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Five years after being signed to a minor-league contract by the Baltimore Orioles, Andy Etchebarren found himself starting behind home plate for the Orioles on Opening Day, April 12, 1966, against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The 22-year-old rookie not only settled into the lineup, but thrived as Baltimore’s No. 1 catcher. Etchebarren […]

“I led the American League in ERA that year [1979]. That’s what I tell everybody.”1 That was Jeff Rineer talking to the Baltimore Sun in 2006, nearly 27 years after his lone appearance in the major leagues. Rineer was the pitcher of record on the winning side in the last game of the ’79 season, […]

A towering Southern farm boy with the mind of an engineer, pitcher Ernie Shore is forever linked with Babe Ruth. Teammates on three clubs and in two World Series, they together tossed what many fans and some historians long considered a perfect game—albeit an odd one in which the Babe faced the first batter and […]

What Tommy Davis accomplished as a major leaguer on one good leg, most players would be proud to do on two. Not that this sums up his athletic career, but it is an important backdrop to his improbable baseball odyssey. Davis seemed ready to have his ticket punched for Cooperstown as he entered his ball-playing […]

For two years, 5-foot, 9-inch Bob Saverine teamed with 6-foot, 7-inch Frank Howard on the Washington Senators. But, that’s not all. The talented pair, along with several other Senators players, formed a basketball team.1 Prior to the 1968 season, newly named manager Jim Lemon watched as they played an exhibition game and defeated a team […]

When the Orioles nearly went from worst-to-first in their “Why Not?” 1989 season, Jeff Ballard epitomized their surprising success. Though he struck out fewer than three batters per nine innings, no major league lefty won more games than Ballard in 1989. By the time Baltimore did return to the post-season seven years later, however, Ballard […]

Walter Anton (“Wally”) Berger, whose hitting for power and average and steady center field play sparkled for 1930s Boston Braves clubs that had few other bright spots, set rookie home run and runs batted in standards that stood for decades. Until it was broken twice in the 2010s decade, Berger and Frank Robinson (1956) shared […]

It is one of those records that may never be equaled, much less broken. For 75 years a handful of pitchers have come close to tying Johnny Vander Meer’s record of pitching two consecutive no-hitters. But it has proven elusive for even the most elite hurlers throughout major-league history. His first no-hitter came on June […]

As of 2022, it’s been nearly 60 years since a 17-year-old took part in a major-league game.1 That was lefty pitcher Jay Dahl, on September 27, 1963, as the Houston Colt .45s fielded a starting lineup consisting entirely of rookies. Less than two years after his cup of coffee, Dahl died in a car crash, […]

Jimmy Johnston piled up record-setting stolen-base numbers in the minors, played every outfield and infield position, and contributed to the first two Brooklyn World Series teams. In 1920 he battled brother Doc Johnston of Cleveland as part of the first World Series sibling rivalry.1 Rooted in Tennessee, Johnston’s ancestors farmed, prayed, and played baseball. His […]

Before Minnie Miñoso’s cup of coffee with the Indians in 1949, another Black Cuban was the toast of Cleveland. Although Avelino Cañizares’s story is not as well-known as the Cuban Comet’s, Cañizares led the city to a coveted championship. But then, in a flash, the “Cuban Wonder” was gone. Avelino Cañizares Martínez was born on […]

Seventy-three, 61, 60, .406, 104, 130, 1.12, and 383: these are some of the best known batting, baserunning, and pitching marks in single-season history. Another received almost similar respect in the years prior to World War II but has since been nearly forgotten. When Ferdie Schupp turned in a 0.90 ERA in 1916, a standard […]

They called him “The Blazer.” As a minor leaguer he drew comparisons to Jackie Robinson. Don Blasingame wasn’t as talented as Robinson, but he was good enough to play 12 years in the major leagues, with appearances in an All-Star Game and a World Series. He married a Miss America finalist, who was the daughter […]

Porter Riley Charleston was born in Mexia, Limestone County, Texas, on January 8, 1904. Charleston’s life story is filled with gaps. His parentage remains obscure; whether or not he played in one of the Negro/Colored Leagues in Texas is not known.1 When Charleston first traveled to Pennsylvania, where his Negro League career began with the […]

In the one (and only) year that Bill Wakefield pitched in the major leagues, 1964, he set a Mets team record for game appearances that would stand up for 13 more years, and packed into a single season a full-length career’s worth of excitement and highlights, ending with a nail-biting season-ending game that decided the […]

The Olivo brothers, Diómedes and Federico, had very similar careers. Diómedes was a big-league “rookie” at the age of 41 in 1960, though rumors persisted that he was older. Federico – better known as “Chi-Chi” – reached the majors in 1961, at the age of 33. Or was that 34? Maybe 35? Diómedes spent just […]

“Jarvis fires away … That’s a fly ball, deep to left, back, back … HEY HEY! He did it! Ernie Banks got number 500! The ball tossed to the bullpen … everybody on your feet … this … is IT! WHEEEEEEEE!”— Jack Brickhouse, WGN-TV, May 12, 19701 When the curtain rang down on the 1969 […]

Ed Sukla made a career in the game of baseball, first in the 1960s and ’70s as a sinker-balling reliever for the Angels and in the Pacific Coast League, and then for decades with the Major League Scouting Bureau. Though baseball was the sport in which he made his living, he was an all-around athlete, […]

They numbered more than 90,000. To be precise, 93,103 people entered the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on May 7, 1959, to honor a squat-shaped man who played in the Negro Leagues as a teenager, compiled three National League MVP Awards, and earned the devotion of Brooklyn’s baseball fans as the catcher on the 1950s Dodger […]

St. Patrick’s Church on Magazine Street in Roxbury was in need of funds to continue its charity work in what was slowly becoming the predominantly black section of Boston. It was May 1949, and the church decided to sponsor a baseball game at Braves Field, a three-mile line drive away and home of the NL-pennant-defending […]

The Baltimore Orioles entered the 1983 World Series on an absolute roll. They took the AL East by six games and dispatched the Chicago White Sox four games to one in the ALCS. The White Sox were a very good team — they had won the AL West by a margin of 20 games — […]

As players warmed up for a National League game between the visiting Louisville Colonels and the first-place Baltimore Orioles at Union Park on September 8, 1897, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun approached Louisville player-manager Fred Clarke because he was unfamiliar with the Colonels’ battery. When pressed for details, Clarke seemed almost as confused as […]

Opening Day is usually a day of optimism, celebration, and a big crowd as fans flock to the ballpark after a long winter without baseball. Those very crowds, however, can overwhelm a team with poor ballpark security. Perhaps the modern nadir in Opening Day crowd control occurred in Chicago on April 5, 1974, when the […]

“It was the kind of game that made you talk to yourself,” wrote Lou Smith of the Cincinnati Enquirer.1 Lou Chapman of the Milwaukee Sentinel suggested that the game made fans, players, and the coaching staff “ready for the psychiatrist’s couch.”2 Somehow the Braves were held hitless for 9⅔ innings, yet won the game. Coming […]