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Eddie Onslow could be described as a major-league baseball player, appearing in four different American League seasons; but he was really an International League star of the first magnitude. A brief sketch of Onslow’s major-league career shows a 15-year span (1912-1927), but a closer look reveals a log of a mere 224 plate appearances over […]

Except for a brief September call-up in 1953, Eddie Phillips spent his entire 11-year pro baseball career in the minor leagues. Yet, during those 2½ weeks with the St. Louis Cardinals, he established a record for most runs scored in the major leagues (four) without a plate appearance or taking a defensive position. His pinch-running […]

With the clarity of hindsight it seems appropriate that an action photograph of Robert Gaston by noted African-American photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris shows what looks like Gaston launching a home run. As the backup to Josh Gibson and teammate of Buck Leonard, Gaston certainly saw his share of home runs. Gibson abandoned the Homestead Grays […]

In a major-league career spanning all or parts of 11 seasons (1985-1995), switch-hitting middle infielder Manuel Lee spent his first six years playing mostly second base for the Toronto Blue Jays while he backed up fellow Dominican Republic native Tony Fernández at shortstop. After Fernández was traded, the s trong-armed Lee started at shortstop for […]

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 […]

“We drive on to Minneapolis. We are all relaxed at the game, cheering the Twins to an easy win, chanting ‘Bombo! Bombo! Bombo!’ each time the Twins’ right fielder Bombo Rivera is announced. He is a good young player, but not great. It is his name that intoxicates the crowd.”   W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe […]

Throwing sinkerballs with his right-handed, three-quarters delivery, John Flinn pitched a dozen seasons of professional baseball, but only 42 games in the majors. As a big-leaguer, Flinn won five, lost two, posted a respectable 4.17 ERA and held Hall of Fame members to only two hits in 23 at-bats (Carlton Fisk notched both). But it […]

“Former Well-Known Hamilton Ball Player Died in Chicago” headed the modest notice in the Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator on March 19, 1923. 1 The obituary briefly refers to careers in both baseball and medicine. What is not mentioned: Peter Burke Wood was a talented, intelligent, loyal, strong-willed, and troubled individual who, despite an intermittently brief major […]

Saddled with the burden of replacing one of baseball’s legendary players, Carl Yastrzemski carved out his own iconic Hall of Fame career, eventually escaping Ted Williams’ extraordinary shadow to win three batting titles and seven Gold Gloves, and earn 18 All-Star selections. In Boston, where he played the entirety of his 23-year career, he is […]

Pitcher Brian Kingman compiled an 8-20 record with the 1980 Oakland Athletics. Prior to 1980, instances of pitchers losing 20 games in a season occurred with great regularity. After Kingman’s 20-loss season, however, his place in baseball lore was cemented for 23 long years until it finally happened again. The stinging effects of Kingman’s 20-loss […]

Few Major League players were traded as often as pitcher Louis Norman “Bobo” Newsom. The name Bobo came about because Newsom never could or would remember anybody’s name, so he called everyone Bobo and thus earned that nickname for himself. Barrel-chested, standing six-foot-three and weighing more than 200 pounds, the colorful right-hander was talkative and […]

Bruce Bochy’s long baseball career has been remarkable and very successful. After serving as a reserve catcher in the majors from 1978 through 1987, he became not only the first European-born manager to reach the World Series (San Diego Padres, 1998) but also the first manager to call on his son to pitch in a […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

Before Yogi Berra came up with his now famous quip, “It looks like déjà vu all over again,” Chicago Cubs outfielder Hank Sauer could very well have originated that witticism, after he scorched Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Curt Simmons with three home runs for a second time on June 11, 1952. Sauer’s three solo homers were […]

Either a Detroit Tigers win or a Baltimore Orioles loss would clinch the 1968 American League championship for Mayo Smith’s squad. On September 17 the Tigers got both. The next day’s game at Tiger Stadium was rained out. To the casual fan, the September 19 game with the New York Yankees, 18 games behind the […]

Roses have thorns. Gardens have snakes. And ballparks have foul balls. Foul balls aren’t always the downside of the sport. When they land in a fan’s outstretched hands, or roll into a child’s grasp, everyone shares the vicarious pleasure of the souvenir. But there’s no denying that every foul ball is also a missile – […]

Mark Worrell enjoyed a memorable few days in Washington, DC, in early June of 2008. Recalled by the St. Louis Cardinals from Triple-A Memphis on June 2, the right-handed relief pitcher with the funky side-arm delivery1 made his major-league debut the next night against the Washington Nationals. He worked a scoreless ninth inning, allowing a […]

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 […]

“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, […]

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 […]

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 […]