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The Cleveland Indians hosted the Boston Red Sox for a doubleheader on the first Sunday in August 1958. The two teams were pretty much neck-and-neck in battling with four other teams for second place in the American League standings, with the Yankees far out in front of the tightly-bunched pack. The Indians were 17 games […]

The visiting White Sox (40-26) were leading the American League by 4½ games over Detroit. The Orioles at 32-35 were tied for seventh, 8½ games back. The Orioles sent Steve Barber (4-7, 4.04 ERA), the wild left-hander, to the mound. In his 13 games so far in 1967, he had allowed 38 hits … and […]

The measurement of Jackie Robinson’s success as the first major leaguer to break the color barrier was based less on statistics than on his courage, temper, and mental acuity. But the experiment conceived by Branch Rickey and performed by Robinson would have been a fruitless endeavor had Robinson not produced on the field.  In fact, […]

Jackie Robinson never thought the abuse would happen in New York City. He was accustomed to receiving this kind of racial vilification — the vitriol and vulgarity heaped on him simply because of the color of his skin — in the Jim Crow South, where blacks, if not inured to the humiliation, at least knew […]

In the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967, Detroit police raided an after-hours “blind pig,” an unlicensed bar, at 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue in the center of the city’s oldest and poorest black neighborhood.1 A party at the bar was in progress to celebrate the return of two African-American servicemen from Vietnam. […]

Like all the other major-league teams, the Boston Red Sox had lost many of their best players to military service during World War II. In 1945 five pitchers who had been regulars, Tex Hughson, Joe Dobson, Mickey Harris, Earl Johnson, and Mace Brown, were serving in the military. The Red Sox had finished in fourth […]

The 1947 All-Star Game was played for the first time in Wrigley Field and only the second time in Chicago. Fueled by fan complaints about the All-Star selection process in 1946, major-league baseball had returned the vote to the fans for 1947 for the eight position players in each league. Not surprisingly, Joe DiMaggio, who […]

The 1970 Cincinnati Reds [102-60] ran away with the National League East by 14½ games before taking three straight from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs. Their opponents in the upcoming fall classic were the Baltimore Orioles who were attempting to rebound from a demoralizing World Series loss to the New York Mets the previous […]

The third-place Brooklyn Superbas arrived in Philadelphia in late June 1913 for five games with the National League-leading Phillies. For the Superbas, it was the final stop on a 28-game road trip; Brooklyn had not played in its newly opened ballpark, Ebbets Field, since May 26. Both Brooklyn and Philadelphia were exceeding expectations. If Brooklyn […]

“It shall be unlawful for a negro and a white person to play together, or in company with each other in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, baseball, softball, football, basketball, or similar game.” – Birmingham City Code (Section 597, Ordinance 798-F)1 The rule was no longer Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor’s to enforce. The […]

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 the St. Louis Browns to make Detroit […]

Jack Maguire signed a minor-league contract to play in the New York Giants system at the age of 18. Although he eventually ended up playing only 45 games for the Giants, mostly as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner, Maguire brushed against baseball history. In May 1951 the Giants sent Maguire on waivers to the Pittsburgh Pirates. […]

The day the Yankees won Game Two of the 1953 World Series, 17-year-old Frank Leja was in New York signing a contract that made the sports pages across the country. The second-youngest Yankee ever reportedly received a $100,000 bonus.1 But like many mid-1950s “bonus babies,” Leja was a victim of the revised “bonus rule” of […]

Monroe “Dolly” Stark – not to be confused with his namesake Albert “Dolly” Stark, the first Jewish umpire in modern baseball – endured an Odyssean journey through baseball.  Monroe Stark, the original “Dolly Stark,” logged an itinerant career in baseball from 1904 to 1922 in several minor leagues, as well as a brief fall call-up […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]