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On a stormy Friday night in Cincinnati, the Reds won a dramatic victory over the Milwaukee Braves on a grand slam by catcher Ed Bailey in a tie game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Reds overcame a five-run deficit built by two home runs from the Braves’ Eddie Mathews […]

A starting pitcher’s offday routine includes — but is not limited to — stretches; warm-up tosses; advanced scouting notes; and, on occasion, batting practice. It’s not often that the latter task would prove vital to the outcome of a game. On September 22, 1974, pitcher Tom Griffin pinch-hit for another pitcher, Ken Forsch, and smashed […]

Way back in the 1930s and ’40s, radio fans listened to a horror program designed to scare the daylights out of people, called Lights Out. During the show’s weekly introduction, the announcer advised people to turn off their radios if they couldn’t handle the creepy happenings to come in the next 30 minutes. While they […]

Pumpsie Green’s successful Millers debut was nearly set back when the car in which he was riding in a morning parade down Nicollet Avenue in downtown Minneapolis ran out of gas.1 The parade was the idea of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce as a way to introduce fans to an entirely new 1958 Millers team. […]

“This was the best I’ve put all my pitches together this season,” said Jim Bunning of his overpowering victory over the Cincinnati Reds.1 In what Philadelphia Phillies beat writer Allen Lewis described as a “dandy display of power pitching,” Bunning matched his personal high with 14 strikeouts to win his eighth straight decision, equaling his […]

The idea of Luis Tiant pitching at Chicago’s Wrigley Field doesn’t seem unusual. Perhaps that’s because Tiant pitched some of the most memorable seasons of his long career at Fenway Park – like Wrigley, a cherished remnant of the “jewel box” era – as a member of the Boston Red Sox from 1971 through 1978. […]

It had been a terrible week for the Philadelphia Phillies. On Sunday, September 20, after beating the Dodgers in Los Angeles, 3-2, the Phillies had a 6½-game lead over their closest pursuers for the National League pennant, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. After that win, the Phillies returned to Philadelphia and Connie […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers were on a mission in 1955. The Boys of Summer were planting springtime seeds of success and entered this mid-May game in Chicago with a record of 22-2, leading the National League by 9½ games and undefeated in their first 11 road games.1  With Russ Meyer on the hill, the Dodgers had […]

Fireworks on July 4th inspire awe. That feeling continued into the following night for 35,536 patrons of Dodger Stadium, where the Cincinnati Reds mustered only a couple of hits against Johnny Podres. His 1-0 victory extended the Dodgers’ winning streak to five games.  Then in the 10th season of a 23-year tenure as the Dodgers […]

Floyd Rayford’s soft hands and even softer belly, combined with his underrated athleticism and good nature, made him an Orioles’ fan favorite in the 1980s. With the skills to play six positions — primarily third base and catcher — during his professional career, and what one manager called the “perfect temperament for baseball,” Rayford spent […]

Left-hander Drake Britton had one win and one loss in his time in the big leagues, but he has a World Championship ring to treasure forever as a member of the 2013 Boston Red Sox. It was a year in which he almost lost the opportunity to pitch. John Drake Britton was born in Waco, […]

A big man with a famous scowl and a name that felt ripped from a James Bond film, Mo Vaughn was a hulking 6-foot-1, 225-pound lefty hitter whose frame dangled over home plate. Baseballs seemed to disintegrate on impact when he exploded out of his crouched stance, extending one arm to the sky on his […]

The first owner of the St. Louis Browns, Robert Hedges was a visionary leader, years ahead of his time. He was also a shrewd businessman who maximized the value of his baseball franchise, in spite of its mostly losing ways. Hedges’ innovations and financial success in baseball contrasted vividly with his teams’ lack of success […]

A long-time left-handed pitching ace for one of baseball history’s best staffs, Dave McNally was also a legend and hero in his native Billings, Montana, where he lived his entire life outside of baseball. Though a World Series pitching (and hitting) star, he might be best known in some circles for the role he played […]

A switch-hitter with speed and the patience to draw walks, Pete Stanicek appeared to be an ideal leadoff hitter when he debuted with the Baltimore Orioles. A succession of injuries limited the second baseman/outfielder to parts of two big league seasons (1987-1988), however, and he played his final professional game at 27. Peter Louis Stanicek […]

Hennery Peck, more popularly known as Peck’s Bad Boy, was a fictional character created by George W. Peck, a newspaperman, in the 19th century. Hennery was a mischievous child whose doings became a popular term for any incorrigible rule-breaker. Hennery had a real-life counterpart in Russ Meyer, a right-handed pitcher for six major-league teams from […]

Ramón “Wito” Conde spent just over a month in the majors, in July and August 1962. At age 27, he got into 14 games for the Chicago White Sox and went hitless in 19 plate appearances. Conde had earned but did not get a big-league trial before that, and he was never called up again, […]

Though his major-league career was limited to parts of four seasons, Rod Gaspar was anything but a footnote player. While he played in only one full year in the majors, it was as a World Champion. Gaspar led National League outfielders in double plays while scoring a pivotal run in the 1969 World Series. Six […]

From his debut in the majors to his fifth and final game spanned a mere 11 days in April 1947, despite his getting two hits in that last game. But Frank Strickland Shofner played nine years in the minor leagues. Though both were Texans, Strick Shofner was no known relation to pitcher Milt “Pinky” Shoffner, […]

With a flattened nose and the grim jaw of a heavyweight boxer, Steve O’Neill looked like someone born to be a catcher, and for much of his 17-year major-league career he was arguably the best all-around backstop in the game. An extremely smart man, O’Neill did all the things a good catcher is supposed to […]

From 1975 through 1982, Dennis Lewallyn pitched in parts of eight seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and Cleveland Indians. The 6-foot-4 righty totaled a year and a half of major league service time, going 4-4 in 34 games. “I threw a sinker, slider, change-up; did not throw a lot of pitches in […]

Eddie Waitkus was a slick-fielding first baseman who in an 11-year big-league career for three teams batted a solid .285 and struck out only 204 times in 4,681 plate appearances. Although a fine ballplayer, he would today likely be little remembered but for what happened to him on June 14, 1949, in a room at […]

The Jack Kavanagh Memorial Youth Baseball Research Award was established in 1999 by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) in recognition of Kavanagh’s writing and research achievements and his contributions to SABR. The Award was presented for the first time at the SABR National Convention in West Palm Beach, Florida in June 2000. The […]

If “What’s past is prologue,” as Shakespeare wrote,1 Ruppert Stadium’s in Newark began with Charles A. Davids, a Bayside, New York, promoter.2 To most of the public, though, it begins with the baseball original for whom the park was named, ultimately housing two teams so good that to some they seemed better than several teams in […]