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Juan Pizarro was a talented, durable Puerto Rican pitcher. The lefty pitched in all or part of 18 major-league seasons, starting as a rookie with the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. The Braves rushed him to the big club after one eye-opening season in Class A, yet their very deep pitching staff limited Pizarro’s opportunities. He did […]

Millions of Californians were not born there but chose the Golden State as the epicenter of their career and family lives. Two of them, London’s Bob Hope and Tacoma’s Bing Crosby, won fame and glory in Hollywood with a series of “Road” movies. The subject of this article, however, is a baseball personality whose life […]

On December 6, 1960, the American League awarded Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., expansion franchises that would play in the league beginning in April 1961. With only four months to put a franchise together, Los Angeles owner Gene Autry first hired Bob Reynolds as team president and Fred Haney as general manager. When it came […]

It was April 30, 1957. In his first five innings in the majors, catcher Tom Patton did the following: Threw out one future Hall of Famer (Larry Doby) trying to steal; Exchanged rundown throws with a second Cooperstown-bound player (George Kell) to catch a third (Luis Aparicio); and Reached base against a perennial All-Star (Billy […]

After three years of college, Jake Flowers spent most of his life in Organized Baseball. He was a major-league infielder for seven full seasons and parts of three others; a minor-league player, manager, and executive; a coach with three major-league clubs; and a scout for three organizations. As a major-league player, Flowers was plagued by […]

If Ginger Beaumont is remembered today, it’s usually for being the first batter in modern World Series history. In the early days of the Deadball Era, however, he was considered baseball’s finest leadoff man, a lifetime .311 hitter who was good enough to be named by both Bill Klem and Honus Wagner as the center […]

When Mike Sandlock signed his first professional baseball contract, in 1938, he could not have envisioned that he would become a major-league teammate of no fewer than six Hall of Famers – Warren Spahn, Paul Waner, Ernie Lombardi, Pee Wee Reese, Billy Herman, and Ralph Kiner. Nor could he have imagined that during his five […]

Baseball fans know that scouting is an inexact science. The Detroit Tigers’ scout who signed Frank Naleway out of Class D in 1923 said, “What do I think of Naleway? He’s a great little fielder. He handles himself well in the field, stands properly at the plate, shows a knowledge of baseball – in fact […]

John Kennedy listed two goals when he completed a questionnaire for statistician William J. Weiss in 1951: “To become a major leaguer & one of the greatest.” Kennedy completed his first goal. He earned a roster spot as a shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1957, becoming the first African American member of the team. […]

A standout in three sports, he was considered one of the greatest athletes in the history of his college. Yet in his career as a professional baseball player, he failed to achieve stardom. Jimmy Stewart was seemingly a substitute with no position to call his own, but he carved out a 10-year career in the […]

Throughout his 18-year major-league career, Lew Burdette was known for his antics as much as for his success on the mound. One of the best control pitchers of the 1950s, the right-hander paired with his roommate and best friend Warren Spahn to form one of the greatest and most durable pitching combinations in baseball history. […]

James Lee “Jimmie” Newberry was a starting pitcher for the Birmingham Black Barons from 1942 to 1950. Most newspapers and historical sources refer to “Jimmy” as the diminutive of Newberry’s first name. However, the best evidence, which includes two autographs, signed “Jimmie Newberry,” is that he preferred to use the variant “Jimmie.”1 Newberry was born […]

Many baseball fans consider Branch Rickey the greatest innovator in baseball history. Not only did he break baseball’s color barrier by bringing Jackie Robinson to the majors, he also invented the farm system, which has become the standard means teams use to develop talent. Another great innovator who deserves credit for the changes he brought […]

In 1794, the legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania codified a portion of English common law governing observance of the Christian Sabbath, or day of rest. The laws, known as “blue laws,”1 criminalized “any worldly employment or business whatsoever on Sunday (works of necessity, charity, or wholesome recreation excepted.)”2 Those laws were still very much […]

Fans of the Minnesota Twins were growing restless as the 1975 baseball season started. The franchise had been successful during its first 10 years in Minnesota, both on the field and at the box office. The Twins won the American League pennant in 1965, placed second in the 10-team AL three times and third once […]

“For some time now large John has been in danger of being booted clear back to his Texas domicile,” declared sportswriter W. Vernon Tietjen in the St. Louis Star and Times about the Browns’ embattled pitcher John Whitehead.1 The AP noted that the robust right-handed hurler almost “ate his way out of the majors.”2 The […]

Dating to the nineteenth century, the city of Youngstown, Ohio, had always been a stop for semipro or minor-league baseball teams. In 1885 it was part of the short-lived Iron & Oil League. In the early 1900s, the Ohio Works—named for the U.S. Steel mill in the city—played in the Ohio-Pennsylvania League. Central League entrants […]

When Cincinnati Reds manager Dave Bristol got in the face of third-base umpire Bill Williams on May 9, 1969, at Montreal’s Jarry Park, he wasn’t just making a complaint about Williams’s umpiring.1 He was making an obscure bit of major-league history. Williams’s ejection of Bristol during a fifth-inning argument made Bristol the first person ever […]

The St. Louis Cardinals were in a fight for the National League pennant late in the1926 season. If they prevailed, it would be the first for the franchise in the modern era. Their chances looked promising on September 16: As they faced the Philadelphia Phillies, they were a half-game behind the Cincinnati Reds. On the […]

A freak ankle injury sidelined Roberto Clemente for four games in May 1955, momentarily sidetracking his spectacular rookie-year emergence in Pittsburgh. The 20-year-old native of Puerto Rico returned on May 29 with five hits in the Pirates’ curfew-interrupted 11-5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in the second game of a doubleheader — but lost his […]

Few baseball writers predicted big things for the 1926 Boston Red Sox. The consensus was that the Red Sox were still in dire need of improvement after three eighth-place finishes in four seasons.1 But manager Lee Fohl ignored the naysayers and remained optimistic about his team’s prospects. Fohl insisted the Red Sox would do better […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates were slumping when they arrived in the Gateway City for a four-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals in June 1933. Skipper George Gibson’s Bucs (27-21) had lost eight of their last 11 games to fall from first to third place, three games behind the New York Giants. The Redbirds, however, were […]

When the San Francisco Giants took the field at Candlestick Park on Friday, October 1, 1965, their season was hanging in the balance, and precariously so. The Giants trailed the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers by two games with only three games left in the season. Just a week and a half before, on September 20, the Giants had enjoyed […]

“There haven’t been many — if any — finer finishing touches put on a no-hit performance,” gushed sportswriter Jack Hernon after the Chicago Cubs’ Toothpick Sam Jones struck out the side with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to author a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates.1 Jones “put a bizarre finish to the greatest […]