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Twenty days after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, a special baseball game took place in New York City. The world was focused on the Pacific and European battlefronts, but on the American home front the War Loans Sports Committee was developing a series of events to sell War Bonds. One of these events was baseball’s […]

The 1966 Pittsburgh Pirates, featuring Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Willie Stargell (having his first big season), and batting champion Matty Alou, topped the National League as late as September 10 before fading to third place, just three games behind the repeat champion Los Angeles Dodgers. At the end of June Pittsburgh (43-29) trailed only the […]

A packed Riverfront Stadium celebrated future Hall of Fame catcher and lifetime Cincinnati Red Johnny Bench’s career achievements. The 17-year veteran had announced his retirement earlier in the season,1 and now the Reds’ faithful enjoyed the opportunity to acknowledge his many contributions to baseball and the Queen City. The two-time MVP and 1970s Big Red […]

The Sporting News’s headline for the April 29, 1955, game between the Fort Worth Cats and Dallas Eagles was “Cats, Eagles in Long Thriller,”1 but the significance of this game extends beyond the back-and-forth drama in this marathon between longtime minor-league adversaries. It was the last series between the Cats and Eagles before the death […]

Already a history-making All-Star and National League rookie RBI record-holder, Albert Pujols added another milestone to his 2001 breakout season on September 21 at PNC Park. Pujols’ first big-league grand slam snapped a ninth-inning tie and gave the surging St. Louis Cardinals a 9-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Less than five years after leaving […]

It was hardly a marquee matchup. The Seattle Mariners were seven games below .500, which wasn’t a surprise considering that they had posted a winning record only twice in their 17-year history, and never had they won more than 83 games in a season. The doom and gloom surrounding the Mariners in those days was […]

Weather forecasts predicted rain but when the sun rose on New York, there were clear skies as the Brooklyn Dodgers prepared to face off against the Yankees for the second time since 1941. The wind “played tricks with the pennants high above the roof” of Yankee Stadium and “sweaters and topcoats formed standard equipment for […]

In the early twenty-first century, a significant portion of the action within professional baseball games consolidated around three basic results for any plate appearance: walks, strikeouts, and home runs. Baseball fans and analysts following this development labeled it the “Three True Outcomes” (TTO). “True” because walks, strikeouts and homers – in contrast to, say, around-the-horn […]

Jennings Poindexter was a lefty, and an Okie, who was apparently also something of a character. He pitched in three games for the 1936 Boston Red Sox, 11 games for the 1939 Philadelphia Phillies, and 11 seasons in the minors. Chester Jennings Poindexter was born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, less than three years after the […]

It’s a good thing George Dumont was a pitcher.  As a batter, he left something to be desired. In 94 major-league at-bats, Dumont struck out 44 times – almost half the time. He did get a few hits – six of them in five seasons, including one double and one triple. He drove in four […]

Right-handed pitcher Roy Wilkinson reached the pinnacle of his modest baseball career in only his second major-league game. A capable seven-year minor-league veteran, Wilkinson had been acquired by the Chicago White Sox late in the 1919 pennant chase to provide some respite for a strained pitching corps. Given a September start against the Philadelphia A’s, […]

Joe Simmons was a pioneer for the Jim Leylands and Ron Washingtons of the game, men who are affectionately referred to as “baseball guys.”  Simmons was a great fielder but an inconsistent hitter who managed to catch on with pro teams throughout the 1860s and 1870s. As a manager, he was a firm disciplinarian who […]

Imagine an infielder who played his last game more than half a century ago, who appeared in 1,058 games and batted .262 lifetime. Probably only his family and his most diehard fans would know his name. But that’s not so in the case of William Richard “Billy” Cox. Anchoring the infield on three Brooklyn pennant […]

“Dirty Al” Gallagher was the first native San Franciscan to play for the Giants after their move from New York. Gallagher played for his hometown team for three years before being traded to the Angels. After his playing days came to an end, Gallagher enjoyed a long career as a manager in the minor leagues, […]

“Just call me Hank,” said Henry “Prince” Oana. He didn’t really come from Hawaiian royalty, but there was still a certain mystique about this outfielder-turned-pitcher. In a time when mainstream baseball lacked diversity, Oana was something exotic. When this story was originally published in 2009, there weren’t many men alive who knew Hank Oana during […]

Pitcher Jack Creel overcame a birth defect to enjoy a 16-year career in professional baseball. “If my father laid his hands out on a table, he could not straighten his fingers out,” the player’s son, Jack Creel, told the author. “His fingers were in a shape of a baseball all of the time. He tried […]

Colorful Dick Cooley crossed paths in his lifetime with personalities as diverse as saloon-smasher Carrie Nation and Broadway star George M. Cohan. For 13 years in the big leagues (1893-1905), Cooley also held his own with the greatest baseball players of his day. In 1,317 games in the majors, he batted .294.  Duff Gordon Cooley […]

A gritty and hard-nosed middle infielder, Larry Brown debuted as a 23-year-old with the Cleveland Indians in 1963. Once described by The Sporting News as “one of the top shortstops in the league,” the 150-pound Brown proved that a rifle arm, sure hands, defensive versatility, and sheer determination could lead to 1,129 games in a […]

A life in baseball is how one might best describe the life of Fred Mitchell. He pitched in the very first game ever played by the Boston Red Sox franchise (an exhibition game in Charlottesville, Virginia), and 18 years later managed the Chicago Cubs against the Red Sox in the 1918 World Series. His major-league […]

Willy Miranda epitomized the “good field, no hit” shortstop. He was a lot more than good in the field, though—Tom Lasorda, to name just one, thought the flashy little Cuban was the best he ever saw at short.1 Wielding the same battered, patched, and secretly doctored glove for nearly his entire pro career, Miranda was […]

Bill Jennings was a tall, dignified, modest gentleman fondly remembered by everyone who met him. His major-league career is limited to the 64 games he played for the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1951 but Jennings lived an honest, unassuming life both in and out of Organized Baseball. William Lee Jennings was born on September […]

He had just 11 big-league at-bats in 1990, but Brian Traxler was still a cult figure. Over 13 years as a pro, the first baseman delighted fans across the minors, the Caribbean winter leagues, Asia, and independent circuits. His immediate appeal was visual. “Trax” was rotund — leniently listed at 5-feet-10 and 200 pounds, he […]

“If you can’t get fundamentals down for Hal Lanier, you cannot play for Hal Lanier,” declared the native Floridian about his managerial philosophy, nearly a half-century since his professional baseball début in 1961.1 Lanier’s emphasis on the foundations of baseball characterized his longevity as a helmsman and, for 10 seasons, a major league ballplayer. To […]

New York Yankees scout Joe Devine approached a young, struggling outfielder toiling in the lower minors with the following advice: “Frank, the closest you’ll ever come to center field in Yankee Stadium is in a postcard. But I think you could make the major leagues as a manager.”1 The right-handed-hitting youngster, who’d unsuccessfully tried switch-hitting […]