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Given Satchel Paige’s reputation and talent, his assignment to pitch on Opening Day 1935 should come as no surprise. Unfortunately, racism and Paige’s skin color kept him from displaying his skills for any National League or American League club until 1948. Further, in 1935 a contract dispute was keeping Paige from gracing a roster in […]

There were a lot of hits at Fenway Park as the Boston Red Sox opened July 2016. On July 1, the Red Sox returned from the road and out-hit the visiting Los Angeles Angels, 16-12, winning the game, 5-4. The next day the Angels got their revenge, pounding out 22 hits to just eight for […]

With their 7-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics on April 20, 2018, the Boston Red Sox improved their season record to 17-2 – the best start in franchise history. It was their eighth win in a row, with only one intervening loss following a prior nine-game winning streak. The Red Sox had lost on Opening […]

“Batting and playing first base for the Boston Red Sox: Mary Elizabeth Murphy. First base: Murphy.” You can almost hear Sherm Feller, the longtime Red Sox public-address voice, announce her – the first female ballplayer for the Boston Red Sox. It never happened, though. It’s well-known that the Red Sox were the last big-league team […]

It wasn’t your typical August day in San Diego. With temperatures in the 70s and a lot of clouds, it wasn’t the picture-perfect setting for baseball. For the Padres, it was their first year under the ownership of Ray Kroc, and the team was struggling. The Padres were 44-65 and in the midst of a […]

With the Milwaukee Braves having won the opening game of the 1958 World Series the day before, the narrative was simple for both teams. If the Braves were to win again, they would take a 2-0 lead in the series and start to feel really confident about capturing their second straight title. If the New […]

As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Jim Bouton had approached Seattle Pilots pitching coach Sal Maglie and asked why reliever Diego Seguí had been selected to start the first game of their July 18 twin bill instead of him.1 Bouton wasn’t satisfied with Maglie’s answer, but after Seguí won his start […]

Still led by four pillars of their 1940s dynasty, the St. Louis Cardinals surged into first place in the National League in July 1950. But three losses in three days in Pittsburgh, punctuated by Jack Phillips’ game-winning ninth-inning pinch-hit grand slam on July 8, foreshadowed their subsequent fall from contention and final fadeout of the […]

“I’ll never pitch a no-hitter,” Paul Splittorff told reporters matter-of-factly in August 1975, and he was right.1 The bespectacled, high-kicking left-hander won 166 games and set enduring Kansas City Royals franchise records2 in his 15-season major-league career.3 But he never achieved a pitcher’s ultimate feat of skill and luck. Three complete-game one-hitters were as close […]

Born as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, they moved to Milwaukee the following season and became the Brewers. In the first 12 years of their existence, the team never reached the postseason. That was about to change. The 1981 Brewers were a team that had been on the rise for the three prior seasons, but […]

The baseball team known as the Braves makes its home in Atlanta, but traces its diamond ancestry back through Milwaukee and to Boston, where it began in 1871. In fact, the Atlanta Braves are the only baseball team that has played every season consecutively since 1871, outdating even the National League itself. While forgotten by […]

A southpaw off a Missouri farm, Oscar Fuhr pitched big-league ball for parts of two seasons and all of a third in the majors, 1921 with the Chicago Cubs and 1924-25 with the Boston Red Sox. The Cubs finished seventh and his Red Sox teams finished seventh and eighth. Fuhr was 0-0 with Chicago and […]

William Angelo Consolo was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 18, 1934, the same day as Roberto Clemente. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child, and at the age of 8, he began playing baseball alongside his brother Horace, who preferred third base. While on the local playgrounds he met George […]

San Francisco’s Mike Finn was a pioneer professional as a California baseball player and manager. A versatile performer, he was an adept infielder, outfielder, and catcher, but was, in the Oakland Tribune’s opinion, “a pitching star of magnitude.” His managerial legacy was five championships during the California League’s formative years (1886-1893), more than any other pilot. An established […]

This outfielder was the first member of the Lumbee people of Robeson County, North Carolina, to play in the majors. Throughout his playing days, Gene Locklear’s skill as an artist also got attention. “They are both individual things, and you have to have talent. You can’t just have desire,” Locklear said in 2005.1 One of […]

In retirement, former major leaguer Johnny Romano took up flying radio-controlled model airplanes near his retirement home in Florida. He liked to fly them high and far. There was a time, though, when those terms — high and far — also referred to his ability as a hard-hitting All-Star catcher for the Cleveland Indians and […]

“Handsome Hal, the Hoboken Hercules” – such was said to be the Brown University characterization of Hal Neubauer.1 Once he had his Ivy League degree in hand, the young graduate went almost straight to work for the Boston Red Sox. The right-handed pitcher debuted in the major leagues on July 12, 1925, pitching in relief […]

Many baseball players from the New Orleans area signed professional contracts in the 1930s and 1940s. Ray Yochim rode the wave, along with other signees from his high school that included future major-leaguers Lou Klein, Mel Parnell, George Strickland, and Jack Kramer. Yochim missed three formative years of his professional development as a pitcher owing […]

He pitched only 267⅓ innings in parts of three major league seasons, but Cletus Elwood “Boots” Poffenberger was the character in all of baseball in his day—and his day included such notable characters as Dizzy Dean and Van Lingle Mungo. While amassing a modest 16-12 career record, the right-hander holds the lifetime mark for funny […]

Like his Hall of Fame teammate, Ernie Banks, right-handed pitcher Bob Rush was just happy to be in the big leagues. “I never really regretted signing with the Cubs,” Rush said. In his 10 campaigns with the North Siders (1948-1957), the “Lovable Losers” finished in the second division every season and never had a winning […]

In 1990 an old-school scout, Dick Wilson, stated that it was hard to explain that intangible something that told him a player had what it took to be a major-league player, but he “knew it when he saw it.” About Dave Rader, Wilson relayed, “I saw him at South Bakersfield High School, and I knew […]

On June 23, 1931, sportswriter Walter W. Smith encountered George Watkins, the St. Louis Cardinals right fielder, in the lobby of Philadelphia’s Franklin Hotel, where the team was staying for a series against the Phillies. Both men were relatively new to their jobs; Smith had begun covering the team for the St. Louis Star the […]

“There are ballplayers who can’t remember the last town they were in, much less the first fellow to ever help them, but Woody Woodward remembers both and also has a habit of remembering to be right there any time someone needs his help. He sees nothing strange about that. ‘That’s the only way to do […]

Baseball fans love streaks. And though the number 8 is not as recognizable as 56 or 2,632, it is nonetheless a cherished part of the national pastime’s lore. After bouncing around the minor leagues for 11 seasons, 30-year-old Dale Long was the unlikely center of national media attention in 1956, his second full season with […]