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San Francisco Bay Area native Tim Cullen signed with the A’s during spring training in 1972, returning to the region where he had been a two-sport star in high school and helped Santa Clara University become the nation’s top-ranked college baseball team. He did not play in the 1972 World Series and retired after the […]

For Cubs fans of the 1940s and 1950s, Bobby Sturgeon will always be linked with two other shortstops who broke into the majors during the spring of 1940 — 10-time All-Star Pee Wee Reese of the Dodgers and seven-time All-Star Marty Marion of the Cardinals. As the story goes, Cubs manager Gabby Hartnett was pushing […]

Davey Williams did not much like being the answer to a trivia question, but he was. The question is: Who caught the relay when Willie Mays made his famous over-the-shoulder catch against Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series? Williams was the Giants’ second baseman and did in fact take the relay throw to hold […]

Except for a brief September call-up in 1953, Eddie Phillips spent his entire 11-year pro baseball career in the minor leagues. Yet, during those 2½ weeks with the St. Louis Cardinals, he established a record for most runs scored in the major leagues (four) without a plate appearance or taking a defensive position. His pinch-running […]

From the hot corner, Milt Stock made vital contributions towards the Philadelphia Phillies’ first two pennants. As a second-year player in 1915, he took over third base responsibilities when Bobby Byrne suffered a serious injury during the home stretch, and helped the Phillies capture their first NL flag. For another decade, with several teams, he […]

A journeyman for most of his eight seasons in the minor leagues, left-handed pitcher Alpha “Al” Brazle overcame career-threatening arm injuries by reinventing himself as a slick side-arm sinkerball pitcher. After an unexpectedly strong first half with the Sacramento Solons in the Pacific Coast League in 1943, Brazle debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in […]

The New York Giants were known as the “Windowbreakers” when they smashed the single-season record for home runs in 1947. Leading the assault were the four big bats in the middle of the lineup: Johnny Mize with 51 homers, Willard Marshall with 36, Walker Cooper with 35, and Bobby Thomson with 29. Marshall, the left-handed […]

A perennial International League All Star, this “firebrand…of the Eddie Stanky mold”1 made only five plate appearances in the major leagues. Blocked from advancement by notables such as Bill Mazeroski and Dick Groat, Jack Damaska spent 17 years toiling in the minor leagues earning accolades from both teammates and opponents alike while also mentoring other […]

Artie Wilson’s career makes just the barest impression in the old Baseball Encyclopedia: 19 games and 24 plate appearances spread across five weeks in the spring of 1951. But both before and after that short stint with the famously fated ’51 Giants, Wilson ranked for years as one of the biggest stars in two big-time […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers had their backs to the wall. After coming back from a two-game deficit in the World Series, they lost the fifth game to the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field. Now they were back at Yankee Stadium and needed to win to keep the Series alive. After Spec Shea’s four-hit complete game […]

In June of 1954, Phillies fans had a good idea of what they were going to see when Robin Roberts was on the mound. Although Roberts and his remaining Whiz Kids teammates had been unable to repeat their team success in the years after 1950, Roberts was at the top of his game individually. Between […]

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 fireworks arrived a few days before the Fourth of July. On Wednesday, July 2, 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers blasted the New York Giants, 11-3, in the first of a four-game series at Ebbets Field to gain sole possession of first place in the National League. The next day, the Giants exploded with five home […]

When Dodgers player-manager Leo Durocher had Frenchy Bordagaray pinch-hit for him in the bottom of the fifth, the 5,010 paying fans at Ebbets Field witnessed the Lip’s final game as a player. During the offseason, Durocher signed a player-manager contract under which he not only managed Dem Bums for the 1945 season, but promised to […]

In 1911, their 11th year in the American League, the Nationals had yet to have a winning season.  The team had been so lackluster in its years in Washington that its ownership solicited fan suggestions and changed its name from the Senators to the Nationals in 1905 in hopes of inspiring a change in fortunes.1 […]

If one were to rate the excitement of various baseball plays, inside-the-park home runs (IPHR) would most likely rank very near the top. One of the game’s longest-fused events, thanks to the batter’s 360-foot trip around the diamond, IPHRs have an evergreen presence in highlight and blooper reels alike with dramatic elements like misplays or […]

The clock finally struck midnight on the Cinderella New York Giants when the New York Yankees hung on to take the 1951 World Series with a 4-3 Game Six victory, sparked by the heroics of Hank Bauer at the plate and in the field. As befitting a crazy season that columnist Red Smith called a […]

Unlike the gentleman who preceded him as baseball’s home-run king, Hank Aaron was not, by any stretch, a flamboyant figure. Babe Ruth brought excitement into every train car, barroom, and ballpark. His home runs were mammoth; his presence, electrifying. Aaron was the opposite in demeanor, bringing a quiet consistency to fans in Milwaukee and Atlanta; his career total bases […]

On May 25, 1951, the New York Giants were in the final stop of a five-city road trip, and although they were in fifth place with a 17-19 record, they were only 4½ games behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers. On the previous day they had held a press conference in New York, announcing that the […]

The Cleveland Indians boasted a big three who anchored their pitching staff in 1948. The triumvirate featured Bob Lemon (20-14, 2.82 ERA), Gene Bearden (20-7, 2.43), and Bob Feller (19-15, 3.56). They were followed by spot starters Sam Zoldak (9-3, 2.81) and Steve Gromek (9-6, 2.84). Since one of the big three had each pitched […]

During his 10-year career in the National League, Jackie Robinson got 1,518 hits in 1,382 games. His first safety came on April 17, 1947, against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field in the second game of his career. Baseball’s first African-American player in the twentieth century had made his debut two days earlier, on Opening […]

For decades the Braves traditionally started each big-league season in Boston with a handful of “City Series” games against their crosstown rivals, the Red Sox.[fn]A complete history of the City Series may be found in Frank J. Williams, The Battle for Baseball Supremacy In Boston: A Chronicle Of The Annual City “Championship Series” Between The […]

On the first Thursday of June in 1954, it seemed that everyone in the National League was in contention for the pennant. Just 4½ games separated seven teams. Only the eighth-place Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t have a shot. Because of rainouts in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Chicago, the game between the New York Giants and St. Louis […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in “Baseball Research Journal #33” in 2004. It has been republished at SABR.org in its original form. Click here for a list of upheld protests at Retrosheet.org.  It is well known that a manager may formally protest a game only if he claims an umpire has made a decision […]