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Baseball has always been a game of figures, scenarios, and probabilities. While more than 19,000 men have worn a major-league uniform since 1876, tiny Donora, Pennsylvania, has somehow given us two of the greatest players of all time: Stan Musial and Ken Griffey Jr. Five Hall of Famers were born on May 14, despite each […]

When the Baltimore Orioles announced their 2015 Hall of Fame class, it seemed fitting that Gary Roenicke and John Lowenstein would be inducted together. The two previously shared left field duties for the Orioles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not an ideal situation for Roenicke – a former first-round pick still in the […]

The tall, lanky left-handed pitcher started with youth baseball, excelled in the minor leagues, played for four major-league teams, then continued as a pitching coach at various levels to complete a 50-year career in baseball. Standing 6-feet-2 and weighing 200 pounds, James Philip “Jim” Shellenback, born November 18, 1943, in Riverside, California, grew up in […]

Charlie Jamieson was a star American League outfielder during the 1920s. In a career spanning 1915-1932, the speedy singles hitter achieved a .303 batting average with 1,990 hits in 1,779 games. In addition to being a very good leadoff man, he also had a fine reputation in the field. Jamieson initially struggled to find his […]

Like so many ballplayers of his generation, Jack Hallett gave what may have been the best years of his career to the service of his country. Yet, after Navy duty called him from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching staff in 1943, he had enough talent to return as a major leaguer in 1946 against postwar competition […]

Philadelphia A’s star left-hander and future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank had scattered five hits and had not allowed a run as the Boston Braves batted in the top of the ninth in Game Two of the 1914 World Series. Unfortunately for Plank and his mates, Braves starter Bill James was pitching just as well. […]

A key player for the successful Baltimore Orioles of the 1970s and ’80s, Al Bumbry provided speed and clutch hitting on four division-winning clubs, including the World Series champions of 1983. Bumbry was the spark at the top of the lineup for a team more generally known for hitting three-run homers. While “The Bee” was […]

Outfielder Lou Jackson, once described as a “wrist hitter with extraordinary pull ability,” appeared in 34 games for the Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles between 1958 and 1964.1 In his dozen years in professional ball, the lefty swinger went deep as many as 31 times in a single Triple-A season, and twice ranked among the […]

Fletcher Low was a “cup of coffee” baseball player, appearing in just a single game for the Boston Braves in 1915. In that game, he hit a triple, knocked in a run, and scored a run. While his baseball career did not amount to much, he went on to have a successful academic career as […]

“Honest Jack” Boyle was a “19th century multi-position sensation.”1 He was the first of only five major-league players to log 500 games at catcher and at least two seasons of 100 games or more at first base (with Joe Mauer, Joe Torre, Gene Tenace, and Mike Napoli).2 Boyle abandoned boxing to become a major-league catcher […]

“Eleven saves in two months. That’s more than Schultz had in his whole big-league career,” fumed Gene Mauch in September 1964. “He never saw the day he could get us out before,” continued the frustrated Philadelphia manager.1 In the last 60 games of the Cardinals’ 1964 season, Barney appeared 30 times, all in relief, winning […]

“Taking hits away from people,” said Dwayne Murphy, “is the part of the game I love most. I know what my reaction is when it happens to me. It’s demoralizing. Once, during batting practice, a player on another team . . . came up to me mad as hell. He told me I had no […]

The story of Tony Horton, the young and talented slugger for the Red Sox and the Indians, is ultimately a tragic one from a baseball perspective. Just entering his prime seasons at the age of 25, he was forced to leave the game because of an emotional disorder, and ultimately he never returned. Piecing together […]

He was being compared to Eddie Stanky, because of his short, stocky, build. But he also played the game with a reckless abandon like Stanky, and was given the moniker “Scrappy Jack.” He was also referred to as the “The Hammer,” if for no other reason than it was an abbreviation of his surname. But […]

Richard Arlin Billings was born on December 4, 1942, in Detroit to Arlie and Dimple Billings, and played parts of eight seasons with the Washington Senators, Texas Rangers, and St. Louis Cardinals.1 The oldest of six children, Billings was recruited to play at Michigan State while playing “federation ball” in the Detroit area, teaming with […]

Right-handed pitcher Rube Schauer had one of the most rapid ascents to the major leagues in baseball history. In 1912 he was playing for his hometown semi-pro team in rural North Dakota, and by the end of 1913, his first season in professional baseball, he was a member of the pennant-winning New York Giants. His […]

Charles Radbourn’s pitching achievements were hailed by contemporaries and sportswriters for decades as some of the greatest feats of nineteenth century baseball. Little known today, many considered an 18-inning game in 1882 as the finest athletic contest ever seen on a baseball diamond. That game was won, not by the pitcher Radbourn, but by the […]

Lenny DiNardo’s baseball career has been diverse, highlighted by a World Series ring, two no-hitters, setting collegiate strikeout records, and playing in the World Baseball Classic twice. DiNardo’s time playing baseball spanned five years in the major leagues and 11 years including college, the minor leagues, the Dominican Republic Winter League, and in the Chinese […]

Keith MacWhorter was a right-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who appeared in 14 games during the 1980 season. He was perhaps handicapped by a limited sinking fastball-slider pitching arsenal. A native New Englander, MacWhorter was born on December 30, 1955, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and spent most of his youth in Rhode Island. In […]

In the 1970s Gary Holle was a dual-sport phenom (baseball and basketball) from upstate New York who had a six-year minor-league baseball career and a two-week stay with the Texas Rangers in 1979. Born in Watervliet, New York, on August 11, 1954, to Charles and Jean Holle, Gary carved out a successful business career after […]

But for a bit of luck—if he’d been with a different organization, in which he wasn’t caught behind an all-star like Dick Groat or if he hadn’t suffered two broken bones in the seventh of what would turn out to be 10 minor-league seasons—shortstop Dick Barone might have had a longer stint in the major […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates “played headier baseball this afternoon than they have at any time in the series,” gushed Smoky City sportswriter Chester L. Smith, as the NL pennant winners beat the Washington Senators, 6-3, in Game Five of the fall classic to stave off elimination.1 The Bucs’ offense, which had scored only seven runs in […]

Wait ’til Next Year? The cry became a euphemism for a baseball season gone awry and nowhere did it receive greater play than in the 1940s and 1950s with the Brooklyn Dodgers and their long-suffering fans.1 The 1955 World Series title meant that next year was finally here. All the suffering was relegated to the […]

Baseball fans in the small-town New York-Penn League discovered an extra reason to go to games in the summer of 1975. On certain nights, there was a chance that beloved Hall of Famer Yogi Berra might join them in the stands at one of the short-season Class A loop’s modest ballparks. Yogi and his wife, […]