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Shortstop Greg “Moe” Mulleavy played 78 games for the White Sox and one for the Red Sox – but enjoyed 20 years in the minor leagues. His father, Thomas, was a machinist in a Detroit automobile factory, having moved from Canada to the United States in 1903 with his wife, Bertha Freytag Mulleavy. Gregory was […]

Arm and wrist strength were Jesse Barfield’s calling cards. Over 12 major-league seasons (1981-1992) with the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees, the two-time Gold Glove right-fielder’s throwing arm was so powerful that he gunned down 162 baserunners. His swing produced a home run every 19.7 at-bats, including an American League-leading 40 in 1986, […]

Doug Griffin’s professional baseball career comprised 13 years, beginning at Idaho Falls in 1965 and finishing with the Boston Red Sox in 1977. He spent eight seasons in the major leagues, seven of them with the Red Sox, and appeared briefly in the 1975 World Series. Douglas Lee Griffin was born on June 4, 1947 […]

Was it fate that placed infielder Mel Hoderlein with the 1948 Boston Red Sox rather than the Philadelphia Athletics? Writing in Sports Collectors Digest, Brent Kelley makes the point that Hoderlein probably would have had a much longer big-league career had he been signed to an Athletics contract (that team’s 1948 infield had an average […]

All right up there, drop down the ladder from your clubhouse. A new member is joining you. Henry, show him the secret handshake. Willie, educate him on the secret password. Babe, don’t hog all those s’mores. Junior, slide over a bit. Gentlemen, please welcome Jim Thome to the 600 Home Run Club. It may seem […]

Sophie Mary Kurys, born into a Ukrainian-Polish family in Flint, Michigan, on May 14, 1925, grew up during the Great Depression and developed a lifelong love of sports, especially baseball and golf. Starting in 1943 and playing through 1950 (and briefly in 1952), she became one of the all-time great players of the All-American Girls […]

At 15 Victor Rodriguez started playing competitive adult baseball against men twice his age. Before the season was over, he was a minor leaguer with the Baltimore Orioles. He spent parts of two seasons in the major leagues and played in Organized Baseball for 19 years. Victor Manuel Rodriguez was born on July 14, 1961, […]

Marty Keough came from a family with a deep sports tradition that so far encompasses four generations and both genders. His father was Cecil D. “Zeke” Keough, a star right-hander at the University of California at Berkeley. Marty said, “He beat USC, I think, two or three times in one year. That was his claim […]

During Harry Grabiner’s four-decade-long tenure as a front-office official with the Chicago White Sox, he saw the team experience its highest highs and lowest lows. Beginning his career as a scorecard salesman in 1905 and serving for many years as the team’s secretary and vice president, Grabiner was involved with the White Sox’ first two […]

Skeeter Newsome was a “mighty handy young man.” That’s how a Boston Herald headline writer described him in 1941. He was a shortstop (appearing in 12 seasons at the position, for a total of 902 games), second baseman (9 seasons, 149 games), and third baseman (8 seasons, 49 games). He even played a game in […]

Lou Berberet was a very solid defensive catcher. With a fielding percentage of 1.000 as a catcher in 1957, he joined an elite group as only the third catcher in major-league history with zero errors in more than 350 chances. Since that time, eight other catchers have had error-free seasons with that number of chances.1 […]

The story of Don Black is a tragic one. A pitcher with a strong, live arm, he pitched two no-hitters in the minor leagues and one in the majors. He had many chances to make the most of his ability and succeed in his baseball career, but Don Black was an alcoholic. And like many […]

On September 19, 1988, the Pittsburgh Pirates paid tribute to the Homestead Grays by hoisting a black-and-white commemorative flag over Three Rivers Stadium. The occasion commemorated an event from 40 years earlier, when the Negro National League’s Grays defeated the Birmingham Black Barons, champions of the Negro American League, four games to one in the […]

Harry “Socks” Seibold had a rather modest pitching career, compiling a record of 48 wins and 85 losses in 191 games over eight major league seasons. He was given the nickname “Socks” by his first manager, Connie Mack, who earlier had managed Philadelphia Athletics outfielder Ralph “Socks” Seybold. What was unusual about Harry Seibold’s career […]

Patience and power made Ken Singleton one of baseball’s premier switch-hitters. After beginning his 15-year career (1970-1984) with the Mets and Expos, he was a three-time All-Star right fielder for the Orioles and the designated hitter for Baltimore’s 1983 World Series champions. After retiring, Singleton became a popular Yankees broadcaster. Kenneth Wayne Singleton was born […]

For nearly eighty years, Hub Kittle loved and studied pitching. He first realized that this was his calling when he was eight years old. He could outthrow all the neighborhood kids. “Something clicked there, that I had something the good Lord must have gave me. I don’t know why, I couldn’t outfight ’em and I […]

Gus Greenlee, famed owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, came from a family that valued education. His three brothers earned medical or law degrees, but Gus left college after a year and moved away from his family at age 19 to work in Pittsburgh. He soon purchased his own taxi and began running bootleg liquor out […]

The four up-and-coming hurlers pictured on card #621 of the 1975 Topps set (1975 Rookie Pitchers) combined for 1,067 major-league appearances. Jim Kern pitched in 416 games, Rawly Eastwick in 326, John Denny in 325, and Juan Veintidos in zero. To collectors, Veintidos remains a mystery face, a “phantom,” one of that limited fraternity of […]

Typically, baseball ground rules require the public-address system of a ballpark to be silenced during a game. But when the leader of the free world is resigning from office, exceptions can apparently be made. The Syracuse (New York) Post-Standard reported that a portion of President Richard Nixon’s resignation speech on the night of August 8, […]

Who could have foreseen that the Friday evening matchup between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Cleveland Indians would be such a historic game? Certainly not the 7,290 who sat through a misty, wet game that began with a first-pitch temperature of 47 degrees, which fell to the 30s by the time the final out […]

Ban Johnson conceived the idea of a more gentlemanly major league because he figured baseball enthusiasts of the early 1900s would respond well to that style of play. But even Johnson, the guiding force for the American League’s emergence in 1901, was stunned by the throng of rooters who turned out to Columbia Park when […]

As the 1963 National League season moved into its fourth month, the Milwaukee Braves visited San Francisco for the second time. On July 2 San Francisco sent 25-year-old Juan Marichal out against Warren Spahn, 17 years his senior, in the Tuesday night opener of a three-game set. The Giants starter was looking to avenge a […]

On September 30, 1967, a Saturday afternoon, the Minnesota Twins played the first of a two-game season-ending series against the Red Sox at Boston’s Fenway Park. The Twins led the Red Sox and the Tigers (who had to play two doubleheaders) by a single game. A Twins victory would eliminate the Red Sox, while the […]

This article is the third and last in a series about the most famous sign in any baseball stadium and the man behind it. From 1931 until 1957, the Dodgers’ last season in Brooklyn, clothier Abe Stark’s sign, which offered a free suit to a batter who hit in on a fly, adorned the right […]