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Richie Hebner entered the 1976 season without a contract. Given what the Pittsburgh Pirates wanted to pay him, it’s understandable. General Manager Joe L. Brown offered a 20 percent pay cut—the highest reduction allowed—after Hebner, who had broken into the majors playing in two games with the Pirates in 1968, refused to agree to an […]

Sports columnist Charles Johnson wrote of the 1961 Twins team: “Actually it’s strange that a team which hasn’t played .500 ball at home can keep the spectators excited, enthused and applauding.”1 It was more than just the fact that it was the first year of major-league baseball in Minnesota. It was the kind of competitive […]

The Sporting News’s headline for the April 29, 1955, game between the Fort Worth Cats and Dallas Eagles was “Cats, Eagles in Long Thriller,”1 but the significance of this game extends beyond the back-and-forth drama in this marathon between longtime minor-league adversaries. It was the last series between the Cats and Eagles before the death […]

“It was just another one of his usual days. I got over being amazed at him 10 years ago.” – Ken Boyer, speaking of Stan Musial, September 27, 19621 “I’ll just have to try to stroke the ball to left field. O’Dell has good breaking stuff.” – Stan Musial, September 27, 19622   A late […]

Major-league brothers are relatively rare. Brothers playing in the same game are even rarer. Brothers filling the positions of pitcher and catcher at the same time are rarer yet. But that’s what occurred with Andrew Romine and Austin Romine for the Chicago Cubs against the Milwaukee Brewers on August 12, 2021. The circumstances for this […]

The starting pitcher for the Yankees was Aaron Small. In the late 1980s, he, Jason Giambi, and future Yankee Cory Lidle pitched together at South Hills High School in West Covina, California. When asked which one was the best, Giambi smiled and said, “I think if you were to ask scouts back then, I think […]

Willie Mays hit a career-high 52 home runs in 1965. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Before a crowd of 8,922 at Candlestick Park, Willie Mays hit his 44th and 45th home runs of the season to lead the San Francisco Giants over the Houston Astros, giving San Francisco the outright lead in the […]

In a time when baseball players from the Dominican Republic were just beginning to populate major-league rosters, the Dominican-born Alou brothers—Felipe, Matty, and Jesús—made history in 1963 by becoming the first instance of three brothers appearing as teammates in a major-league game. Their place in baseball history is also defined by their becoming part of […]

From Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale to Sam McDowell, Bob Veale, and Jim Bunning, baseball in the 1960s witnessed some of the hardest-throwing and most intimidating pitchers in the sport’s history. Included in that fraternity of strikeout artists was Jim Maloney, who broke in with the Cincinnati Reds as a 20-year-old rookie in 1960. Four […]

“It was almost like Roberto Clemente playing the Reds all by himself,” gushed sportswriter Les Biederman in the Pittsburgh Press, “and coming so close to wrecking them singlehandedly.”1 Affectionately nicknamed “Arriba” by Pirates radio broadcaster Bob Prince, Clemente belted three home runs and knocked in all seven Pirates runs, but his offensive heroics were not […]

In 1946, the Esquire’s All-American Boys’ Baseball Game, in its third year, was moved from New York to Chicago and was played at Wrigley Field on August 10. The game brought together 33 boys, aged 16-18, sponsored by 32 US newspapers. The players represented 25 states, and the East All-Stars played the West All-Stars. In […]

Billy Barnie touched all aspects of baseball before his untimely death in 1900 at age 49. This includes player trades, player contracts, home and away uniforms, three strikes and out, modern schedule making, five-pointed home plates, all-star teams, coaching boxes, overhand pitching, ballpark construction, championship rings, and daily game promotion. Barnie held every conceivable baseball […]

“No more pitiful case exists in the annals of base ball than that of Arnold Hauser,” stated The Sporting News on April 9, 1914.1 Hauser, since debuting with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1910, had emerged as one of the game’s finest young shortstops. By 1913, however, injuries and personal tragedy began to derail both […]

Burleigh Arland Grimes, who pitched in four games for the St. Louis Cardinals at the beginning of the 1934 season, was born on August 18, 1893, on his parents’ dairy farm about halfway between the towns of Emerald and Clear Lake in northwestern Wisconsin. (Wisconsin records indicate he was born in Emerald, but he always […]

Earl Williams’ career was one marked by achievement and controversy. During his newsworthy career, spanning parts of eight seasons, Williams reached the heights of a 1971 National League Rookie of the Year season, and the low of leaving baseball as persona non grata at the age of 29. Born July 14, 1948 in Newark, New […]

Myles Thomas was the winning pitcher in seven of the New York Yankees’ 110 victories in 1927. He also has the distinction of owning the fifth-highest batting average (.333) on a team known as Murderers’ Row. But there’s more. In real life, Myles Thomas was a Pennsylvania farmer’s son, a baseball star for Penn State, […]

Outfielder Joe “Pop” Durham played parts of three major league seasons for the Baltimore Orioles (87 games in 1954 and 1957) and St. Louis Cardinals (six games in 1959). He also played 10 years in the minors with a total of five teams. In 1954, Durham hit the first home run by an African American […]

In June 1947, three months before his husky right-handed hurler delivered the fifth no-hitter in franchise history, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack forecast the expected stardom of 26-year-old Bill McCahan. “[Y]ou will see another great pitcher in this boy,” Mack said. “Let me make a prediction. He will be another [Spud] Chandler.”1 Being compared to […]

Soon after he signed his first professional contract, Fred Hopke declared his ambition in answer to a questionnaire: “First string major league player.”1 The quest for his grail consumed 10 years of his life, but he never got beyond spring training. Love for the game stuck out all over him. “Fred Hopke would wear a […]

On August 7, 1923, the Washington Senators sent rookie hurler Monroe Mitchell to the hill versus Cleveland. Mitchell was coming off a five-hit shutout of the Browns which had earned him his first major league victory. Against the Tribe, he lost his shutout immediately when Charlie Jamieson led off with a triple and scored on […]

Over its first five decades, the Kansas City Royals have had only three ownership regimes. Pharmaceutical entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman landed the Royals expansion franchise for the 1969 season and believed that the team could and should be competitive in a previously unprecedented time frame. He was willing to innovate and spend to boost the Royals […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project.   1921 New York Giants team photo (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   The New York Giants and their manager, John J. McGraw, were optimistic that the 1921 season would result in a World Series triumph. Hopefully, this would end the […]

This multi-purpose facility has been called “The Madison Square Garden of Puerto Rico.”1 Its use in boxing and basketball is a big reason, but the parallel extends to track and field, as well as political conventions. Baseball, however, forms an especially rich chapter in the history of Estadio Sixto Escobar (as it is known to […]

Few multi-purpose stadiums in North American history can rival Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium for the number, variety and stature of events held there. Set in a vast fairgrounds complex on the shore of Lake Ontario, the municipal facility originally known as Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) Stadium served as the largest sports and entertainment venue in Canada’s […]