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Although right-handed, side-armed pitcher Clayland Maffitt “Clay” Touchstone Jr. has a sparse major-league resume — no decisions in 12 games spread over parts of three seasons, including a 16-year gap between appearances at one point — he nonetheless had a long, often successful career in the minor leagues, winning 272 games, making multiple all-star teams, […]

Eric Hetzel was selected four separate times in the major-league draft, ranging from January 1983 to June 1985. The last two times, he was a first-round pick. The Red Sox wanted him, the Royals wanted him, and the Pirates wanted him. He finally signed with the team that first selected him, the Boston Red Sox, […]

Billy Moran joined the Los Angeles Angels midway during the team’s inaugural season in 1961, but it was 1962 in which both Moran and his club broke out in a major way. The infielder, who would spend seven seasons in the major leagues, posted career numbers across the board that season. In 160 games he […]

Boston Red Sox owner John I. Taylor seems to have spent more time scouting than do many owners, but hasn’t seemed to receive much credit for it. He’s known to have signed a number of the California players who were on Red Sox teams in the 1912-1918 years, when they won four world championships. Among […]

Millions of boys have grown up dreaming of becoming a professional ballplayer. For a young Iowa farmboy named Calvin McVey playing ball for a living was the furthest thing from his mind. There were no openly professional ballclubs during his childhood. However, he was to become one of the first to play for pay, a […]

Before he died, Fabian Gaffke frequently told his family, “I hope when I’m off this earth, they play ball in Heaven.” Gaffke was “a sturdy Pole” (in the words of Milwaukee Journal sportswriter Sam Levy), born in Milwaukee’s South Side to John and Agnes Gaffke on August 5, 1913. John worked in a coke plant near the Allen-Bradley works and Agnes was […]

A tall, slender 6″2″, 175 pounds, Bob Groom possessed an athleticism, cunning, and tenacity that bespoke his roots in the southern Illinois coal fields, where his grandfather and father had found success as mine owner-operators. Born on September 12, 1884 in Belleville, Illinois, to John and Mary Catherine Dickinson Groom, he was named Robert for […]

Before Mike Lum came along in 1967, only three men born and raised in Hawaii had played in the majors, and none since 1945.1 Both before and after World War II, quite a few Hawaiian ballplayers had gone to Japan – but for mainland fans, Lum became a longstanding reminder of baseball in the Aloha […]

Herman Pillette pitched professionally in four decades, from 1917 to 1945, and won 34 games for the Detroit Tigers from 1922 through 1924. The two major-league clubs he played with were managed by future Hall of Famers: Christy Mathewson (Cincinnati) and Ty Cobb (Detroit). He was a legend in the Pacific Coast League for 23 seasons, and became […]

A power hitter and an average infielder in college, Rich Dauer reversed his strengths in the major leagues, becoming a superb fielder with just average power. Dauer is best known as a sure-handed second baseman who set a major-league record with 86 consecutive errorless games and 425 consecutive errorless chances while with the Baltimore Orioles. […]

A first-round draft pick by Pittsburgh in the 1973 amateur draft, Steve Nicosia made his major-league debut with the Pirates on July 8, 1978. Plagued by injuries throughout his eight-year career in the majors, Nicosia had a lifetime batting average of .248 and hit 11 home runs in 938 at-bats. Though he was mainly a […]

He took a long time to find his place in the major leagues. After four brief callups, a successful emergency start in 1963 gave Gary Peters a job with the White Sox on his fifth and final trial. He still managed to put up a few big seasons and 124 wins, coming agonizingly close to […]

Left-handed pitcher Bill Wight spent twelve seasons in the Major Leagues with eight different clubs. He appeared in 347 games, compiling a mediocre 77-99 won-lost record and a 3.95 earned run average. Wight does hold one record; however, it’s for batting, and it’s one he never took pride in. Pitching for the Chicago White Sox […]

Tacks Latimer was a journeyman catcher during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although his major league career was brief, 27 games and 86 at-bats spread over five different seasons (the writer Bill James has suggested that this might be some sort of record), he played professional baseball for over a decade and a […]

There are hundreds of major-league players who fall into the nebulous category of having had a “cup of coffee” in the big leagues; a baseball idiom for a short time a minor-league player spends playing in the major leagues. It could be for a single game, or a few short weeks. The time period is […]

On a warm September evening in 1995 at Baltimore’s Camden Yards, Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. helped restore America’s faith in baseball. The contentious nature of the previous year’s strike had left many of the sport’s dedicated fans wondering what the future held for their beloved national pastime. Following the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, the […]

Ed Mickelson, like so many of the 19,000-plus former major-leaguers, had a very short major-league career consisting of three cups of joe with three different organizations. But Mickelson had a very successful and memorable 11-year career in professional baseball, and has had a long and fruitful life outside of the game. Edward Allen Mickelson was […]

Widely regarded as one of the game’s best defensive catchers and the best catcher in the American League during his prime, Bill Freehan was a fierce competitor and a committed leader on the diamond. Described by sportswriter Arnold Hano as “a thinking man’s catcher” and “an elemental ballplayer,” the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Freehan displayed “an unusual […]

In September 1959, after the Buffalo Bisons, the Philadelphia Phillies Triple-A affiliate, captured the International League pennant, The Sporting News noticed Jimmie Coker, the club’s All Star catcher. He “has the assets to become … the top catcher produced in the International League since Roy Campanella graduated from the Montreal Royals,” Cy Kritzer predicted in […]

Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on September 28, 1949, Mario Miguel Guerrero Abud played over eight years as a shortstop and second baseman for four different teams. He was the younger brother of Epy Guerrero (born 1942), who is regarded as one of the greatest scouts in major-league baseball history and was responsible for […]

The Minnesota Twins were fully aware of how, just one year before, the Philadelphia Phillies had blown a seemingly insurmountable lead with very little time remaining in the season. The Twins had been on the verge of clinching the pennant for about a week when they traveled to Washington in late September of 1965. They […]

For nearly two months in the summer of 1981, major-league stadiums were empty. On June 12, after a year of negotiations failed to produce an agreement on the structure of baseball’s free-agent compensation system, the players voted to strike. With the work stoppage still in progress on July 14, the All-Star Game was postponed. Instead, […]

Willie Mays hit 20 home runs and won NL Rookie of the Year honors in 1951. Promoted May 24, he batted .274 with 68 RBIs for New York. (1951 Bowman card, courtesy of Topps)   If you begin your National League career going hitless in three road games, you may as well go for broke and […]

Shibe Park, later known as Connie Mack Stadium, goes back to the Philadelphia Athletics, its original occupant, and their owner Benjamin Franklin Shibe. When Shibe in 1901 took charge of the new team, one of eight clubs in the brand-new American League, he could not have foreseen that the Athletics would become so popular so […]