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Baseball suffered during the depression years of the 1930s and was further affected by the player shortage during World War II. The war ended and veterans returned to a free country with a robust economy. Peace and prosperity meant it was time to fill rosters and take in a game. Joe Mayer was a young […]

When the president of the United States is in your golf foursome because you led your university to a baseball championship a quarter of a century earlier, things are going your way. That sums up a highpoint in the life of Al Hubbard,1 who played in just two major-league games two days apart toward the […]

Shortstop Craig Robinson retired with 755 fewer career homers than his Braves teammate Hank Aaron. But only six men can say they joined Aaron in the starting lineup on the nights Hammerin’ Hank tied and broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record. Robinson is one of those special six.1 Craig George Robinson was born on […]

Jackie Robinson’s theft of home plate in Game One of the 1955 Fall Classic is widely considered one of the most electrifying moments in World Series history. Standing in the batter’s box as Robinson broke for home was Brooklyn Dodgers pinch-hitter Frank Kellert, who saw up close New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s tag, one […]

He was known as “The Tall Tactician” and was baseball’s grand old gentleman for more than a generation. Statuesque, stately, and slim, he clutched a rolled-up scorecard as he sat or stood ramrod straight in the dugout, attired in a business suit rather than a uniform, a derby or bowler in place of a baseball […]

During the years between the ownership of the New York Giants by club founder John B. Day (1883-1890) and the tumultuous stewardship of Andrew Freedman (1895-1902), the franchise was controlled by a group of business-minded men with varying degrees of interest in baseball. Although he never held the title of team president, the unquestioned leader […]

“If Shipke only becomes a hitter! His work at third [base] yesterday was classy from start to finish. He had several of the closest kinds of plays on pick-ups and other varieties of slow rollers, but he had the knack of grabbing them while at full speed … and getting them toward first without any […]

Caught up in the numbers and derailed by injuries, this promising southpaw appeared in just two games in the majors. “I didn’t get a cup of coffee,” he joked in 2010. “I got a demitasse!” Yet the bright and scholarly man had mapped out his direction. After his final pro season in 1968, he turned […]

“All (Bobby) Del Greco has to do is hit a little better, and he’ll be one of the greatest. There isn’t a better fielder anywhere.” 1 – Gene Mauch. Philadelphia Phillies manager (1960-68)   An outstanding center fielder, Bobby Del Greco’s inability to consistently hit big-league pitching (.229 lifetime) prevented him from playing more regularly in […]

The year 1959 was Jerry Mallett’s best year in baseball. He had his best year in minor-league baseball and he also had the opportunity to play four games of major-league ball for the Boston Red Sox. Mallett later earned a doctorate and became a successful educator and school administrator, and worked his way up to […]

In the course of three decades, Doc Moskiman went from medical school to retailing athletic goods. In between, he appeared in five major-league games with the 1910 Boston Red Sox, playing first base and right field. He hit safely once, drove in one run, and scored one run. He made no errors in 18 chances. […]

“Whenever he would pull off one of those grand, unexpected plays that were so dazzlingly surprising as to dumfound his opponents, his prominent teeth would gleam and glisten in an array of white molars that would put our own Teddy Roosevelt and his famed dentistry establishment far in the shadow.” — Sam Crane1 Who was […]

Long before Bill Veeck sent a midget up to bat, Joe Engel sent a teenage girl out to pitch to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Engel, “the Barnum of the Bushes,” was minor league baseball’s premier showman for nearly four decades. “I don’t care what you say about me,” he said, “as long as you […]

Elburt Fletcher was an 18-year-old minor leaguer when he shared a spring training dugout with Babe Ruth. “He still had that marvelous swing, and what a follow-through, just beautiful, like a great golfer. But he was forty years old. He couldn’t run, he could hardly bend down for a ball, and of course he couldn’t […]

“One reporter said my expression was ‘dour.’ I had to look that one up,” quipped B.J. Surhoff.1 Over 19 major-league seasons (1987-2005), the lefty swinger with a game face as grim as a beleaguered soldier appeared in more than 1,000 games for both the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles. Surhoff saw regular duty as a […]

Born and raised in the Bronx, All-Star and Gold Glove third baseman Frank Malzone was a Red Sox fixture for more than 60 years, save for one season playing for the California Angels. Born on February 28, 1930, he was a Yankees fan growing up but was signed out of Samuel Gompers High School by […]

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a time when black baseball was wide open and strapped for cash, Curtis Harris was in his element. Arriving in Kansas City as a 29-year-old rookie out of Texas in 1931, the good-looking Harris hacked his way from one end of the circuit to the other, leaving opponents, […]

“Harry Harper Scored in Pitching, Politics” ran the New York World-Telegram headline announcing his death.1 Left-handed pitcher “Hackensack Harry” was a “gallery of legends, a great ruddy booming one-man mythology,” read another story.2 He won 57 games in the majors, built a junk business starting with one truck, and became a millionaire, later serving for […]

It had been a terrible week for the Philadelphia Phillies. On Sunday, September 20, after beating the Dodgers in Los Angeles, 3-2, the Phillies had a 6½-game lead over their closest pursuers for the National League pennant, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. After that win, the Phillies returned to Philadelphia and Connie […]

For all intents and purposes, the ballgame did not figure into a pennant race. The Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Angels were atop the second division of the American League as they began a four-game set at Cleveland Stadium on July 29, 1963. The Tribe trailed the first-place New York Yankees by 15 games, and […]

“Life moves pretty fast,” the title character of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off says after fooling his parents into thinking he is too sick to go to school. “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris, a high-school senior from a Chicago suburb, refuses to miss that day’s […]

Fireworks shows on Independence Day are an American tradition and a fixture at ballparks across the country. On the Fourth of July 1972, a fireworks show between games of a Chicago Cubs-Atlanta Braves doubleheader might have cost the Cubs a victory and allowed the Braves to escape with a tie. Leo Durocher’s Cubs entered the […]

Ironically, the Chicago Cubs got off to an auspicious start in baseball’s centennial year. They began the 1969 season with the National League’s best Opening Day record: 39 wins, 28 losses, 2 ties. And there was plenty of optimism on Chicago’s North Side as the newly-configured major leagues got underway. George Vass wrote of the […]

SABR Larry Dierker Chapter meeting recapSeptember 10, 2018Spaghetti Western restaurant, 7:00 pm There were 18 members present for this month’s Larry Dierker Chapter meeting on a rainy night in Houston. Please take note of the next three months’ meeting dates as they are different: Monday, October 15, 7:00 p.m. at the Spaghetti Western on Shepard […]