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Shortstop Al Naples’ major-league career was limited to two back-to-back games at the end of June 1949. He doubled to right field his first time at bat. It turned out to be the only base hit of his brief time in the big leagues. Naples was born on August 29, 1926, in Staten Island, New […]

E.P. “Cy” Twombly Jr. never took to sports. Despite owning a nickname that evoked major-league baseball’s all-time wins leader, and having a father who might have preferred him to become a left-handed pitcher, he became a (decidedly right-handed) artist of international renown.1 It was his father whose prowess on the mound had earned the moniker […]

It was about a bad a brief outing as a pitcher could have, but at least it was mercifully short. Fortunately, there are other things in life that might have greater meaning than a bad outing on the mound. It was at Comiskey Park, and the Boston Red Sox were already down, 6-2, after 7½ […]

He made his big-league debut on a day when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed thousands of civil rights marchers on the Boston Common, and flourished as a pitcher during the Summer of Love. As he struggled with injuries, Americans grappled with the strain of assassinations, racial riots, and the escalating Vietnam War. Jim Lonborg’s […]

Sam Williams was born in a small, poor town in segregated Alabama, served his country in World War II, played in the last Negro League World Series, and then pitched for minor-league teams from California to Canada and from Mexico to the Dominican Republic. “It didn’t matter who I pitched against, I was going to […]

Cleveland pitcher Walter “Duster” Mails was feeling his oats, and why wouldn’t he be? He was living a dream after he was acquired by the Indians on August 31, 1920, in an effort to shore up the pitching staff. But manager Tris Speaker got much more than he bargained for when in eight starts in […]

In the spring of 1947, “uncertain” may have been the word that best described the New York Yankees’ prospects. The team that had dominated the American League throughout the late 1930s and the early 1940s was coming off an ignoble third-place finish in 1946, seventeen games behind— and seemingly light years removed from—the champion Boston […]

Lefty Sullivan had everything a pitcher could want: a blazing fastball, a knee-buckling curve, a disappearing spitball, and pinpoint control. The one thing he couldn’t do was field. Because he felt dizzy every time he picked up a bunt – a lifelong heart condition cut off the flow of oxygen to his brain when he […]

Pitcher Paul Hartzell played four complete major-league seasons (1976 through 1979) and parts of two others (1980 and 1984). He was a swingman, starting 77 of the 170 games in which he appeared. He threw 22 complete games yet also posted 12 saves, a statistical combination that is difficult to imagine in today’s game. His […]

Over the winter of 1909-10, Bill Schwartz refused to sign with the Nashville Volunteers, who had drafted him from Akron. The local paper opined that Schwartz was jeopardizing any chance he had of returning to the majors, writing that he was “easily as good as Tom Jones of Detroit and is a much better fielder […]

For a player so significant in Red Sox history, surprisingly little is known about Samuel Pond “Sad Sam” Jones. Despite his incredible contributions to the Red Sox World Series victory in 1918, the most often discussed thing about Jones is his curious nickname. Born July 26, 1892, to Delbert and Margaret Clingan Jones, in Woodsfield, […]

“What have you done for me lately?” is a common refrain heard among fans of all sports. Diehard and casual fans are known to be a fickle bunch. Any time a player has an outstanding performance in one game, he or she is the toast of the town. The next day they falter and they […]

By the time Ace Adams was born, his parents may have run out of names, because he was their eighth child. For whatever reason, they named the baby after a family friend, Ace Townsend. Many men named Adams have been called Ace, including a rapper/record producer and a pitching coach, but Ace Townsend Adams appears […]

Most commonly remembered as the pitching coach-guru who helped develop the dominating staffs for the Oakland A’s championship teams of 1972-1974, Bill Posedel had a career in Organized Baseball spanning six decades, from the late 1920s to the 1970s. He debuted in the big leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938 as a hard-throwing 31-year-old […]

In his book The Boys of Summer, author Roger Kahn relates how even after leaving daily 1950s baseball coverage to write for magazines, his “journalistic identity, such as it was, lived with my [New York Herald] Tribune stories” on the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Robert Frost consoled him, telling Kahn that “nearly everyone has to lead two […]

Right-handed reliever Don Newhauser joined the Boston Red Sox during the pennant drive in 1972. He contributed a 4-2 half-season, with a very good ERA, but appeared only briefly in the two subsequent years. “Newy” was born in Miami on November 7, 1947, the only child of Donald Louis Newhauser Sr. and Ann Sesso. “My […]

It was an inauspicious game. Both the Orioles and the Washington Senators were fighting to stay out of the cellar. The Orioles finished the season 57-97 in seventh place while the ever-struggling Senators finished 53-101. Orioles manager Paul Richards tried out rookies in quick succession during the last part of the season in an attempt […]

The New York Mets had good reason to be tired when they took the field at Shea Stadium at 1:10 on Thursday afternoon to wrap up their four-game series with the Chicago Cubs. About 12 hours earlier, manager Willie Randolph’s squad had left the diamond after an 8-1 victory that began more than three hours […]

Usually the opening game of a World Series generates a great deal of excitement. Hometown fans are thrilled that their club has reached the ultimate series to determine who will reign as the world champion. While that occurred in 1942, it played out against a different, more somber backdrop. World War II was well under […]

The 1985 All-Star Game – a 6-1 National League win at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis – lacked drama. For the crowd of 54,960, that may have been disappointing. But for members of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operated the stadium, it was a relief. In its fourth season as home of […]

In 1946, the Esquire’s All-American Boys’ Baseball Game, in its third year, was moved from New York to Chicago and was played at Wrigley Field on August 10. The game brought together 33 boys, aged 16-18, sponsored by 32 US newspapers. The players represented 25 states, and the East All-Stars played the West All-Stars. In […]

“Slaughter’s great gallop from first to score will rate with Paul Revere’s ride in the history of our country,” gushed sportswriter Whitney Martin about one of the most enduring plays in World Series lore.1 Enos “Country” Slaughter’s mad dash from first on Harry Walker’s eighth-inning smash to center field coupled with shortstop Johnny Pesky’s hesitation […]

In 1946, 11 years after the Cincinnati Reds had hosted the first night game in major-league history, the Boston Braves and New York Yankees installed lights in their home ballparks. Just three teams would continue to play all of their home games during the day that season: the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, and Chicago […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) June 2019, Volume 4, Number 2 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley From the Chair Conundrum of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) What’s a Cincinnati Base Hit? Profile: Allan Spear Bloops and Bobbles […]