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On August 15, 1966, Boog Powell of the Baltimore Orioles delighted Chesapeake Bay’s baseball fans when he swatted three balls into the Fenway Park stands. The 230-pound, 6-foot-4 first baseman was responsible for all the runs scored in Baltimore’s 4-2 victory over the last-place Boston Red Sox. Powell’s feat in the 11-inning contest secured the […]

Before Jackie Robinson had been in the National League a month, some observers were ready to write him off and declare baseball’s “great experiment”1 a failure. “There is no assurance that Jackie Robinson will continue as [the Brooklyn Dodgers’] first baseman,” sportswriter Lou Smith informed readers of the Cincinnati Enquirer hours before Robinson’s first appearance […]

It was a season when Jackie Robinson was supposed to be slowing down. He was 35 and some critics already considered Robinson to be one of the “aging” veterans. But on this day, the small crowd of 10,574 at Forbes Field saw a thrilling 13-inning game in which Robinson doubled home the winning run and […]

“The fans had departed, and the stands were dark.”1 This was the description of the end of the game on July 1, 1970, at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. The Baltimore Orioles, headed to their second of three straight American League pennants and a World Series title, had defeated the visiting Cleveland Indians, 3-0, as rising ace […]

Jim Palmer gained national acclaim early in his major-league career by hurling a four-hit shutout against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game Two of the 1966 World Series. He was the youngest pitcher (age 20) to toss a complete game shutout in the history of postseason play. The Orioles went on to sweep the heavily […]

August 2, 1970, was a nice hot, sunny Sunday afternoon in Baltimore. The city, like the rest of the country, was in the middle of a dry spell. Sweltering heat brings bad moods, but as the 1970 progressed, the Orioles fan base had little to complain about – and certainly not when they played the […]

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 […]

Chicago White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura joined the record books by blasting two grand slam home runs in a 14-3 victory over the Texas Rangers in a Monday night game at The Ballpark in Arlington. The White Sox put up eighteen hits and scored in each of the first five innings in a dominant […]

The Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers concluded a critical August four-game series with a scorcher. Playing on a Monday night before a crowd of 26,852, the Reds and Dodgers endured “the 93-degree heat which had simmered down from an even 100 at 3 p.m.”1 Frank Robinson’s 10th-inning walk-off grand slam was the shattering and […]

The year 1971 was a good time to be a sports fan in Baltimore. The Baltimore Colts had won Super Bowl V earlier in the year, defeating Dallas 16-13. It was the Colts’ third NFL championship. Earlier in the spring, the Baltimore Bullets made it to the NBA finals before getting swept by Milwaukee. And […]

When his barrier-breaking tour of the National League reached Pittsburgh a month into the 1947 season, Jackie Robinson extended his double-digit hitting streak with a burst of speed and surprise, but three Pittsburgh Pirates home runs, all benefiting from Forbes Field’s newly shortened outfield, yielded a 7-3 win over Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers on May 15. […]

Entering the 1977 season, expectations were low for the Baltimore Orioles. After they won 88 games the season before and finished second behind the pennant-winning Yankees, many experts were picking the Orioles to finish in the lower half of the American League East. The lowered expectations were primarily due to major-league baseball’s first year of […]

The defending National League champion Cincinnati Reds were languishing in fourth place with a 44-36 record, 9½ games behind the league-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, heading into a July 8 Crosley Field Sunday doubleheader against the expansion Houston Colt .45’s.1 The games would unofficially mark the end of the first half of the season since they […]

The Bicentennial loomed as the Cleveland Indians played a game at the home of their Triple-A affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens, on June 30, 1976. But by the end of the game, the 5,013 fans in attendance would see a different kind of fireworks. Instead of having a day off before starting a crucial series […]

In late April of 1967, the Detroit Tigers traveled to Baltimore to play four games against the defending world champion Orioles at Memorial Stadium. The Orioles’ Dave McNally bested the Tigers’ Denny McLain in the first contest, 5-3. Detroit’s Mickey Lolich evened the score the following day by defeating Wally Bunker, 4-2. On April 30, […]

Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers were slumping as they prepared to wrap up the season series with the sixth-place Cincinnati Reds (64-79) in Flatbush. Skipper Chuck Dressen’s squad still possessed the best record (89-53) in the big leagues and held a comfortable three-game lead over the New York Giants in the pennant race, but […]

As he walked to elementary school in La Jolla, California, Bruce Robinson tested his throwing arm with rocks. “I had to hit every sign from a certain distance or I couldn’t go to school,” he said. “I was on a mission from the time I was about 10 years old to become a major league […]

“Baseball had always been in my blood,” said versatile infielder Frankie Gustine, who signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a 16-year-old athletic prodigy in 1936. One of the most popular Pirates of his era, Gustine debuted as a September call-up in 1939 and was named to three consecutive NL All-Star teams (1946-1948) as a second […]

At the turn of the 20th century, Emmet Heidrick was one of the best players in baseball. A .300 hitter, he could drop a “tantalizing bunt” or drive the ball to the fence.1 As a baserunner and basestealer, he was speedy and aggressive. And as an outfielder, “Snags” was considered “the best fly catcher in […]

On graduation day in 1954, San Diego High School star athlete Floyd Robinson was signed personally by Bill “Chick” Starr, the owner of the Pacific Coast League San Diego Padres, for a reported $500 bonus.1 He appeared in three games — two in the outfield. He was 3-for-6 at the plate, and handled all eight […]

Franklin Walter Olin was born on January 9, 1860, in a backwoods logging camp in Woodford in the southernmost corner of the Green Mountains, near the Vermont-Massachusetts line. From that humble origin he went on to build a multi-million-dollar business that became the giant Olin Corporation, one of the largest in America’s military-industrial complex. En […]

In the eyes of Pittsburgh Pirates fans, Don Robinson showed up right on time for a city and a team looking for homegrown talent to fill out the Pirates pitching staff and add a piece to a team capable of winning a pennant in the late 1970s. Had the Philadelphia Phillies selected Robinson in the […]

In 1889 the Cincinnati Enquirer ran a human-interest story about Yank Robinson’s entry into professional baseball. The story centers on a “stickily-built lad of about 18 years whose ragged clothing caused much unfavorable comment.” He had just come to an unspecified Massachusetts town that day and asked to be part of practice as the town […]

Earl Robinson was a two-sport star at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1950s, leading the Golden Bears to the College World Series and finishing his basketball career among the school’s all-time leading scorers. After becoming the first African American to receive a bonus contract, he spent parts of four seasons between 1958 and […]