”1 September is the time when pennant races are decided. Just months earlier, could […]

Bob Swift of the Detroit Tigers catches a pitch as St. Louis Browns pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel stands at the plate on August 19, 1951. (SABR-Rucker Archive)    Search online for a definition of the word incongruous and among several provided on the Merriam-Webster website is “inconsistent within itself.” Well, that’s perfectly clear. In other words, […]

Harry “The Cat” Brecheen had previously entered major-league baseball’s record books in 1946 by becoming the first left-handed pitcher to win three games in a World Series. He figuratively came within a cat’s whisker of making history again on May 8, 1948, when he missed hurling a perfect game because of a close call on […]

On an unusually warm October day in Philadelphia in front of more than 20,000 fortunate fans, the Boston Braves moved halfway toward winning the World Series for the first time with a dramatic 1-0 whitewashing of the Philadelphia Americans behind the brilliant two-hit pitching of Bill James, the unlikely ninth-inning offensive outburst of substitute third […]

“I guess it shows they play ball in that other league too.” — National league manager Fred Hutchinson 1   Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted the best of baseball on July 30, 1962, in front of a crowd of 38,359. The All-Star Games had started back in 1933 when the players congregated on Chicago’s South Side […]

Milwaukee Braves beat reporter Lou Chapman characterized the accomplishment as “stranger than fiction.”1 Jim Wilson, a 32-year-old spot starter who had almost been placed on waivers in spring training, tossed the first no-hitter in the history of County Stadium on June 12, 1954, when he blanked the Philadelphia Phillies. Described by Lloyd Larson as “one of […]

Many pitchers in baseball history have been associated with strikeouts. Christy Mathewson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rube Waddell, Walter Johnson, Dazzy Vance, Bob Feller, Lefty Grove, and Sandy Koufax are well known because of their strikeout prowess. Max Surkont belongs on this list, despite his obscurity today. His amazing performance in the second game on May […]

It is hard to find a more important date in Braves Field history than October 11, 1948. Not only was it Game Six of the World Series, a do-or-die contest for the hometown team, but it was also a chance for that club to take its biggest step yet toward reconquering the city it had […]

An aging veteran, who had battled weight problems all season and was placed on waivers a few weeks before was an unlikely choice to hurl the Tigers’ first no-hitter. But that is what George Mullin did on his birthday, no less, as he redeemed himself and mowed down the St. Louis Browns to make Detroit […]

Nineteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter attended the March 25, 2014, monthly roundtable, held at its usual location, The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. Chapter secretary Jim Leefers gave a brief report on updating the e-mail list by use of the […]

For close to 70 years, the rich baseball history of Rochester, New York, centered around a lopsided ballpark at 500 Norton Street. The park known over the years as Red Wing Stadium and Silver Stadium hosted decades of minor-league baseball and a year of Negro National League play. Like all minor-league parks, its occupants were […]