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The 1965 Indians won 87 games, the first time since 1959 that the team had won more games than it lost. At the end of the season, Cleveland manager Birdie Tebbetts declared, “Next season will be our year. There are no ifs or maybes about it. We’re going to win the whole thing.” General manager […]

Baseball’s 15th All-Star Game took place in Sportsman’s Park on July 13, 1948, before a capacity crowd of 34,009. It was the second time St. Louis had hosted the summer classic. The first time, in 1940, the host team was the St. Louis Browns. That game  resulted in a 4-0 National League win behind a […]

In January 1949, the St. Louis Cardinals sold right-hander Murry Dickson, a mainstay since their glory years earlier in the 1940s, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $125,000. Dickson defeated his former club five times in eight decisions that season, with one victory especially harmful to St. Louis’s championship aspirations. His complete-game 7-2 win at Pittsburgh’s […]

More than one major-league regular season has ended with a memorable contest between teams representing the Big Apple and the City of Brotherly Love. The New York Mets’ David Cone struck out 19 Philadelphia Phillies on the last day of the 1991 season; Philadelphia Athletics rookie Art Ditmar notched his first major-league win over the […]

St. Louis Cardinals great Bob Gibson hurled a high fastball from the Busch Stadium mound at 8 P.M. on July 17, 1974. César Geronimo, the Cincinnati Reds’ lithe centerfielder, swung and missed, making him the 3,000th strikeout victim in Gibson’s Hall of Fame career. Only the Washington Senators’ Walter Johnson had ever fanned that many […]

Lonnie Chisenhall’s 2008 season at Pitt Community College in Winterville, North Carolina—a .408 batting average, with 24 doubles and 61 RBIs1—made him the first-round selection, 29th overall, of the Cleveland Indians in that June’s draft.    The North Carolina native ascended through Cleveland’s minor-league chain, demonstrating that he was a fair hitter and a developing […]

In his second at-bat of the second All-Star Game in 1960, Willie Mays made history by completing the All-Star Game cycle. In the span of just two days, Mays had collected the four necessary hits to hit for the cycle: a single, double, triple, and home run. No major leaguer has ever hit for the cycle […]

A two-time All-Star, Silver Slugger Award winner, and the 1988 American League MVP runner-up, Mike Greenwell spent his entire 12-season major-league career with the Boston Red Sox. He was the Red Sox’ starting left fielder for 10 years, from 1987 through 1996. Injuries limited Greenwell considerably in 1996, his final big-league season, but he did […]

“How good a hitter was 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.” — Joe Posnanski1   Johnny Mize loved to hit a baseball, and he wrote about it in his 1953 book, How to Hit, published primarily […]

As much as the All-Star Game is a celebration of baseball’s history and a recognition of its current and future stars, it is also a celebration of place, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards played its role perfectly in 1993. The ballpark opened in 1992 as a reminder of classic ballparks of an earlier era, […]

Dubbed the “Volga Batman” for his Russian heritage, Mike Chartak seemingly possessed the tools for a long and illustrious career. “He can hit the ball as far as Ruth … [and] has the Jimmy Foxx stride … [the] Joe DiMaggio swing.” But despite such lofty observations by The Sporting News, Chartak managed just four years […]

The major-league career of Dutch Schliebner can be summed up in three words: “George Sisler’s replacement.” When the 1922 American League MVP, Sisler, came down with sinus conditions after his banner season, it put the St. Louis Browns in a terrible bind. After the Browns experimented with Marty McManus and Cedric Durst at first base […]

Benjamin Ambrosio (Palmer) Oglivie was born in Colòn, Panama, on Friday, February 11, 1949. He was born into a Panama which offered certain privilege and opportunity, fed by the construction, completion, and use of the Panama Canal. Additionally, the post-World War II era affirmed a sense of optimism. Prior to 1949, the founders of the […]

Known as one of the feistiest players in baseball history, Edd Roush channeled that energy into a Hall of Fame career. An old-timer was quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1919 saying that Roush was more like the fiery old Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s than any other player in the National League. The […]

Bobby Mathews, nearly forgotten today, was one of the top pitchers of the early professional era despite his small stature (5-feet-5½-inches tall, weight about 140 pounds). Between 1871 and 1887, he won nearly 300 games, 297 to be exact – more than any other pitcher not inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His […]

The Mike Ivie story is so illogical it was once called the strangest in baseball history.1 A young catcher picked first in the 1970 MLB draft and hailed as “the next Johnny Bench” failed to realize his potential because he wouldn’t try. Consequently, neither Ivie nor anyone else would ever know whether he truly had […]

There used to be a ballpark on the edge of Burlington’s Intervale, near the intersection of North Prospect Street and Riverside Avenue. It was known as Athletic Park, and from 1903 to 1906 it was the home of Burlington’s team in the first of Vermont’s legendary Northern Leagues. During those years Athletic Park was the […]

Burly, 6-foot-7 reliever Tim Stoddard remains (as of 2023) the only man to win an NCAA Division I basketball title and a World Series ring. Before he grew his big walrus mustache and began to lose his hair, he was the starting power forward for the 1973-74 North Carolina State Wolfpack. Although baseball’s January 1975 […]

Personal problems rooted in a car accident stopped Dinny McNamara from fulfilling what might have been a legendary Boston sporting career. Still, before his troubles intervened, McNamara became a multisport high-school and college star, an outfielder with the 1927 and ’28 Boston Braves, and head football coach at Boston College – all before his 30th […]

Doctors told Dave Dravecky that outside of a miracle, he would never pitch again. This followed a 1988 diagnosis of cancer in his pitching arm. Yet less than a year later he stood on the pitching mound at Candlestick Park in front of over 34,000 adoring fans, and retired 21 of the first 23 Cincinnati […]

Rufus “Sonnyman” Jackson was born on May 1, 1900, in Columbus, Georgia, to Rufus Jackson Sr. and Rosa Bell Dixon, both Georgia natives.1 Rosie and her son remained close enough throughout his life that in 1940, when he was already a successful businessman and often-time courthouse visitor, she was still living with her grown son. […]

“When he pitched, he looked like a spider doing aerobics,” one witness said.1 Lanky right-hander Pascual Pérez entertained fans and infuriated opponents with his spontaneous, emotional style over all or parts of 11 seasons (1980-1985, 1987-1991) with the Pirates, Braves, Expos and Yankees. Perhaps best known for getting lost on the way to his home […]

When the expansion Kansas City Royals hired Cedric Tallis as the team’s GM, he assumed an almost impossible task. Before the first expansion season was even half over in 1969, Kansas City owner Ewing Kauffman was proclaiming that a glorious future was not far away. A hard-driving yet generous pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Kauffman publicly stated that […]

When the topic of discussion turns to great two-sport athletes who played major-league baseball during the last quarter of the 20th century, names like Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Brian Jordan, and Danny Ainge often come to mind. However, despite enjoying success in both baseball and golf, Rick Rhoden is often overlooked as two-sport standout. Rhoden […]