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In 1979, the Minnesota Twins’ third baseman, 24-year-old John Castino, emerged as the American League’s co-Rookie of the Year. His fielding prowess drew comparisons to some of the all-time great glove men at that position, including Brooks Robinson and Billy Cox. But Castino’s career was derailed by a congenital back defect that became a chronic […]

Joe Black helped lead the Brooklyn Dodgers to the 1952 pennant, going 15-4 with 15 saves, and a 2.15 ERA. He won the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. “Let’s put it this way,” Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen told reporters, “Where would […]

For decades, Hugh Duffy was a franchise fixture in Boston, a small white-haired man who over the years had served the Red Sox as manager, scout, occasional first base coach and batting instructor, tryout camp supervisor, and all-around good will ambassador. To the younger Sox faithful, Duffy seemed to have been a club functionary forever. […]

David Earl Nelson was born on June 20, 1944, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He loved sports and played in the Little League, the Babe Ruth League and Connie Mack ball. Basketball was also a favorite sport. Nelson’s idols growing up were Oscar Robertson and Jackie Robinson. Nelson graduated from Junipero Serra High in Gardena, California, […]

One of the most important games hurled by Clement Walter Labine took place at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on October 9, 1956. The day before, Don Larsen had pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 2-0, in the fifth game of the World Series. Dodgers manager Walter Alston […]

One of baseball’s original bonus babies, Chuck Stobbs was signed by the Red Sox at the age of 17 and went on to enjoy a 15-year career in major league baseball. The lefthander posted a record of 107-130 playing for teams which often placed low in the standings. He came from an athletic lineage. His […]

With the muscular physique of a football player, 6-foot-2, 215-pound rookie pitcher Earl Francis was called up in midseason 1960 by the Pittsburgh Pirates to strengthen their bullpen. The 24-year-old right-hander logged 18 innings in seven appearances and sported a nifty 2.00 earned-run average, but came down with shoulder problems and was sent back to […]

Eddie Rommel had two careers in baseball, and created some milestones in both of them. As a right-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics he was the first moundsman to make extensive use of the knuckleball. After retiring as a player and working briefly as a coach and minor-league manager, he became an umpire, one good […]

The elevator speech for Johnny Barney Wyrostek (pronounced Wy-ROSS-tek) would summarize his career as: outfielder, batted left, threw right, two All-Star Game appearances, three teams, seven seasons in the minors, 11 seasons in the majors, 58 homers, and 1,149 hits. But he was also a father of five, a deputy sheriff, a union carpenter, and […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

Arguably the best second baseman in Los Angeles Dodgers history, Davey Lopes’s playing career is loaded with noteworthy achievements. Appearing in four straight All-Star Games, he once collected the most votes of all players. He won a Gold Glove, two stolen base titles, set a team record for homers by a second baseman, and an […]

Silvio García was a shortstop and pitcher who played in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Canada, and his native Cuba, as well as the American Negro League and organized minor leagues, from 1931 to 1954. Known for his powerful right-handed line-drive swing and rifle arm, he won two batting championships in the Cuban […]

The National League boasted some of the hardest-throwing and most intimidating starting pitchers in baseball history during the 1960s, from Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale to Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Jim Bunning. But one pitcher has faded from our collective memory of the great ones from that era: Jim Maloney. Troubled by chronic shoulder […]

Red Thisted never saw a professional baseball game until he was 20 years old. He made up for lost time, though. Over the course of four decades, he attended every home game played my Milwaukee’s ballclub, plus all of the away games when not prevented by wartime travel restrictions. From the start of the 1926 […]

As of September 2020, when this story was originally published, the two oldest living major leaguers were Eddie Robinson and George Elder, both veterans of WWII. Robinson served in the Navy but because of a leg operation was never in a combat zone. Elder served as a Marine artilleryman in the Pacific theatre. He served […]

SABR’s Mark Armour gets little argument to his claim, “[Jim Brosnan’s] legacy will remain his writing, especially his two classic books [The Long Season and Pennant Race].1 Yet, Brosnan left behind another legacy, this one less desirable. He was one of a trio of Cubs pitchers who in 1957 set a National League record that […]

New York Giants manager Bill Rigney had a simple message for rookie Bill White, who had been called up from the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers hours earlier. “I’ll play you if your glove arrives,” Rigney told him as the 8 P.M. start time approached.1 White learned of his promotion on a midnight phone call to his […]

Well aware of Carl Yastrzemski’s reputation as the best prospect in the Boston Red Sox minor-league system, Minneapolis Millers manager Gene Mauch couldn’t wait to get the young second baseman into his lineup. He should have. The timing seemed perfect. Mauch’s Millers had finished their American Association season in second place in the Eastern Division […]

“The Cubs had 25 base runners, and (the public-address) announcer grew hoarse saying, ‘Next batter …’” 1 The league-leading Cincinnati Reds completed a four-game series at Wrigley Field with a doubleheader on June 28, 1961, and found that the seventh place Cubs were not without life. Despite their lowly station, the Cubs (25-41) had won […]

Much as the 1989 season would prove to be a refreshing change from the dreariness of the 54-107 season that preceded it, the afternoon skies in Baltimore on April 3, 1989, surprised forecasters and fans with pleasant sunshine and warm temperatures. The 1989 Opening Day game between the Orioles and Red Sox at Memorial Stadium […]

The Cincinnati Reds signed Ryan Joseph “Scooter” Gennett late in 2017 spring training after the Milwaukee Brewers released him on March 28, five days before Opening Day. Gennett was Milwaukee’s regular second baseman for three years, but the team felt that he didn’t fit into their future any longer. After joining the Reds, the 27-year-old […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]