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Dick “Cannonball” Redding pitched professionally from 1911 to 1936 and got his nickname from his blazing fastball that knocked back catchers.1 Redding claimed he once fired a brand-new baseball against the side of a building and the ball broke apart.2 His velocity was so legendary that some historians have wondered if Redding was the hardest-throwing […]

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 […]

During the first 25 years of the club’s existence, the public face of major league baseball in Brooklyn proceeded from team president Charles H. Byrne to pennant-winning field manager Ned Hanlon to front office functionary-turned-club boss Charles H. Ebbets. Throughout that period, the club’s chronically depleted treasury was regularly replenished by a far less visible […]

Pat Gillick served four different stints as a general manager, and during each his task was different. That he succeeded at all four marks Gillick among the very best in the history of the game. In Toronto, he built an expansion team into one of baseball’s best organizations (winning 86 or more games for 11 […]

He was the Bill Buckner of his era. Mickey Owen only committed four errors during his best year as a major league catcher, the 1941 campaign with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Three came in the regular season and one in the postseason. That last error, a dropped third strike with two out in the ninth inning, […]

Bob Burda appeared in 388 major-league games, spread widely across seven seasons from 1962 to 1972. Nearly half of those appearances (185) were as a pinch-hitter. He played first base in 106 games and the outfield in 97. He was always surrounded by established stars, which limited his opportunities. Only once, in 1970, did he […]

Everyone has his baseball dream when growing up, but few get the opportunity to realize that one special moment. On October 12, 1956, the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers played the seventh game of the World Series. The Yankees had lost the first two games but had come back to win the next […]

In 1949 Bantam Books published Joe DiMaggio’s autobiography Lucky To Be a Yankee.  It could be the title of Johnny Blanchard’s life story as well. “I was so lucky to have been a member of the best New York Yankee team ever,” Blanchard says, referring to the 1961 Bronx Bombers. “With any other organization, I […]

Bobby Grich was one of the best second basemen in baseball over a 17-year major-league career that began in 1970. During his first season, Grich played with the Orioles primarily as a utility infielder. Known for his sharp fielding and consistent hitting, Grich became a regular in 1972 and played in his first All-Star Game […]

Until the Negro Leagues were officially recognized as major leagues in December 2020, Dan Bankhead was on record as the first African American to pitch in the majors. He remains best known for that fact, as well as another: he and four brothers all played in the Negro Leagues. However, Bankhead’s big-league career was brief […]

Raising a family of nine surviving children, Henry and Sarah Jane Wiltse seemed destined to field a team of baseball players. Originally farmers in the vicinity of Richfield Springs, New York, the Wiltse name would soon be associated more with the playing of baseball than the family business of growing hops. Louis Dewitt Wiltse was […]

Earl Jesse Battey, Jr. was one of the top defensive catchers in the American League in the early 1960s. His Twins teams were in contention for the pennant in 1962 and 1967, and won the pennant in 1965, losing the World Series to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games. Battey was […]

The game meant nothing. Well, virtually nothing. The Detroit Tigers were ending a three-game series in Cleveland looking for a sweep after taking the first two contests. But that was all that Detroit was playing for on August 14, 1958. The Tigers and Indians were playing out the string, holding down fourth and fifth place […]

Any conversation about the greatest hitter in baseball history must include Rogers Hornsby in the opening gambit.1 His .358 lifetime batting average in 23 big-league seasons is second all-time to Ty Cobb’s .367 and well ahead of such all-time greats as Tris Speaker (.345), Ted Williams (.344), Babe Ruth (.342), Lou Gehrig (.340), and Stan […]

“They used to say Brantford could put its left-fielder five feet from the foul line, the right-fielder five feet from the other line and Jimmy Wilkes would cover the rest.” — Bob McKillop1 “Riding the bus again!” Jimmy Wilkes said, his voice cracking with excitement. “I love it. Now, that brings back memories.”2 The 69-year-old […]

Bill Renna was a journeyman outfielder who played in 370 games over six seasons for four American League teams. He batted over .300 for the Yankees, served as a backup for Boston’s Ted Williams, and in 1954 led the league in turning double plays as a right-fielder. His career, Rich Marazzi once wrote, was “a […]

When Charles A. Stoneham came home one night in October 1918 and told his teenage son Horace, “Horrie, I bought you a ballclub,” he set in motion a family commitment.1 For the next 58 years the Stoneham family name was synonymous with the New York and San Francisco Giants, one of the most storied franchises […]

This righty pitcher’s big-league career consisted of just one game with the 1968 Chicago Cubs. His baseball days ended after the following season because of a rotator cuff injury – but the Grambling alumnus then turned to an exciting new life as one of Hollywood’s top stuntmen. Jophery Clifford Brown was born on January 22, […]

National League umpire Cy Rigler was a model of restraint in confrontations involving disputed calls, earning a reputation as the “least thin-skinned” of his contemporaries. The genial arbiter chose the role of peacemaker, refraining from profanity and seldom ejecting a player or manager, and it’s a good thing that he did——Rigler stood nearly 6’0″ and […]

When 21-year-old Charlie Beamon debuted for the Baltimore Orioles on September 26, 1956, he became the youngest of the majors’ 15 pitchers of color since Jackie Robinson integrated the sport in 1947.1 The righthander throttled the mighty Yankees, 1-0, with a complete game, but earned only two more victories in his three-year (1956-1958) big league […]

One night at Toots Shor’s restaurant, Edward Bennett Williams was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up — an odd question for a man in his mid-30s who’d already gained a reputation as a distinguished trial lawyer. “I want to own a ball club and be president,” said Williams,1 who as a […]

The Zanesville (Ohio) Greys were a Class C minor-league baseball team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians. In 1935 Earl Wolgamot led the Greys to the best overall record in the eight-team Middle Atlantic League, and he was voted the league’s manager of the year for the second year in a row.1 His best players, though, […]

“Sooner or later you have to say, it’s my ball and half the plate is mine. Only I never let on which half of the plate I wanted.” – Don Drysdale1 As the calendar turned to September, the heated 1956 National League pennant race had one month to go. The Dodgers found themselves in second […]

Moping about the lobby of Boston’s luxurious Hotel Statler, Harvey Hendrick began talking about the dreary, pluvian commotion outside. “Boston weather is like this,” he said as he and his Brooklyn teammates watched sheets of rain and sleet blow past the hotel windows. “Sometimes it stays this way for two whole weeks. And then it […]