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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 […]

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 […]

The long history between the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates saw the teams play the first home game in Mets history in 1962 at the Polo Grounds and the first game ever at Shea Stadium. The Pirates won both, though for the record the Mets won the first game between the teams at Citi […]

The San Francisco Giants journeyed to Los Angeles for a late-season three-game series with the Dodgers beginning on September 21, 1970. As the series began, the Dodgers, were in second place in the National League West but 12 games behind the Cincinnati Reds. The Giants, in third place, were just one game behind Los Angeles. […]

Box scores don’t lie. But sometimes they cannot tell the whole truth. Like a classic novel, whose layers are best understood by reading its criticism, a box score’s secrets can be revealed through game stories. Context enables a deeper understanding of history, allowing the pieces of the puzzle to expose the entire picture. The April […]

“It shall be unlawful for a negro and a white person to play together, or in company with each other in any game of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, baseball, softball, football, basketball, or similar game.” – Birmingham City Code (Section 597, Ordinance 798-F)1 The rule was no longer Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor’s to enforce. The […]

Elly De La Cruz was a reason to come to the ballpark in 2023.1 Called up to the Cincinnati Reds on June 6 after an injury to Nick Senzel,2 the 21-year-old Dominican native entered this June 23 home game against the Atlanta Braves with a .321 batting average, a .923 OPS, 7 extra-base hits and […]

With almost a century having passed since the end of his fitful professional career, right-handed pitcher Hi Jasper is an elusive subject, a hard man to pin down. But two Jasper characteristics are unmistakable. He had ability — such astute talent evaluators as Jimmy Callahan, Frank Chance, and Pants Rowland recognized his merits. Yet Jasper’s […]

Rookie Granville Lyons received his first shot in the Negro Leagues in 1931 after Willie Bobo, the starting first baseman for the Nashville Elite Giants, died during winter ball on the West Coast following a night out in Tijuana, Mexico. Three years later, in July 1934, Lyons experienced quite the 11-day stretch in the Negro […]

Pitcher Jim Hannan appeared in 276 major-league games as a starter and reliever from 1962 through 1971, winning 41 of his 89 decisions. During both his playing days and post-playing days, he participated in and had an impact on several historic baseball moments. On the field, he was a senior member of the Washington Senators […]

“And in no field of American endeavor is invention more rampant than in baseball, whose whole history is a lie from beginning to end. … The game’s epic feats and revered figures … all of it is bunk, tossed up with a wink and a nudge.” — John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden […]

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, Frank […]

Russ Snyder inked his first professional baseball contract with the New York Yankees in August 1952, just three months after graduating from high school.1 The next summer he was the top hitter in the minors – compared at the plate, on the bases, and in the outfield to Mickey Mantle,2 possibly a cross-pollination of Ted […]

Fred “Bones” Ely did not become an everyday starter in the major leagues until he was 30 years old, but then he spent nearly a decade as one of the game’s top defensive shortstops. He gained lasting fame, however, for losing his job with the Pittsburgh Pirates to one of the greatest players in baseball […]

The title of a Shakespearean play, All’s Well That Ends Well, seems to fit the life of George Provens. In the midst of some tough years in his 20s fell a genuine bright spot, a brief stint with the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American League in 1945. Though that achievement didn’t turn his life […]

Catcher Dave Criscione spent one month with the Baltimore Orioles in the summer of 1977. Though he appeared in just seven games, he made the most of them, receiving three standing ovations in one and connecting for a game-ending home run in another. David Gerald Criscione (pronounced KRUH-shone) was born on September 2, 1951, in […]

Gaylord Perry, one of the premier pitchers of his generation, won 314 games and struck out 3,534 batters, but his place in baseball history rests mainly with his notorious use of the spitball, or greaseball, which defied batters, humiliated umpires, and infuriated opposing managers for two decades. But make no mistake: he was also a […]

Brothers Bob and Ken Aspromonte were both graduates of Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School and both became major-league ballplayers. Ken was the eldest of the two, by nearly seven years, but Bob made the majors first, breaking in with the Brooklyn Dodgers (for all of one at-bat) in 1956. He didn’t return to the big leagues […]

While appearing in only 176 major-league games over six seasons, George McConnell split his time among three leagues (American, Federal, and National) and between two positions requiring different skill sets (first base and pitcher). McConnell’s versatility hampered his development, because he could not focus on pitching until after he had passed his athletic peak. A […]

Infielder Ted Schreiber was #10 in the long list of New York Mets third basemen. He played just 39 games as a utilityman for Casey Stengel in 1963. Of his 55 plate appearances, the most significant was his next to last — the final regular-season out made in the Polo Grounds. Second base was his best […]

The Dodgers had another chance to stop the Yankees’ World Series winning streak at nine games.  Brooklyn had blown a golden opportunity to at least tie New York in the top of the seventh but Pee Wee Reese ran into an out and Dixie Walker’s subsequent groundout ended the threat.  Dodgers manager Leo Durocher was […]

He threw a ball as fast as Amos “The Hoosier Thunderbolt” Rusie, hit the ball as “hard as any man in the league,” and was versatile enough to play every position except catcher.1 His name was Jack Stivetts. In an 11-year major-league career that began with the St. Louis Browns of the American Association in […]