If you are not happy with the results below please do another search
In 1943 Joe McCarthy had kept all his Yankees players on the bench. But for this game, McCarthy, managing the American League for the seventh time, started two of the three Yanks on the team, including the battery of right-hander Hank Borowy and veteran catcher Rollie Hemsley. Borowy, the ninth Yankee pitcher to start in […]
Without a day off in the 1950 World Series, the venue shifted from Philadelphia to New York, where Yankee Stadium welcomed its 15th World Series.1 On the face of it, Game Three looked to be no contest. Eddie Lopat, who had won 18 games during the season, opposed Ken Heintzelman, who had posted a feeble […]
On the morning of August 11, 1921, the New York Giants were in second place, 2½ games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates. If the National League pennant race remained close, any one of a number of factors could be the difference between success and failure. Doubtless with some satisfaction, the Standard Union (Brooklyn) claimed, “[s]hould the […]
After a hard-fought Game One of the 1924 World Series in which Washington fell to the New York Giants, 4-3 in 12 innings, it was thought the Senators had shaken their jitters off and were more confident going into Game Two. Senators skipper Bucky Harris called on 28-year-old left-hander Tom Zachary, a 15-game winner who […]
“It’s not hype,” Orioles right fielder B.J. Surhoff said of Twins pitcher Johan Santana after the September 19, 2004 series finale at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. “He’s that good.”1 En route to his first Cy Young Award, the left handed Venezuelan dazzled the afternoon crowd in his last home start of the regular season by […]
An aging veteran, who had battled weight problems all season and was placed on waivers a few weeks before was an unlikely choice to hurl the Tigers’ first no-hitter. But that is what George Mullin did on his birthday, no less, as he redeemed himself and mowed down theSt. Louis Browns to make Detroit baseball […]
As the first Red Sox season after World War II got underway, the team got off to a very strong start, winning its first five games before dropping the second game of a doubleheader with the Philadelphia Athletics on Sunday, April 21.1 The Washington Senators came to town, managed by Ossie Bluege, and played a […]
Through 2019 the New York Yankees have played in 225 World Series games. On October 5, 1921, they appeared in their first, against the New York Giants. This was the first time the entire World Series was played in one ballpark; the venue was the Polo Grounds.1 An article in the Washington Post described the […]
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 […]
Roses have thorns. Gardens have snakes. And ballparks have foul balls. Foul balls aren’t always the downside of the sport. When they land in a fan’s outstretched hands, or roll into a child’s grasp, everyone shares the vicarious pleasure of the souvenir. But there’s no denying that every foul ball is also a missile – […]
By most measures, the game wasn’t important. It was the last of the season, played on a sunny Sunday afternoon before 5,779 fans at Arlington Stadium. No matter the outcome, the Texas Rangers were assured of their best record in franchise history and second place in the American League West. The visiting Oakland A’s, three […]
As the first season of play at Metropolitan Stadium neared its end in 1956, the Minneapolis Millers continued a tradition from Nicollet Park days by holding an “Appreciation Night” on August 27, when they played the Omaha Cardinals. In previous years the event showed appreciation for the team members by presenting them with gifts, but […]
Perhaps no baseball season has ever begun with more uncertainty than the 1918 pennant chase. As the season began, the United States had been at war for a year, during which time major-league players had been largely unaffected by the world’s events. On July 1, 1918, however, the sport’s privileged existence was shattered when Secretary […]
Tom Alston tried to hit big-league pitching while hearing voices, battling chronic fatigue, and carrying the weight of being a racial pioneer in a Jim Crow city. Alston, the first African-American player for the St. Louis Cardinals, spent most of his life in torment and poverty. He never escaped the grip of mental illness that […]
He delivered big hits on occasion but is still asked most often about a thrown ball that struck him in the wrist while he was running to first base in the 1969 World Series. “I kid around with the fans and show them how I swelled up. I just stick my arms out. I don’t […]
In September 1976 Hall of Fame inductees Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn were only the two most prominent names among a large field of managerial candidates available to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays. But the Jays startled the baseball world by selecting the hardly-household-name Roy Hartsfield as the franchise’s first skipper. But the surprise may […]
These days, a man coming from Gayville might be taunted in some circles, feted in others. There appear to be two Gayvilles in South Dakota, one an unincorporated place on the western edge of the state and the other a town in Yankton County in southeastern South Dakota. In 2010, the population was 407. In […]
He was not as flashy as his predecessor, Buck Weaver. But he was as refined and polished as a third baseman as one could find. He had quick and sure hands and outstanding range, and threw perfect strikes across the diamond. Hall of Fame pitcher Charles “Chief” Bender said he was the best third sacker […]
Whenever the name Harvey Haddix is mentioned, there is usually a reference to a 115-pitch game he threw in Milwaukee in 1959. His career in professional baseball, however, was much more — lasting parts of five decades. Haddix was born on September 18, 1925, the third son of Harvey Haddix, Sr. and Nellie Mae Greider-Haddix. […]
From 1950 to 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies won five National League pennants and two World Series. Only one man was a part of the Phillies organization during each of those five pennant years — Maje McDonnell. McDonnell joined the team in 1947 as a batting-practice pitcher and, except for the period 1966-1973, was with the […]
Wes Westrum was a superb defensive catcher for the New York Giants in New York City’s post-World War II golden years (1946-1957), when the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants won 17 of 24 pennants and nine of 12 World Series. Westrum was selected to the National League All-Star team in 1952 and 1953 and caught all […]
Four swings made Dusty Rhodes famous. The pinch-hitting hero of the 1954 World Series, when the underdog New York Giants swept the Cleveland Indians, Rhodes delivered key hits in three of the four victories. And he never had to pay for another drink in New York. “You know what Rhodes was?” his manager, Leo Durocher, […]
There were a couple of big families in Doc Farrell’s life. He was the eighth of 10 children, and had seven of his own. He enjoyed nine years in the big leagues, and seems to have had an affinity for two-team cities, playing for both New York teams, both Boston teams, and one each of […]
Dick Williams was regarded as one of baseball’s premier managers and turnaround artists. He was only the second skipper to win pennants for three different teams — Boston, Oakland, and San Diego.1 As a rookie manager in 1967, Williams led the Red Sox from ninth place the year before to the World Series. Both personally […]