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Nearly everyone knows of a person who is a natural. The classmate who barely cracks open a book and yet gets straight A’s. The popular student whom everyone emulates. The athlete who succeeds in any sport they attempt. The phrase “He’s a natural” has been used again and again to describe those with innate ability. […]

From 1979 through 1984, Scott McGregor’s six-year winning percentage of .650 was the majors’ best.1 Characterized by his strong Christian faith and constant changing of speeds with his pitches, the lefty had great success over parts of 13 seasons (1976-1988) with the Baltimore Orioles. McGregor was an All-Star, a 20-game winner, and pitched clinching games […]

“When I’m hitting the ball,” said Héctor Villanueva, with a big smile, “people say I’m strong. When I’m not hitting, they say I’m fat.” The 6-foot-1, 240-pound catcher issued that quote on April 30, 1991, after breaking the game open for the Chicago Cubs with a three-run homer.i The very next afternoon at Wrigley Field, […]

When he arrived upon the major league scene in early 1906, the attribute of left-handed pitcher Carl Druhot that most intrigued big city sportswriters was his diminutive size. Press reports and game accounts so regularly identified him as “Little Druhot” that baseball fans might well have supposed that the descriptive was the newcomer’s first name. […]

Mel Nelson entered professional baseball as a right-handed-hitting outfielder, spent parts of six seasons in the major leagues as a left-handed pitcher, and when his playing days were over served as a scout for several teams. He spent more than half a century in professional baseball, including 17 years as a player. Although he didn’t […]

Artie Wilson’s career makes just the barest impression in the old Baseball Encyclopedia: 19 games and 24 plate appearances spread across five weeks in the spring of 1951. But both before and after that short stint with the famously fated ’51 Giants, Wilson ranked for years as one of the biggest stars in two big-time […]

Vida Blue burst onto the scene in major-league baseball as a fireballing left-hander for the Oakland A’s and served as one of the primary characters in the A’s streak of five division championships and three World Series championships. His career, which spanned from 1969 to 1986, would see high points, including the multiple World Series […]

Henry Alexander Stafford was born on November 1, 1891, in the small Northeast Kingdom village of Barton Landing. His father, Edwin, was a house painter by trade. Edwin was already 38 years old when Henry was born, but he and his wife, Julia, went on to have four more children. Julia Stafford was a stoic […]

Jim Dyck’s major-league career was relatively short and undistinguished. It spanned six years, four of which involved stints in the minors, only one season with more than 400 at-bats and a mediocre .246 average. In his brief stint with the 1954 Indians, Dyck had only two plate appearances. Yet during his career Dyck helped set […]

With his low sidearm/semi-submarine delivery, Jeff Innis provided an effective contrast in the New York Mets bullpen from 1987 through 1993. The righty was typical of his breed of pitcher. He had a good sinker and so kept the ball in the park, giving up just 22 home runs in 360 career innings pitched. He […]

In 1966 New York Mets’ coach Yogi Berra scanned the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training camp in search of the right-handed reliever whose contributions from the bullpen led the New York Yankees to an American League crown two years earlier. “Where’s Mikkelsen?” the former skipper asked. “He helped me win the pennant in 1964 . . […]

Carlos Beltrán jump-started his terrific career in 1999 by winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award. He rose to national stardom in 2004, when he turned in one of the greatest postseason performances ever, batting .435 with eight home runs in 12 games. Possessing a rare combination of power and speed, Beltrán is one […]

Raised in “the tenements of Hartford,”1 Walter “Monk” Dubiel rose from hardscrabble roots to  seven-year career in the major leagues that began during World War II after he was declared 4-F because of an eye ailment. It ended eight years later after a series of injuries. His memorable nickname, “Monk,” had a colorful but perhaps […]

If the 2009 movie The Blind Side, for which Sandra Bullock received a Best Actress Academy Award, had been released about five years earlier, it might have been called the football version of Dewon Brazelton’s story. The true saga of offensive lineman Michael Oher bears many similarities to Brazelton’s life experiences: Both are African Americans […]

Considering that his professional career almost ended before it started, Joe Sambito made the most of his opportunity. His future in the game teetered several times, but for a period of five years, 1977-1981, the left-hander from Long Island, New York, with a good fastball and a nasty slider was arguably one of the best […]

He was a bundle of contradictions, this imperfect man who pitched a perfect game. Don Larsen disdained training rules and had a mediocre major-league career; yet he pitched the greatest game in World Series history. He married out of a sense of duty; yet he refused to support his wife and baby daughter. He kept […]

Early in his career on the baseball diamond he was a man without a position. Luckily for him, the power emanating from his bat allowed him to hang around the major leagues long enough to settle into the only position he could play reasonably well. He came from Native American – or, in the common […]

Victor Starffin’s life reads like a Hollywood novel and, in a way, so do his pitching statistics …” — Richard Puff   It is highly probable that no professional baseball player — from any era, country or league — ever lived a more erratic, dramatic, and in the end tragic life than did the pitcher […]

With both Josh Gibson and Bill Perkins, the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords were blessed in the receiving department. Any other catcher on the roster could not expect a lot of playing time. In April of ’35, Clarence “Spoony” Palm was that additional catcher. An itinerant receiver who had played for eight different clubs since breaking onto […]

Los Angeles’s Wrigley Field in was built and opened in 1925 as the finest minor-league park in the country. Some called it the best park in the country — majors or minors. From its earliest years Wrigley Field was home to multiple baseball teams, many other sports and community events. The history of Wrigley Field […]

“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]

“I remember these summer days when it was hot and that cool air coming out of the mountains just felt so good.”1 — Danny Godby For the better part of the 20th century, baseballs disappeared against the lush foliage of the mountainside, and the crack of the bat competed with the drone of passing trains. […]

1912 Hilldale Club. Back row: Bill Anderson, Alice Robinson, Lloyd Thompson, Marian Caulk, Devere Thompson, Mark Studevan, Clara Ivory, Ed Bolden, Helen Barrett, Charles Gaskins, Mary Ricketts, Hubert Jackson, Grace Ricketts, Sam Anderson and Leon Brice. Front row: Hulett Strothers, Raymond Garner, Billy Hill, Frank “Chink” Wilson, George Kemp, Hugh “Scrappy” Mason and Clarence Porter. […]

The Washington Senators line up on the field for Opening Day festivities, April 5, 1971, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection.)   Related link: Click here to read Part I of the Washington Senators team ownership history, on the original team from […]