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The story of a hometown boy making good is firmly entrenched in baseball lore. Lloyd Merritt was born and raised in St. Louis, guided his American Legion team to the national championship game, and led the Cardinals in appearances in 1957, the crafty sinkerball reliever’s only season in the big leagues during his nine-year professional […]

Unlike quite a number of major leaguers, World War II veteran Art Schallock didn’t play baseball during his time in the service. He worked as a radio operator in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater of Operations, serving aboard the USS Coral Sea. Per the aircraft carrier’s tribute site, the Coral Sea saw […]

Walter “Dobie” Moore was one of the greatest shortstops in Black baseball history. Nicknamed “The Black Cat,” he was a powerful hitter and gifted fielder. He began his career playing for the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry baseball team (a squad that produced more than a dozen Negro League players in the years surrounding World War […]

Casey Stengel is best remembered for his managerial accomplishments with the juggernaut New York Yankees of the 1950s and the bumbling, beloved New York Mets of the early ’60s, but decades earlier he was a hard-hitting outfielder who compiled a .284 batting average over 14 seasons in the National League. Planting his right foot closer […]

Few players in the history of our national pastime could match the versatility of the man Sporting Life magazine once referred to as “The finest all around player in the business besides Lajoie.” Lewis “Sport” McAllister was the ultimate utility man, making appearances at every position on the diamond during his 22-year tenure in professional […]

Elburt Fletcher was an 18-year-old minor leaguer when he shared a spring training dugout with Babe Ruth. “He still had that marvelous swing, and what a follow-through, just beautiful, like a great golfer. But he was forty years old. He couldn’t run, he could hardly bend down for a ball, and of course he couldn’t […]

Hitting for average and power and stealing bases with aplomb, the diminutive infielder was the star of the Castlemont High School baseball team in Oakland, California. Major-league scouts were well aware of the quality of play in the East Bay. Among alumni of Oakland schools were such recent luminaries as Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, and […]

His teams won more games than any team in the annals of organized black baseball. “Candy Jim” Taylor’s professional baseball career began in 1904, well before Rube Foster’s first Negro National League was formed, and his managerial tenure ended abruptly, just before the 1948 baseball season began, due to Taylor’s sudden death. In between, Taylor […]

One lone ballplayer from the U.S. Virgin Islands played in the Negro Leagues: Alphonso “Piggy” Gerard, who did so in 1945-48. Thus, when the Negro Leagues were officially recognized as major leagues in December 2020, Gerard’s honor as a pioneer was amplified. The outfielder also played during 14 seasons in Puerto Rico, where a very […]

J. Lee Richmond, major league baseball’s first full-time1 left-handed pitcher; is best known for pitching the first perfect game. He also accomplished a number of other noteworthy firsts during his six-year major league career. Because he played concurrently as an amateur and as a professional, the first rules were promulgated that banned a professional from […]

Frank Strong Lary, a talented, hard-throwing right hander for the Detroit Tigers, proved to be one of the American League’s best pitchers from 1955 through 1961. An All-Star hurler in 1960 and 1961, he was best known as the “Yankee Killer.” While fashioning a major league lifetime record of 128-116 with an ERA of 3.49, […]

The Brooklyn Robins and New York Giants were seemingly participating in different leagues though the teams were adjacent in the standings in late June of 1929. The fifth-place, 26-34 Robins were 11½ games behind the NL-leading Pittsburgh Pirates, and a half-game ahead of the Boston Braves. The fourth-place, 34-26 Giants fared better, 3½ games from […]

New Yorkers awoke to a dismal morning on June 13, 1948. Raindrops fell in spurts from low, gray clouds. A chill, unusual for late spring, filled the air. Players gathered in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium. Where was Babe Ruth? The Yankees had scheduled a celebration on this day to mark the stadium’s 25th anniversary […]

Pitcher Andy Messersmith made a deep impact on the Angels’ record book during his five seasons with the team. While some fans might remember him as a Los Angeles Dodger or a free-agent signing with the Atlanta Braves, Messersmith began his career in the majors as an Angel from 1968 to 1972. At the start […]

Walter “Red” Barber was one of the pioneers of radio and television broadcasting in baseball. Among the firsts in his career was serving as the announcer for the first Brooklyn Dodgers radio broadcast, on April 18, 1939, when the Dodgers hosted the New York Giants at Ebbets Field to open the 1939 season. By 1938, […]

Negro League team owners could see the handwriting on the wall when Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers to play in Montreal in 1946. Additional Negro League players, particularly the stars, would be sought out by major-league owners for their own teams, and the Negro Leagues’ competitiveness would decline. Despite the bleak […]

Believe it or not, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. had been in somewhat of a slump in the early part of the 1984 season. Although he started the season well, hitting safely in all but four of the Orioles’ first 23 games, in early May his batting average dropped from .352 on April 30 […]

The long love affair between Minnie Miñoso, the first black player in White Sox history, and South Siders began with a bang in his first game with his new club. Traded as part of a three-team deal on April 30 that also involved the Athletics and the Indians,1 Miñoso, called by Chicago manager Paul Richards […]

Minnesota Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew was in an unusual home-run slump and appeared to leverage a late-season exhibition game and related home-run derby to get back on track. In dramatic fashion on the next day against the Baltimore Orioles, he slammed his 500th and 501st home runs to join an elite group of nine players […]

Several hundred loyal Boston rooters blew their tin horns, banged their noisemakers, and cheered themselves hoarse against the roar of 12,000 Oriole fans. They had followed their team to the showdown series of the 1897 pennant race and had come prepared for a party unlike any other. The trip seemed such a unique and spectacular […]

“This Sabbath soiree was a great and festive occasion for the baseball fans of Flatbush.”1 Indeed! The Chicago Cubs came to town for the first Sunday doubleheader at Ebbets Field since September 15, 1946. The Dodgers hosted the Cubs in that one, too, and split the two games. The growth and eventual decline of Sunday […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2014 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   The Montreal Expos played 36 seasons (1969-2004). For the last 28, their home was Olympic Stadium – a cavernous concrete edifice built for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. From the outset, “The Big O” was notorious: hailed as […]

  Baseball only decrees 90 feet between bases and 60 feet 6 inches from home plate to the mound. Elsewhere, look backward, angel.“Thanks to Alexander Cartwright,” said former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, “the outfield distance, fence height, and space between the seats and lines vary. Parks could do as they liked.”1 Some have been liked better. […]