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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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

The last game of the 1950 season found the Philadelphia Phillies clinging to a one-game lead over the Brooklyn Dodgers, who were closing fast. If the Phillies lost, a three-game playoff for the pennant would be needed and that did not bode well for the Whiz Kids, whose starting pitching was razor-thin due to injuries […]

During the 1910 season, the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics relied on two natives of the City of Brotherly Love at first base: 15-year veteran Harry Davis, whose best days were behind him, and 26-year-old rookie Ben Houser. In addition to sharing a position and a hometown, Davis and Houser also had a common alma […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

As a 33-year-old veteran outfielder, “call me Mike” McCormick was a major contributor to the Boston Braves’ run to the 1948 National League pennant. In 343 at-bats in 115 games, the right-handed-hitting McCormick batted .303, to help solidify the Braves outfield. A pinch-hitter extraordinaire, Mike stroked six hits in 14 tries off the bench. He […]

It is an oft-told story that legendary manager John McGraw, who led the New York Giants for 30 eventful years, had photographs of only two former players on his office wall: Christy Mathewson and Ross Youngs, today an almost forgotten Hall of Fame outfielder.1 Youngs personified the type of all-out hustle and will-to-win ballplayer that […]

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 […]

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. […]

In 1915, America’s leading syndicated sportswriter, Hugh Fullerton, published a forgettable baseball novel in which a star left-handed pitcher named Williams is bribed and threatened by gamblers to lose the pennant for his team.1 Fullerton, who dedicated the novel to his friend and mentor, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, had been writing about the […]

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 […]

Right-handed pitcher David Weathers played professionally in small towns and large cities across the United States and Canada but his origins and present life are firmly rooted in southern Tennessee. He was an integral relief pitcher on the 1996 World Series champion New York Yankees and after playing for nine teams in 19 major-league seasons, […]

Left-hander Dean Stone spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, pitching for six different teams and compiling a career record of 29-39 with a 4.47 earned run average in 686 innings. His most celebrated moment was almost certainly his being the winning pitcher of the 1954 All-Star Game without officially facing even one […]

Though he played ten years in the majors, when people look back at Ossie Vitt’s career, they tend to remember the player mutiny against him by the team called the “Cleveland Crybabies” when he was manager of the Indians in 1940. He managed the Indians from 1938 through 1940, and 18 seasons in the minor […]

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 […]