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John Milner idolized Hank Aaron, lockered next to Willie Mays, and on his best days could hit home runs with as much authority as either man. While injuries and inconsistency prevented Milner from becoming an elite slugger, he carved out a 12-year career for the Mets, Pirates, and Expos, helping each of those clubs reach […]

The first of two players in franchise history to wear double-zero on the back of his Cleveland Indians uniform, Paul Dade in 1977 explained his unique decision: “I went through the free-agent draft last winter [1976-77] and was selected by only two clubs, Oakland and Cleveland, and Oakland wasn’t really interested in me. Nobody really […]

Before committing suicide under mysterious circumstances in the spring of 1907, Chick Stahl forged a reputation as one of the best center fielders in the game over the course of a 10-year major-league career. A lifetime .305 batter, the left-handed Stahl could also hit with power, and often ranked among the league leaders in extra-base […]

After six seasons in the minor leagues, Charlie Metro stepped to the plate at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis wearing for the first time in a regular-season game the uniform of the Detroit Tigers. It was May 4, 1943, a Tuesday afternoon as America approached its 18th month at war. The next day, the radio […]

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 […]

The long and the short of it is that Zack Taylor was the manager who sent 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to the plate to pinch-hit for the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers in 1951.  But Taylor was not simply a straight man in an owner’s stunt, for he spent 58 years in professional baseball […]

On the evening of September 21, 1964, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Art Mahaffey was pitching a gem of a baseball game. In the top of the sixth inning it was a scoreless duel in between Mahaffey and the Cincinnati Reds’ John Tsitouris at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. With two outs, 25-year-old Reds rookie Chico Ruiz […]

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 […]

“I watched him go. He never came back…It made me realize how fragile life really is.”[1] – Bob Bailor Righty pitcher Mark “Dutch” Weems displayed promise as a Baltimore Orioles farmhand in the early 1970s. After turning pro in 1969, he reached Class AAA as early as 1971. He was playing winter ball in Venezuela […]

A decent hitter with some extra-base power and a defensive standout at both catcher and first base, Jack Kerins1 spent his seven-season major league playing career entirely in the American Association. He also put in two brief stints as an interim club manager. When throwing arm miseries brought Kerins’ playing days to a close, he […]

A journeyman outfielder during his 12 major-league seasons, Dave May was called by The Sporting News “a good man to have on a team.”1 The stocky 5-foot-10½, 186-pound left-handed hitter played in 1,252 games for Baltimore, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Texas, and Pittsburgh, posting a .251 average with 96 home runs and 422 runs batted in. Best […]

Sam Williams was born in a small, poor town in segregated Alabama, served his country in World War II, played in the last Negro League World Series, and then pitched for minor-league teams from California to Canada and from Mexico to the Dominican Republic. “It didn’t matter who I pitched against, I was going to […]

The Homestead Grays were a dominant force in Negro League baseball from 1926 to 1948. While the faces and muscles of this franchise were Hall of Famers Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, the heart and soul of the Homestead Grays was feisty player-manager Vic Harris, who was known and admired by teammates and opponents alike […]

Reginald Martinez Jackson was born on May 18, 1946, in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, a largely white suburb north of Philadelphia’s central city. His father, Martinez Jackson, ran a dry-cleaning and tailoring business. As a grown man, Reggie claimed he still knew how to cuff a pair of slacks.1 His father was a veteran of World War […]

But for a bucket kick, Bill Werber might reside in the Hall of Fame rather than be remembered as a good major-league ballplayer of the 1930s who helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to National League pennants in 1939 and 1940 and to the world’s championship in 1940. It happened in 1934, toward the end of […]

Given a comical nickname based on his last name and beaky nose, William Dayton “Poll” Perritt had a successful 10-year pitching career, pitched in a World Series, was bribed by Hal Chase, tussled with John McGraw and oil barons, and became a modestly successful Louisiana oilman. William Dayton Perritt was the first child born to […]

“Fred Wenz Provides Red Sox Mysticism” — how can the reader resist responding to a newspaper headline like that? The article in a 1969 issue of Boston Herald Traveler discussed “the Wenz enigma — a situation which has found Fireball Fred blinding minor league hitters and then getting bombed in the majors.”1 It wasn’t the […]

“What followed that year [2005] – after the new Nats brought baseball back to the District ending a 33-year drought – was an unexpectedly fun joyride, a 100-win pace through half a season that helped Washington re-embrace the sport that abandoned it.” – Barry Svrluga, Washington Post1     Baseball is a game of numbers, […]

On June 24, 1946, the Spokane Indians, a Class B Western International League team full of World War II veterans and promising prospects, traveled by bus across Washington state for their next series in Bremerton. While the team stopped for dinner in Ellensburg, word came that third baseman Jack Lohrke had been recalled by the […]

The last time the Boston Red Sox had played a game in Buffalo was on July 6, 1917 – and that was an exhibition game. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the team played four exhibition games there, all against local minor-league teams: April 18, 1903: Boston 8, Buffalo 7 April 13, […]

For the third straight year, the New York Yankees were not headed to the postseason. According to Jim McCulley of New York’s Daily News, the 1946 Yankees (82-65) were “stoically situated in third place and going no place else.”1 The Philadelphia Athletics (49-97) were finishing in last place for the second consecutive campaign (and sixth […]

Outfielder Steve Salvato never played a day in the major leagues, but he once got three hits in a regular-season game at a big-league ballpark. Same thing with pitcher Henry Bunnell: He never appeared in the majors, but he once earned a win in a big-league park. These unusual events happened in June 1972, when […]

On April 12, 1955, the former Philadelphia Athletics, having moved that winter to Kansas City, opened their first season at Municipal Stadium: A’s 6, Tigers 2, before a standing-room crowd of 32,147. Flanked by franchise progenitor Connie Mack, former President Harry Truman tossed the team’s first ball in Missouri’s first American League (AL) opener since […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison” (2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.   Well into the twentieth century, Black players were barred from participating in baseball games at Wrigley Field, even though there had been Negro League baseball in the area for many years. The first evidence […]