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For the third time in seven years, the gut-wrenching thud of a baseball hitting a skull reverberated from the batter’s box at Fenway Park, silencing 7,395 fans and leaving Boston Red Sox and California Angels players in a state of shock. As Boston second baseman Doug Griffin squared to bunt in the first inning on […]

What happens when the worst team in the American League meets the worst team in the Class B Interstate League for a late-season offday exhibition game? Only 956 people could have told you firsthand, because that was the paltry reported crowd on the night of September 7, 1943, when the Philadelphia Athletics (44-84, 35½ games […]

The day Robin Roberts, the pride of Philadelphia, was elected to the Hall of Fame in January 1976, sportswriter Bob Gross penned an article detailing Roberts’ collegiate feats at Michigan State University and memories from his major-league career.1 Gross recounted Roberts’ bittersweet memory of a conversation he had with his father after a game in […]

It was the top of the ninth inning with a runner on first and one out. The date was September 15, 1979, and the visiting Boston Red Sox had a comfortable 5-2 lead over the Baltimore Orioles. The batter hit a ground ball to the shortstop, but instead of turning two to end the inning, […]

When inspirational writer Eugenia Price discovered St. Simons Island on the Georgia coast,1 she was already an avid baseball fan. She and Joyce Blackburn, her researcher and editor, were enchanted by St. Simons on a happenstance book tour visit in 1961. “We found St. Simons the day after Thanksgiving. From our first glimpse by that […]

Willie Mays missed nearly two full seasons due to military service. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   An Alabama Draft board summoned Willie Mays almost immediately after his debut season with the New York Giants in 1951, triggering a conscription process, necessitated by America’s military intervention in Korea, that dragged through the winter and […]

On the last day of the 1955 regular season, 18-year-old Roger Marquis played one inning in right field and batted once for the seventh-place Baltimore Orioles. That was his only major league appearance, and he was out of professional baseball altogether by age 21. Roger Julian Marquis was born on April 5, 1937, in Holyoke, […]

In 1962 sportswriter Joe Reichler named Jimmy Sheckard as the left fielder on the All-Time Chicago Cubs team. Sheckard was a left-handed slugger who batted in the middle of the order during his early years with Brooklyn, then became a leadoff man and master at getting on base in his later years with the Cubs. […]

James Arthur Willoughby was a right-handed pitcher perhaps best known for his contributions to the 1975 Boston Red Sox (including being pinch-hit for in Game Seven of the World Series). Willoughby also pitched for the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago White Sox. “Willow,” as he was often called, was born in Salinas, California, on […]

Over the course of three decades in the early 20th century, Robert Joseph Connery was a major-league scout and minor-league player, manager, and owner. He was the closest friend of Hall of Fame manager Miller Huggins, and was Huggins’s scout with both the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. Best known as the […]

During the first seven seasons of the 2000s, no team in the National League won more games or enjoyed more success than the St. Louis Cardinals. Guided by Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, the Cardinals won 658 games, five division titles, and one World Series. During the 2004-2006 seasons, La Russa handed the […]

A vital rookie starter for one of the best Pittsburgh Pirates rotations of all time, a PGA-caliber professional, and a recognized expert angler, the “Avondale Blossom” — Charley “Whitey” Glazner — was a talented and multifaceted sportsman in the truest sense of the word. Add in a veteran of the Great War, one who pitched […]

Murray “Skeeter” Watkins was a baseball lifer. He was a Negro League all-star on the left side of the infield in the 1940s for the Cincinnati Clowns, Newark Eagles, and Philadelphia Stars, and when opportunities disappeared he played in the Canadian ManDak League in the early 1950s. He would continue to play baseball for local […]

Where the nickname Tony came from is unclear, other than a likely play on his last name. In all the research done for this biography, the nickname never came up once. When any nickname was employed, he was universally called Charley. We’ll call him Charles Tonneman here. He was a right-handed catcher. He had a […]

What was Yankees manager Bucky Harris thinking? With his team leading the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3–2, with two outs in the sixth inning of Game Seven of the 1947 World Series, he sent rookie Allie Clark up to pinch-hit for rookie Yogi Berra. Out of context, given Berra’s Hall of Fame career, the move might seem […]

Though his major-league career was limited to parts of four seasons, Rod Gaspar was anything but a footnote player. While he played in only one full year in the majors, it was as a World Champion. Gaspar led National League outfielders in double plays while scoring a pivotal run in the 1969 World Series. Six […]

Gabby Street may not have been much of a batsman in his career. His high mark for batting average was .238 in 1905, a season he split between Cincinnati and the Boston Beaneaters. Perhaps he was aided by only 105 at-bats, the second lowest total of his career. There may have been a slight decrease […]

Frank Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits across 18 seasons playing minor-league baseball (1946-63) — but appeared in just one major-league contest. He played a single inning at shortstop for the Yankees in 1953 and never got to bat. Verdi is perhaps most remembered for his 24 years of managing in the minor leagues and independent ball, […]

When Ned Garver won his 20th game on the last day of the 1951 season for the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1951, he became the first pitcher in major league history to win 20 games for a team which lost 100. One of the most durable pitchers of his era, the right-handed Garver led […]

Although he was a four-time All-Star with the Boston Braves and respected throughout baseball as an excellent defensive catcher and steady hitter, Phil Masi is best remembered for being part of one of the most controversial plays in World Series history. During the bottom of the eighth inning in Game One of the 1948 Series […]

If not for two years of military service and four years at the University of Texas, baseball lifer Grady Hatton’s career as player, manager, scout, and front office executive would have surpassed a half century. Mainly a third baseman, he played in 12 big-league seasons (1946-56; 1960). Reflecting on his playing career in 1966, Hatton […]

Fans cheer on their favorite team on June 29, 2021, at Dodger Stadium. (Copyright: Steven Cukrov / dreamstime.com)   On October 8, 1957, the stockholders and directors of the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced that the franchise would move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season.1 A welcoming parade jammed downtown LA streets.2 On the steps […]

“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?” The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)   October 2020, Volume 6, Number 1 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley From the Co-Chairs Conundrums of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Profile: Mel Franks It Finally Happened: A Four-Base Over-the-Fence […]