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A child approached Baltimore Oriole third baseman Brooks Robinson seeking more than an autograph. The bold youngster peppered the Hall of Famer for fielding tips as well. “Keep [your] glove down, near the dirt [and always practice]”1 was the sage counsel, and the “Human Vacuum Cleaner’s” advice was heeded. By 1970, the former child, Jim […]

A manager remembered for trying to convert Christy Mathewson to a first baseman. A sportswriter considered “a loudmouthed front-runner with little-to-no credibility.”1 A team president banned from his league. Such is Horace Fogel’s place in baseball history, with much of this colorful reputation well deserved.2 Yet Fogel is also a tragic figure, led to heights […]

Outfielder Chaney White had a 17-year career in the Negro major leagues from 1920 through 1936. During that time, he was a member of numerous championship teams that included squads in various Negro Leagues, the Cuban Winter League, the Florida Hotel League, and the California Winter League. In 1934, at age 40, he was still […]

Four men named Dave Roberts have played major league baseball. David Leonard Roberts, who appeared in 91 games in the 1960s for the Houston Colt .45s and Pittsburgh Pirates, is probably the least known, at least in the United States.1 But across the Pacific in Japan, that Dave Roberts is by far the best known […]

“Hitters would dig a hole and really get anchored with their back foot. Willie Mays dug in sometimes with both feet and he looked up and realized it was Drysdale. I don’t think he was even thinking at the time. He called time out and filled up the hole as if to say, ‘I made […]

A two-month stretch during the summer of 1955 elevated Billy Klaus from a cup-of-coffee nobody to a Boston civic hero before he settled into a journeyman role. He played four seasons with the Red Sox and seven more with four other teams before retiring as a major-league player in 1963. At 5-feet-9 and 165 pounds, […]

A strong, quiet, and athletic 205-pounder who stood 6-feet-2, wore glasses, batted from the left side, and threw right-handed, Norm Siebern split time between first base and the outfield for six major-league teams. Originally a Yankee, he played in two World Series for New York, and was part of the package the Yankees sent to […]

In April 1954, as Philadelphia Athletics third baseman Jim Finigan was launching his major-league career, The Sporting News contributor Art Morrow characterized him “as a fellow who could not miss major league stardom.”1 Earle Mack, a son of future Hall of Fame skipper Connie Mack, echoed the sentiment five months later: “[Finigan] played good, steady […]

Joe Herr was a power-hitting shortstop in St. Louis in 1888, first for the minor league St. Louis Whites of the Western Association, and then for the St. Louis Browns in the major league American Association. Between the two clubs that year he hit seven home runs, three of which went over the left field […]

A diminutive lefty who was one of baseball’s biggest stars of the rollicking 1890s, Wee Willie Keeler continued to “hit ’em where they ain’t” through the first decade of the Deadball Era. The tiny (5-feet-4½-inches, 140 pounds) right fielder’s career covered 19 big-league campaigns, and in 13 of them – every year from 1894 to 1906 […]

Joe Burt Scott’s professional baseball career intersected with the emerging opportunities in the sport following Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the waning years of the Negro Leagues. This left-handed first baseman and outfielder was 26 years old in 1947, when he hit .400 for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro […]

James Thomas “Jim” Northrup, who was born and raised in a small town in Michigan, starred in several sports, including baseball and football, at Alma College, also in Michigan. Later, he made it to the major leagues and enjoyed a fine career as an outfielder with the Detroit Tigers. Highlighting his fourth full season with […]

The man who broadcast Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers recalled that, as a boy in Sanford, Florida, “I saw black men tarred and feathered by the Ku Klux Klan and forced to walk the streets. I had grown up in a completely segregated world.” Red Barber confessed that when he learned the Dodgers […]

With multiple hits in four of his past five games, Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Dode Paskert probably felt frustrated after popping up on the infield against New York Giants rookie Jeff Tesreau to lead off the bottom of the first inning on September 6, 1912. But what should have been an easy out for the […]

 Thanks in no small part to Bruce Markusen’s 2009 work, The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, even non-Pirates aficionados are now familiar with the story of how, at Three Rivers Stadium on September 1 of that year Danny Murtaugh filled out a lineup that featured, for the first time […]

At the end of June 1920 the National League pennant contenders were tightly bunched behind the defending champion Cincinnati Reds. The Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals were in a virtual tie for second, three games out. The greatest surprise among these contenders was the Cardinals — the year before, they had finished […]

Baseball’s All-Star Game was played at Griffith Stadium in 1937 and 1956, and now it was time for another generation of local baseball fans to gather at the new District of Columbia Stadium to watch the feats of the greats. History told us later that the 1962 All-Star Game featured 18 future Hall of Famers.1 […]

When the Red Sox season ended on September 28, 1975, Andy Merchant trotted off the field and the Red Sox had only their third American League postseason berth since 1918. The Red Sox had clinched the division title the day before, thanks to the New York Yankees, who had swept a doubleheader from the second-place […]

The 1946 Negro League World Series played between the Negro National League’s Newark Eagles and the Negro American League’s Kansas City Monarchs was one of the great postseason series in the history of professional baseball. The Series was closely contested, going the full seven games, and is one of the most interesting focal points in […]

Roberto Clemente on Opening Day of the 1960 season. (Courtesy of Dennis Morgan/Pittsburgh Courier Archives.)   An MVP, a Cy Young, two future Hall of Famers and a world championship, the Pittsburgh Pirates presaged all these honors by battering the Cincinnati Reds, 13-0, in their 1960 home opener. Pirates shortstop Dick Groat scored three runs […]

When the New York Yankees won the first two games of the 1947 World Series, many fans started calling it the “worst World Series in history.”1 After Brooklyn beat the Yankees 9-8 in Game Three, Dodgers fans showed up at Ebbets Field hoping to see their team even the Series. History-minded Brooklyn fans might have […]

From 1883 until 1906, the Boston entry in the National League was often known as the Beaneaters. They finished first in the league standings in 1883, 1891-1893, and 1897-1898. The team had such well-known players as Tommy McCarthy, Old Hoss Radbourn, John Clarkson, and Jimmy Collins, as well as their manager, Frank Selee, all of […]

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” The quote, attributed to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, also describes the circumstances behind the lone pitching win of Johnny O’Brien’s career in an afternoon game on July 3, 1956. Johnny and his identical twin brother, Eddie, were signed off the Seattle University campus by Pittsburgh to bonus contracts […]

“The greatest invention since the cotton gin”?1 Television or maybe the transistor radio? No, it was a batting helmet that the Brooklyn Dodgers team physician, Dr. Eugene Zorn, was referring to, one that prevented serious injury to Milwaukee Braves infielder Joe Adcock when he was beaned on August 1, 1954, at Ebbets Field. As several […]