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Yankee Stadium had been open for seven seasons when the summer of 1930 rolled around. The home team, featuring Babe Ruth, whose slugging changed the way major-league baseball was played, had brought its New York fans four American League pennants and three World Series championships in those years. When the Stadium wasn’t being used by […]

The bankrupt St. Louis Browns were acquired in March 1899 by Frank Robison,1 who already owned the Cleveland Spiders. To maximize his profits and his chance of winning the 1899 pennant, he moved the best players on the Spiders to his new team, which he dubbed the St. Louis Perfectos. The result was a strong […]

By Whitey Ford’s standards, 1960 had been a down year. With a won-lost record of 12-9, his .571 winning percentage was the lowest of his career. When the Yankees returned to the World Series after finishing third in 1959, Ford — who had been New York’s Game One starter in each of their World Series […]

The Washington Nationals had seen their season go south after a 50-31 start propelled them to first place in the NL East, where they remained as late as July 25. About to send John Halama, a reclamation project, to face 23-year-old Dontrelle Willis on a Wednesday night, the Nats were five games over .500 at […]

Gene Baker was not, as is sometimes reported, the first Black manager in minor-league baseball. But it was still a significant step forward when the 36-year-old took the reins of the Batavia (New York) Pirates of the Class D New York-Penn League on the night of June 19, 1961. There’s no firm record of a […]

“Pitching is called 70 per cent of baseball.”1 The Pittsburgh Pirates knocked 20 hits off 70 percent of the Brooklyn pitching staff, beating the Dodgers in an old-fashioned slugfest, 16-11, before 20,196 fans during a Sunday afternoon tilt at Ebbets Field. Ralph Kiner carried his team to victory, hitting for the and driving in eight […]

The Homestead Grays were a dynasty in Negro League baseball in the 1940s. They had won back-to-back world championships in 1943-1944 and seven Negro National League pennants in eight years. Their roster was full of a who’s who of Negro League stars, several of whom would one day be recognized for their greatness in the […]

Bunker Hill Day, commemorating the Revolutionary War battle, arrived in Boston on Monday, June 18, 1894. For those in search of sporting entertainment as the calendar crept toward the first day of summer, two National League contenders would play a morning-afternoon doubleheader at the Congress Street Grounds. The host Boston Beaneaters, winners of the previous […]

John Schuerholz spent 26 seasons as a big-league GM, winning 16 division titles, six pennants, and two World Series. In Kansas City he oversaw that franchise’s first World Series. After moving to Atlanta, he took over a team that had lost more than 90 games four consecutive years and won the next 14 division titles […]

Dick Stuart was fun – as long as you didn’t have to be on the field with him. He ran the bases head down and looking anywhere except at the third-base coach or the outfield or a teammate who might be able to tell him something, often sending his team out of the inning. As […]

Bob Tufts was one of six big-leaguers known to have converted to Judaism during their careers.1 When it came time for Tufts to select his Hebrew name, something meaningful to him, he chose Sandy Koufax. His rabbi laughed but wasn’t impressed. He shook his head and asked Tufts to pick another name. Bob selected Reuven, […]

Elston Howard was born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Emmaline Webb and Travis Howard. A schoolteacher in Sikeston, Missouri, Emmaline fled to St. Louis when Howard, her principal, refused to marry her. She worked to become a dietician, and when Elston was 5 years old, she married Wayman “Big Poppy” […]

In the early 21st century, Jerry DaVanon is probably best known as the father of eight-season big leaguer Jeff DaVanon, but he played as many years in the majors himself, starting in 1969. In contrast to his son, who played somewhat regularly for four years, Jerry appeared in just 262 games at the top level, […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   In the early 1880s prosperous tobacco merchant John B. Day re-established the national pastime in New York – operating teams in both major-league circuits with great success. In 1884 Day’s New York Metropolitans were American Association pennant winners […]

In the autumn of 1956, slightly more than three years after his minor league debut helped break the color barrier in the Piedmont League, Charlie Peete’s life seemed full of promise. He had won the American Association batting crown for the just-completed season, hitting .350 for Omaha. Beyond that, his parent club, the St. Louis […]

He grew up in the Henry Clay Village area of Wilmington, Delaware, on Brandywine Creek, near the Experimental Station of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company, manufacturer of dynamite, gunpowder, and other explosives. The products blew up occasionally, so the area may not have been a pleasant residential community. As a youngster he ran […]

“If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw and […]

It’s a common tale. A major-league prospect falters after being celebrated as a highly significant addition to the team. So goes the story of Albert LaVerne “Bunny” Fabrique, who played in 27 games for the Brooklyn Robins in 1916-1917 and enjoyed a reported, though improbable, familial lineage to King Louis XVI.1 In 1917 spring training […]

Like a lot of young players who first came to professional baseball in the very early 1940s, catcher Len Okrie may have wondered if he’d ever truly have the opportunity to play, given the Second World War. He came from a baseball family. His father, Frank Okrie, was a left-handed pitcher who appeared in 21 […]

David LeFevre, who once tried to buy the Cleveland Indians, said it: “I want to stand next to Gabe Paul when they drop the atomic bomb.”1 Because Paul was a survivor. In his first 20 years as a major league general manager, he never won a pennant and only once came close. Then he sold […]

Steve Balboni played for the New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals before he bookended brief stints with the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers around a second tour with the Yankees. He owns four World Series rings, one as a player with the Royals and three as an advance scout with the San […]

A shortstop by trade, Bob Bailor could also play the outfield quite well. In fact, he played every position but first base and catcher during his 11 big-league seasons. Bob Murphy, the late New York Mets radio announcer, said, “He’s not a heavy hitter, but he is a tough competitor.” Like Rex Hudler and Joe […]

One of the more colorful aspects of baseball history is the wide, imaginative variety of nicknames assigned to the players by their teammates and the media. Some of the sobriquets lend an air of strength and might to the recipients that their birth names might otherwise not. Edwin Snider might not have struck fear in […]

Branch Rickey was “a man of strange complexities, not to mention downright contradictions,” wrote the New York Times’ John Drebinger. The great decision to break baseball’s policy of excluding blacks, for which he is justly praised, has, in recent decades, tended to overwhelm the highly negative image he had earned before that decision. He went […]