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While Fred Cone didn’t have much of a career at the plate with a mere 20 hits in his only season, he banged out one-quarter of those hits in one memorable game for the 1871 Boston Red Stockings. In the team’s July 12 game against the Fort Wayne Kekiongas, Cone collected five hits in a […]

“How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.” – Vin Scully1   Twenty-eight miles south of Pittsburgh, roughly along the Monongahela River (Western Pennsylvanians call it the Mon and the Mon Valley) lies the town of Donora. Donora and the surrounding communities were once a fairly thriving multi-ethnic area […]

Hy Vandenberg was a big right-handed pitcher, 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, who debuted in the majors in 1935 but didn’t win his first game until 1940 and didn’t win his second until 1944. Thanks to the war years, he was able to compile a 15-10 record in the big leagues and win 139 games in […]

This righty pitcher’s big-league career consisted of just one game with the 1968 Chicago Cubs. His baseball days ended after the following season because of a rotator cuff injury – but the Grambling alumnus then turned to an exciting new life as one of Hollywood’s top stuntmen. Jophery Clifford Brown was born on January 22, […]

Hardrock Johnson: it’s one of the great tough-guy names. Roy Johnson got the monicker as a minor-league manager in Arizona, circa the late 1920s, because “he was a stickler for hard playing.”1 Johnson, a righty pitcher, was in the majors for part of just one season, 1918. He posted a 1-5 record in 10 games […]

A lefty reliever with a devastating curveball, Tippy Martinez pitched for 14 major league seasons from 1974 to 1988. Between starting his career with the New York Yankees and ending it with the Minnesota Twins, he spent 11 years with the Baltimore Orioles, where he was an All-Star and World Series champion in 1983. That […]

When Bowie Kuhn was named the fifth Commissioner of Baseball in early 1969, he was touted by owners as the man needed to modernize and strengthen the game of baseball, which was declining in popularity as pro football’s increased. It was a time, Daniel Okrent noted, when professional baseball was fighting for survival.1 Kuhn, a […]

More than 19,000 players have played Major League baseball, but Dr. Bobby Brown’s life story has no parallel. He played professional baseball on a team that won five world championships, was a practicing cardiologist in Texas, served as interim president of the Texas Rangers, and spent 10 years as president of the American League. Robert […]

A lifelong pursuit toward a ministerial career was put on hold for 21 years while the devoutly religious Lindy McDaniel labored in his temporary gig as a major-league hurler. During the interim employment he alternately became both the “toast of the town … [and] the roast of the town with his ups and downs.”1 Possessor […]

A two-year stint with the Cincinnati Reds, a fight with Honus Wagner, followed by a lengthy career as a successful mid-Michigan baseball man highlighted the career of John Albert Morrissey. Born to Irish immigrant parents in Lansing, Michigan, on May 2, 1876, he was the eldest child of Thomas and Catherine Morrissey. His father was […]

At age 25, after becoming the best hitter in three different minor leagues – preceded by two-years’ service as an officer in the US Navy – Frank Saucier was the St. Louis Browns’ most sought-after and anticipated post-World War II rookie since the club signed future 20-game-winning pitcher Ned Garver and slugger Roy Sievers, the […]

In 1962 the Los Angeles Times veteran sportswriter Braven Dyer offered in three short sentences an apt analysis of the brief career of Ron Moeller: “Moeller is something of a problem pitcher. At times, he seems to have everything. The next time out, he seems devoid of confidence.”1 Emerging on the major league stage in […]

Disco music peaked in the United States with the top six songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the week ending July 21, 1979. At the time, “Disco Dan” Ford was starring for the California Angels club that was headed for that franchise’s first postseason appearance.1 Although the musical genre quickly fell out of […]

In Detroit’s Briggs Stadium on April 17, 1951, Opening Day, 43,470 fans braved 39-degree weather to watch the Detroit Tigers host the Cleveland Indians. For the Tigers, veteran third baseman George Kell was out with an injury. Indians first baseman Luke Easter, also was injured but started and played five innings (two singles) before being […]

“Running! turning! leaping! like little Al Gionfriddo — a baseball player, Doctor, who once did a very great thing.” The great thing novelist Philip Roth described took place on October 5, 1947. It was Game Six of the World Series. Outfielder Al Gionfriddo, a little-used reserve, made a racing, twisting catch in deep left-center at […]

Andrés Mora was one of Mexico’s greatest sluggers. He could easily have been the all-time home run king south of the border, had he not spent time in the United States. By his own choice, he went back home – still aged just 24 – after four unfulfilling partial seasons in the majors. When he […]

Stan Benjamin used to say, “If they let you steal first base, I would have batted a thousand.”1 He was easygoing with a great sense of humor, often self-deprecating. His personality must have been forged early in life because a cartoon of the top regional high-school football players in 1932 labeled him “happy-go-lucky” and showed […]

\Baseball aficionados know that trades, sales, and waivers are a part of the game. The general manager of the 1951 Chicago White Sox was Frank Lane, who earned the nickname Trader Lane for his propensity to exchange players. His attitude must have filtered down through the organization because minor-league director John Rigney engineered a trade […]

Frederick Romaine Applegate, who won one of three decisions pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1904, was born on May 9, 1879. His father, James, emigrated from England to America in 1871. James settled in Williamsport, Pennsylvania’s timber-industry hub, where he worked as a grocer. In April 1878 he married New York native Mary Williams.1 […]

Wiley Piatt burst onto the major-league scene in 1898 with the Philadelphia Phillies. With just one year of minor-league ball on his resume, he tossed over 600 innings the next two seasons and won 47 games while orchestrating 64 complete games. None of those heroics earned him a lasting nickname. That had to wait until […]

Those Americans who grew up in the Great Depression, went to fight in World War II, returned home, and went to work bringing the country back to life are now called, thanks to Tom Brokaw, the “Greatest Generation.” Such a man was James Bartholomew Prendergast — who also happened to play professional baseball. He worked […]

Though Thomas Austin Brewer Jr. was a lifelong resident of Cheraw, South Carolina, he was born in North Carolina on September 3, 1931.1 Cheraw lies in the northern part of South Carolina and was a town of a few thousand inhabitants in 1931 so it happens that the nearest hospital was in Wadesboro, North Carolina, […]

Long before launch angles, exit velocities, infield shifts, and OPS calculations, Clarence Jones taught the basics of hitting to some of the greatest players in Atlanta Braves history. Jones played 19 seasons of professional baseball as an outfielder-first baseman. Though his major-league career totaled 58 games with the Chicago Cubs, Jones won two US minor-league […]

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw celebrates after closing out Game Six of the 1980 World Series, clinching the first championship in franchise history. (Courtesy of the Philadelphia Phillies)   In the Beginning The first National League game in Philadelphia was played in 1876 with the Boston Red Stockings facing the Philadelphia Athletics, one of several […]