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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 . . […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The American dream of being a well-known baseball player was firmly established years before Babe Ruth’s major-league debut in 1914. For instance, in 1910 a New York Times article on recreation centers and urban parks asked, rhetorically, “What youngster nowadays dreams of being President of the country when it is just as easy to conjure […]

Harsh sunshine beat down on the Los Angeles Coliseum floor. Two men, drenched in sweat, practiced baseball drills while local temperatures soared past 100 degrees in the spring of 1960. Maury Wills, an eager Dodger infielder, and Pete Reiser, an enthusiastic LA coach, worked together for nearly two weeks. “You can’t quit,” Reiser said over […]

The discussions continue to this day. What would have happened if those denied the opportunity had been given the chance to play at the highest level of baseball before 1947? We have had glimpses of such players, often long past their prime. In 1951, in a barnstorming game in Alabama, Jonas Gaines took the mound […]

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 […]

“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. […]

E ho’omau ’ia ka mo’olelo. “History will continue to be made.” Maehara Stadium, August 2024 (Courtesy of Jake Rinloan)   Since its opening in 1973, Maehara Stadium has been the premier baseball park on the island of Maui. Cherished by communities on Maui, neighboring Hawaiian islands, and beyond, it has hosted countless events – mostly […]