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On October 4, 1969, nearly 40,000 fans filed into Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for the first-ever American League Championship Series. Beginning in 1969 the American and National Leagues were separated into two divisions, East and West. At the end of the season, each division winner would square off in a best-of-five series to decide who […]

By the end of the 1960s, future Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax and All-Star Jim Maloney stood among the best pitchers of the decade: they were two of only seven with at least 1,500 strikeouts from 1960 to 1969; over the period, Koufax ranked seventh in victories with 137 while Maloney was eighth with 134. […]

John Candelaria, pitching in his second major-league season in 1976, recorded the Pirates’ first no-hitter in Pittsburgh in nearly seven decades, frustrating the Los Angeles Dodgers with fastballs and curves and retiring the final 19 batters he faced in a 2-0 victory on “Candy Night” at Three Rivers Stadium on August 9. In September 1907, […]

On a late-April Sunday afternoon at Crosley Field, the Cincinnati Redlegs hosted the Milwaukee Braves in a slugfest. Cincinnati battled from behind three times to defeat the defending National League pennant winners. A wild and loud crowd of 14,925 braved a chance of rain to cheer the Redlegs to victory. The seesaw game ended on […]

The visiting Washington Nationals (37-27) were enjoying an unexpected inaugural season, leading the NL East by 1 game. The Angels (37-26) were also leading their AL West Division, by 2½ games. Rookie pitcher Ervin Santana (1-1, 4.15 ERA) was making his third big-league start for the Angels. He had been roughed up a bit in […]

“The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson from the Montréal Royals.”1 Arthur Mann, an assistant to Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey, handed out the announcement in the press box at Ebbets Field during the fifth inning of the Royals’ 4-3 exhibition game victory against the Dodgers.2 Coincidentally, Jackie Robinson, […]

The Dodgers hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates for a Thursday afternoon doubleheader at Ebbets Field, with the Pirates only one game behind the Boston Braves in the National League standings. They’d been in third place for most of the season, but had tied for first for one day, June 16. The second game was a makeup […]

Jackie Robinson was relieved to be back in Montreal. The Montreal Royals, a Triple-A affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had just dropped two of the first three games of the Junior World Series in Louisville under trying circumstances. While fans of the Louisville Colonels were thrilled to see their team back in the series for […]

Rich Reese had a .322 batting average in 1969 for the Minnesota Twins. He was platooned at first base with Harmon Killebrew, who usually moved to third when a left-hander was pitching. With most of his plate appearances (nearly 80 percent) against right-handers that season, Reese figured he wouldn’t be in the lineup against Baltimore […]

Game Two of the NLCS was another extra-inning nail-biter, with the Pirates again prevailing in extra innings by a narrow margin. Only for drama, this game outdid its predecessor on several counts. Clutch hitting, controversy, terrible baserunning, heroics: it had it all. Chuck Tanner selected Jim Bibby, a strapping, intimidating right-hander, as his starter. The […]

On June 24, 1968, the Detroit Tigers routed the Cleveland Indians, led by Jim Northrup’s two grand slams, in a 14-3 victory. The crowd of 12,808 at Cleveland Stadium witnessed a piece of history: Northrup became just the sixth major leaguer to hit two bases-loaded home runs in a game. Afterward, Northrup observed, “Hitting two […]

“The Greatest Rhubarb In The History Of Braves Field” So said Boston Traveler sportswriter John Drohan in the September 28, 1951, edition of his newspaper, remarking upon the happenings at the previous day’s Braves-Dodgers tilt at the Wigwam. Brooklyn’s Dodgers were struggling to retain the top spot in the senior circuit’s standings. Their advantage over […]

On August 22, 1959, Cincinnati manager Fred Hutchinson finished writing out his lineup card for the Saturday afternoon tilt versus St. Louis. Hutch was familiar with the Cardinals’ personnel since he had piloted them for nearly all of the previous three seasons. Now, as the relatively new skipper of the Redlegs, he felt that his […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants began a three-game series at Ebbets Field on the evening of Friday, April 22, 1955. The Dodgers started the season winning their first 10 games while the Giants, winners of the 1954 World Series by sweeping the Cleveland Indians, had lost five of their first seven. The […]

This dog day afternoon at Fenway Park was “a strange and sticky day for the 20,522 who chose to watch” in person.1 Boston Globe writer Peter Gammons put it aptly: “As often happens to very mediocre pitchers on hot Sunday afternoons in Friendly Fenway, they got combed all over the place.”2 Gammons referred specifically to […]

The Watergate investigation took a mammoth leap forward in March 1973, with burglar James W. McCord Jr.’s disclosure that Attorney General John Mitchell masterminded the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters the year before. A couple of weeks after McCord’s bombshell, however, you wouldn’t recognize the increased pressure on the 37th president of the […]

The leading member of the 1947 Yankees’ catchers-by-committee group, Aaron Robinson was behind the plate in seventy-four games, more than any of his fellow backstops. But perhaps his most important role that season was helping groom his eventual successor, future Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. Aaron Andrew Robinson was born on June 23, 1915, in […]

Henry Frazier Robinson was born on May 30, 1910, in Birmingham, Alabama, to the Rev. Henry and Corrine (Black) Robinson.1 The Robinsons had seven children: Edward, Theophilus, Maybelle, John, Estelle, Henry Frazier, and Norman.2 The family moved to Oklahoma City when Frazier was less than a year old to escape the segregation of the South […]

When introducing the Orioles’ new manager in 1968, general manager Harry Dalton said, “In short, I believe Earl Weaver is a winner.”1 Weaver was short. And he was a winner. For the next 14½ seasons the Orioles won more games than any other team, piling up six division titles, four pennants, and one World Series […]

Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot Indian tribe of Maine, played in only 94 major-league games, but is remembered today as the first Native American, and first recognized minority, to perform in the National League.1 He was signed by the Cleveland Spiders in 1897, 50 years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn […]

From his birth in 1905, in West Springfield, Massachusetts, to his death in 1991, in Palm Springs, California, Leo Durocher witnessed a great deal of social, political, and international change, some of which he helped bring about. Durocher played an important supporting role in the integration of major-league baseball. His frank assessment of African American […]

George Shuba of the Montreal Royals greets teammate Jackie Robinson at home plate on April 18, 1946. (Courtesy of Greg Gulas, Carrie Anderson, Mike Shuba)   Tears welled in Jackie Robinson’s eyes as he was hoisted onto the shoulders of adoring fans, their chants reverberating off the walls of Delorimier Stadium. It was a moment […]

The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series championship in 2006, their first season at the new Busch Stadium. (Kevin Ward/Flickr.com. Used by permission: CC BY-SA 2.0.)   Introduction The St. Louis Cardinals have achieved a level of success in Major League Baseball that has been outdone only by the New York Yankees. Through the […]

Jersey City, squeezed between Newark Bay and the Hudson River, is a prime metropolis for a ballpark. For 50 years, it had one, an Art Deco edifice débuting in the Depression, thriving for the first half of its life, fading into deep neglect in the 1970s, and succumbing to eventual nullity in the 1980s. Within […]