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It took quite a while to pay off, but the investment that Cleveland team president Ernest Barnard made in Urban Hodapp finally paid off about five years later. Barnard had invested $40,000 as well as infielder Joe Klugman and two players to be named later (who were Riggs Stephenson and Elmer Yoter). Barnard was clearly […]

The highlights of Dick Gray’s big-league baseball career all came in its first week – the first home run in Los Angeles Dodgers’ history and, two days later, the first major league home run hit in Los Angeles. But the highlights faded, the momentum could not be maintained and Gray’s career ended shortly. Richard Benjamin […]

Outfielder George Stumpf was a .235 hitter in the major leagues, playing for both Sox teams, albeit in just 260 at-bats in 118 games. In a 19-year minor-league career, Stumpf hit .289 in 8,509 plate appearances. Of German ancestry, Stumpf was born 10 days before Christmas in 1910 – December 15 – in New Orleans. […]

During the fourth game of the 1927 World Series, Pittsburgh hurler Johnny Miljus threw a wild pitch in the ninth inning that scored Earle Combs from third base, completing a sweep by the New York Yankees. Perhaps the happiest player that day was New York shortstop Mark Koenig. His .500 batting average in the Series […]

“If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw and […]

In rural counties from the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes basin, super-scout Gene Bennett became the face of the Cincinnati Reds organization during more than a half-century of evaluating talent for the franchise.  The team changed ownership seven times since he began scouting in 1958. Thus far 11 different general managers have deemed Gene […]

Tight batting races are usually decided by one or two hits throughout the course of a long season. In the closest batting race in National League history, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols edged Colorado’s Todd Helton .3587 to .3585 to take the batting championship in 2003. Before that, the closest race in league history […]

“I will never forget my brief but memorable big league stay.”1 That’s what Jay Kleven told author George Rose for the 2004 book One-Hit Wonders. Kleven, a catcher, appeared in two games for the New York Mets in June 1976. He spent less than two weeks in The Show that month and was out of […]

Adam Hyzdu was a multisport superstar at a high school known for superstar athletes including Buddy Bell, Barry Larkin, and Ken Griffey Jr. After being selected in the first round of the 1990 amateur draft, Hyzdu went on to have an interesting 18-year career in professional baseball. The slugging right-handed outfielder knocked out 273 minor-league […]

Phil Gagliano grew up in a baseball-oriented family. Though his grandparents on his father’s side of the family hailed from southern Italy (Sicily and Calabria), and on his mother’s side from the Tuscany region, the second-generation Americans took to baseball whole-heartedly. Phil’s father, Ralph, who was a director of purchasing at a wholesale food business […]

Steady-hitting James Henry “Jim” Delsing, known as a fleet outfielder and a first-class person, lived his baseball dream through almost two decades, the turbulent Forties and the prosperous Fifties. During that time he adjusted to the many highs and lows of a 10-year major league career. A lefthanded batter who threw righthanded, Delsing experienced his […]

Right-handed pitcher Garnett Blair had the opportunity to play for a hometown team. In a better world, it wasn’t the one he might have pitched for. Racial segregation stood in the way of that. Blair attended Pittsburgh’s Langley High School, a member of the Class of February 1940. The school itself is an impressive one […]

Infielder Ted Schreiber was #10 in the long list of New York Mets third basemen. He played just 39 games as a utilityman for Casey Stengel in 1963. Of his 55 plate appearances, the most significant was his next to last — the final regular-season out made in the Polo Grounds. Second base was his best […]

Manager Casey Stengel summed up Bob Porterfield’s career with the Yankees: “There was always something wrong — sore arm, sore head, sore back, sore legs.”1 A pitching Big Three of Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, and Ed Lopat powered the Yankee dynasty of the late 1940s and early 1950s, but the club was constantly searching for […]

Twenty-four-year-old pitcher Dave “Boo” Ferriss completed one of the most spectacular seasons in Boston Red Sox history when he won 25 games against only six losses in 1946. He was the beneficiary of a potent Red Sox offense that lost only 50 games during the regular season. They captured their first American League pennant since […]

Leo Durocher, manager of the eighth-place Brooklyn Dodgers, refused to accept excuses from his new shortstop, Tommy Brown. Brown arrived at Ebbets Field fresh off an all-night train ride that brought him to the big leagues from the Newport News Dodgers of the Class-B Piedmont League. Thinking a 16-year-old shortstop would make a difference for […]

Although the Beaneaters’ May 7 game at the Polo Grounds against the New York Giants came early in the 1894 season, it would have been hard to find a more attractive matchup that year. Not only was the weather “ideal,” the starting pitchers were two of the game’s best, Charles “Kid” Nichols for Boston and […]

The fans at Griffith Stadium were in for a treat in the first game of the September 9, 1916, doubleheader between the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Senators. The game featured a dream pitching matchup between the veteran Walter Johnson and 21-year-old Red Sox phenom Babe Ruth. It was the fifth time the two […]

As they made their way down I-94 to Comiskey Park for this Monday night game, the 12-0 Milwaukee Brewers and their fans were in a celebratory mood after their dramatic win on Sunday against the Texas Rangers at Milwaukee County Stadium. Yes, they were still one game shy of tying the major-league record set by […]

Pitcher Troy Herriage’s big-league career was notable for both its duration and its difficulty. The Kansas City Athletics, who selected Herriage in the Rule 5 minor-league draft in November 1955, were required to either keep him on their roster for the entire 1956 season or return him to his old club.1 They not only kept […]

The “greatest hitter who ever lived”? Ted Williams said his goal in life was to have people say, “There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.”1 Very few would say he wasn’t in the conversation. He was not particularly known for his defense, though most judged him at least adequate in playing Fenway […]

Box scores don’t lie. But sometimes they cannot tell the whole truth. Like a classic novel, whose layers are best understood by reading its criticism, a box score’s secrets can be revealed through game stories. Context enables a deeper understanding of history, allowing the pieces of the puzzle to expose the entire picture. The April […]

Entering the 1919 season, the strength of the New York Yankees was their “heavy-hitting and strong-defensive” infield: Wally Pipp at first base, Del Pratt at second base, Roger Peckinpaugh at shortstop, and Frank “Home Run” Baker at third base.1 The slugging quartet, together with outfielder Ping Bodie, formed a “Murderers’ Row” in the heart of […]

It had been over two decades since the Dodgers won the 1920 National League pennant. Most of those years were spent in the second division. By 1937 the Dodgers were in dire straits financially. They were $700,000 in debt to their bank, the Brooklyn Trust Company, “$470,000 on a refinanced mortgage for Ebbets Field. (The […]