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Clark Griffith was prescient. At the end of the 1914 season, with the Philadelphia A’s advancing to represent the American League in the World Series, the Washington Senators manager told reporters, “The best ball club in the game today will not take part in the coming world’s series.”1 He gave that distinction to the Boston […]

Bob Friend’s place in baseball history is firmly linked to his 15 seasons as a Pittsburgh Pirate. Pitching in the Smoky City from 1951 through 1965, the right-hander won 191 games, made four All-Star Game appearances, won the 1955 National League ERA title, and was a workhorse starter for the Pirates team that won the […]

At 3 P.M. on Tuesday, August 9, 1977, and then again at 4,1 baseball fans living in the area of Sherbrooke, Quebec, heard a mysterious message interrupt the French-language broadcast of that afternoon’s San Diego Padres-Montreal Expos game on radio station CHLT.2 “This is a message of special public interest,” radio newsman Richard Desmarais cut […]

Rafael Palmeiro and Rich Becker were Baltimore Orioles teammates in 1998, but the similarities ended there. Palmeiro had signed as a free agent after the 1993 season and was finishing a five-year span in Baltimore in which he hit 182 home runs with 553 RBIs. Becker had been designated for assignment by the New York […]

The headline writer for the front page of a daily newspaper is challenged to provide the reader with glimpses of tragedy and joy, victory and defeat, worry and elation, all appropriately befitting the day’s news. When Pittsburgh awoke on the morning of July 26, 1956, the headline spread across the front page of the Pittsburgh […]

After winning the 1919 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds had slipped to a third-place finish in 1920. One of the moves the team made to bolster its hopes for 1921 was the acquisition of 29-year-old left-hander Eppa Rixey from the Philadelphia Phillies in a November 1920 trade for right-hander Jimmy Ring and right fielder Greasy […]

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 […]

The Cincinnati general manager had seen enough. Sitting at home on April 24, 1960, Gabe Paul watched on TV as his club’s reliever coughed up a lead in the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. Worse was the manner in which it was done: an eighth-inning grand slam to light-hitting Phillies catcher Jimmie Coker. […]

As one of the last surviving members from the 1951 National League champion New York Giants, former right-handed relief pitcher George Spencer could speak with candor about his playing career and the current state of baseball. “My playing days are long gone, but the memories are still there. It’s a great game, it seems like […]

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, […]

Perhaps there is something quintessentially American about the son of Slovakian immigrants, a ballplayer nicknamed “Leaping Mike” Menosky, who started his baseball career with a team named the Pittsburg Filipinos and who became the man the Boston Red Sox played in left field the first couple of years after Babe Ruth was sold to the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]