Search Results

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 the age of 100-pitch limits and “five and fly” starters, this sounds like a video game gone haywire: Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger each pitched 26 innings on May 1, 1920, completing the longest game in major-league history. Cadore was a Brooklyn favorite who spent his childhood in the borough and earned respect for […]

“Monge doesn’t need a rest;That’s why he’s among the best.He is one who earns his payPitching almost every day.” — Dan Coughlin, April 24, 1979   How many baseball players, good — even great — baseball players have never played in a World Series? Moreover, how many players can say that they played for both […]

“Some people say he was the greatest African American player ever. That may be so — I don’t know — but what seems clear is that he was the best black player of his time.” — Monte Irvin   The story of John Henry “Pop” Lloyd has many facets. It is a story of communities […]

Billy Moran joined the Los Angeles Angels midway during the team’s inaugural season in 1961, but it was 1962 in which both Moran and his club broke out in a major way. The infielder, who would spend seven seasons in the major leagues, posted career numbers across the board that season. In 160 games he […]

Before the Wizard of Oz, the St. Louis Cardinals had Mr. Shortstop. Marty Marion never turned a backflip, but he was the National League’s premier defensive shortstop in the 1940s and is the only man to win a Most Valuable Player award with his glove. No Scooter or Rabbit or Pee Wee, he was a […]

With two major leaguers, a third brother, Charles, who coached the Villanova University baseball team for more than two decades, and a fourth, Hugh, who coached the Hazleton High School basketball team to three state titles, the McGeehan family of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, built a towering sports legacy in the first third of the 20th […]

“You dream of things like this, but you never think of it happening to you. It’s something out of the movies.” — Mike Devereaux, October 15, 1995, after being named NLCS MVP1   Mike Devereaux became an instant hero on an Atlanta Braves team filled with future Hall of Famers. Having played with five different […]

“It exceeded all proportion, It could not be contained, It bloomed round like a dark sunrise, It glistened in the rain. The little boys with crew cuts Or blond locks oh so fair Would look and cheer with wonder At Oscar Gamble’s hair.” —Roy Peter Clark1   Oscar Gamble made his big-league debut in 1969 […]

Danny Heep was a respectable major leaguer who made a career not out of being a star, but of being a highly useful role player who fit in well on championship-caliber teams. He was born on July 3, 1957, in San Antonio, Texas, where he grew up and went to college. His father, Jacob, was […]

When even the most casual baseball fan envisions a first baseman, they conjure an image that looks a lot like Ryan Howard. In other words, a surprisingly athletic, imposing 6-foot-4, 250-pound frame that looks more natural at defensive tackle than on the baseball diamond. For a time, Howard’s production was the pinnacle of that prototypical […]

He was a sports broadcaster and former college football player from the Midwest. Tall and grey haired, he sported a crooked nose as a football injury badge. Answering to the name Harmon, he called gridiron action working for ABC telecasts. It would be understandable to many if he were often mistaken for the great Tom […]

In 1950 Casimir James Konstanty, a sometime gym teacher and baseball nomad, and Edwin Sawyer, a manager who had never played in the big leagues, led the Philadelphia Phillies to their first pennant in 35 years. Eddie Sawyer summoned Konstanty from the bullpen 74 times that season to set a record for appearances. Along the […]

On September 20, 1981, rookie Minnesota Twins third baseman Gary Gaetti unwrapped a pregame piece of Bazooka bubble gum and found an auspicious fortune on the wrapper: “Something magical will happen today.”1 And it did. In his first major-league at-bat against the Texas Rangers, Gaetti hit a two-run home run, making him the third player […]

There was no reason to expect St. Louis Cardinals catcher Glenn Brummer to play a significant role in the team’s Sunday afternoon game against the San Francisco Giants on August 22, 1982. Though manager Whitey Herzog called Brummer “the best third-string catcher I’ve ever seen,”1 that was more a reference to his willingness to work […]

Baseball fans are usually divided into two camps: those who enjoy good hitting and those who enjoy good pitching.1 On a hot and humid Saturday afternoon at Crosley Field, fans saw both. The Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds played the second game of a four-game series, and it seemed as though three Dodgers pitchers served […]

A respectable crowd1 passed through the turnstiles at the Polo Grounds for a Monday afternoon matchup between the top two teams in the National League, the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs. Included in the audience were sailors from the German Navy,2 whose ships were docked in the Hudson River. Chicago (24-18) came into […]

While pulling on his gray Pittsburgh road uniform in the visitors’ locker room at Wrigley Field on the morning on September 16, 1975, Pirates second baseman Rennie Stennett grimaced in pain. Unsure if he would be able to play, Stennett gazed down at a heavily-taped sprained ankle “which he said has been hurting him for […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates went 21-12 in August and upped their record to 70-61 as September arrived. They still trailed the first-place Milwaukee Braves by 7½ games. Their record for the first week of September was 5-3. Despite beating the Braves three times in their four-game series the previous weekend, the second-place Pirates closed the gap […]

When the Brooklyn Tip-Tops and Newark Peppers met in Brooklyn on September 6, 1915, for a repeat performance of the two states/one-day doubleheader they had played on Memorial Day, any hopes for Federal League box-office success were long since gone, especially in Brooklyn. Not only was Robert Ward’s Brookfeds team offering a lower-quality product, their […]

Before Joe DiMaggio had his 56-game hitting streak in 1941, the major-league record for consecutive games with a base hit was the streak of 42 consecutive games achieved by Bill Dahlen of the Chicago Colts in 1894. As the 1897 season began, the National League’s Baltimore Orioles had just completed their third straight pennant-winning season. […]

On a dreary Monday night at Cleveland Stadium, 22,456 fans “shivered through 3 hours and 1 minute of action,”1 including errors, arguments, ejections, a rain delay, poor pitching, and, finally, great pitching. On May 10, 1954, the Indians prevailed over the New York Yankees, 8-7. The game began with an explosion of runs in the […]

When the 1960 season ended, Washington Senators fans had good reason to be optimistic about the team for the following season. The Senators narrowly missed out on a fourth-place finish, which would have been their highest since 1946. Losing 11 of their last 12 games of the season scotched hopes for the higher finish. The […]

Hall of Famer Johnny Mize could hit a baseball. Author Joe Posnanski suggests of Mize, “He was Lou Gehrig good. He was Stan Musial good. He was Mel Ott good, Frank Robinson good, Joe DiMaggio good, Albert Pujols good.”1 So good, in fact, that in 1947 with the New York Giants Mize became the only […]