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Willie Ramsdell, nicknamed “Willie the Knuck,” mixed a colorful personality with the unpredictable knuckleball to produce a 13-year professional baseball career. Ramsdell made two brief pitching appearances for the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, but was ineligible for the World Series. He subsequently pitched in 32 games for the Dodgers over the next two seasons, and then […]
Nobody wrote a song about Vince DiMaggio. It was his lot in life to be outshone by his kid brothers. He’s the DiMaggio who set the single-season record for strikeouts by a batter. Vince and strikeouts go together like Joe and Marilyn. He led the National League six times. He didn’t deliver the home runs […]
From 1962 through 1968, right-hander Jack Lamabe pitched for seven different teams: the Pirates, Red Sox, Astros, White Sox, Mets, Cardinals, and Cubs. He won a world championship with the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals, helping them get through an August that was particularly challenging due to the loss of ace pitcher Bob Gibson to a […]
Metropolis, Illinois, is the hometown of Superman, the comic-book character who leaps tall buildings in a single bound. Back in the day, Robert Dale “Hawk” Taylor was the genuine article when it came to baseball. Unlike mild-mannered Metropolis Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, who left his office, entered a phone booth and came out as […]
After two successful seasons at Triple A, Matt Brown was in his third spring-training camp with the Anaheim Angels in 2009. An exhibition game in late March showed what a challenge it was for Brown, 26 at the time, to make the Angels’ Opening Day roster. The Angels and Brown both got off to good […]
If you take a close look at some of the iconic Boston baseball photographs created at the turn of the 20th century by Elmer Chickering, you might see him. He’s the mustached chap in the bowler cap holding his Brownie camera with Hi-Hi Dixwell at the groundbreaking for the Huntington Avenue Grounds; he’s the guy […]
Roberto Clemente’s greatness transcended the diamond. On it, he was electrifying with his penchant for bad-ball hitting, his strong throwing arm from right field, and the way he played with a reckless but controlled abandon. Off it, he was a role model to the people of his homeland and elsewhere. Helping others represented the way […]
During my career I answered to a Peach, a Doc, and a Street. My age always kept me away from war. Collins put me on the Hall of Fame hill. I collected four World Series rings. I married a babe named Ruth. If Shoeless Joe would have stayed in the game, I might have “seen” things differently. I was a professional […]
(Copyright Mike Shuba) George Shuba’s story is in many ways that of an average ballplayer. In seven years in the major leagues, his career batting average was .259, and he played in a total of just 355 games, never more than 94 in a season. Nearly a third of his at-bats were as a […]
In a 20-year major-league broadcasting career with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles/California Angels, plus four additional years of professional and college play-by-play, Don Wells worked alongside famed broadcasters Bob Elson, Dick Enberg, and Dave Niehaus, all of whom would later win the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award. Although Wells […]
In 1966, The Sporting News quipped that “Tom Satriano has more gloves than [his wife] . . . not many husbands can make that statement.”1 “[N]o threat to [Olympic sprinter] Bob Hayes, or even [actress] Helen Hayes,” the slow-footed Satriano constructed a 10-year major league career with his adaptability at catcher and every infield position. […]
In Game Four of the 1932 World Series — the last major league game of his 14-year career — he struck out Babe Ruth two consecutive times. A decade earlier, he won 35 games in one (very long) minor league season. Later a tobacco farmer and the best player to ever hail from Wendell, North […]
Which New York Yankees player had the highest batting average in 1964? Mickey Mantle hit .303 and Elston Howard .313 – but nobody topped Elvio Jiménez’s .333 mark. “Look it up,” he said.1 Despite batting .309 over 13 seasons in the minors, however, Jiménez appeared in just one major-league game, going 2-for-6. Following a 17-year […]
A slick fielder in the days before gloves, Ed Somerville was the top defensive second basemen in the inaugural season of the National League of 1876. A year later his death in Canada marked the first passing of a National League ballplayer. Edward G. Somerville was born in Philadelphia on March 1, 1853, as the […]
Twelve managers have won more games than Bill McKechnie. None has won more respect. Deacon Bill McKechnie was the first to lead three different teams to the World Series and the first to win championships with two different teams. In 25 seasons as a manager, between 1915 and 1946, he earned respect as a baseball […]
Amiable but tough-minded, Frank Miller was a World War I-era pitcher who valued his own worth. At the height of his career, the hard-throwing right-hander sat out two full seasons when the Pittsburgh Pirates would not accede to his salary demands. Even a visit to the pitcher’s dairy farm in Michigan by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain […]
Suggest today to Costen Shockley that judging by the newspaper headlines of 50 years ago he must have been quite a high-school baseball player, and he replies with a prideful chuckle that conveys barely a trace of conceit, “Yeah, I was pretty good.” Indeed he must have been. After dominating on the baseball diamond for […]
In the 1926 Negro World Series, pitcher Claude “Red” Grier threw a no-hitter for the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, setting a Negro League milestone that one would have thought would last for a long time. But almost exactly a year later, another Bacharach, Luther “Red” Farrell, again hurling for the team in a World Series, […]
“Part of [Hack] Wilson’s legend was his physical appearance. At 5-foot-6 and 195 pounds, he had spindly legs and a shoe size of five and a half. He had a massive upper body, including an 18-inch neck that was reminiscent of a fire hydrant.”1 Fresh off a 13-3 loss to the first-place St. Louis Cardinals […]
Fans often remember the ends of seasons more readily than the beginnings. What is often associated with the beginnings of the 1975 season for the Cincinnati Reds is that on Saturday, May 17, 1975, the Reds stood at 19-19 and in second place 5½ games behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers and just a half-game […]
Going into 2005, the Florida Marlins began with high expectations, both internally and in the national media. Team President David Samson boldly predicted a franchise-record 93 wins, and one national magazine pegged the Marlins to win the World Series.1 Optimism was not unwarranted, as the core of the 2003 World Series champion Marlins team remained […]
In 2007, the Washington Nationals and Florida Marlins could only be considered “contenders” in the sense that they were contending for last and next-to-last place in the NL East Division. However, those few hardy fans among the original 19,278 who remained to the end of this game were treated to a memorable ending. Rookie Matt […]
Even though they were making their first postseason appearance in more than a decade, the New York Mets were ready for the pressure of Game One of their National League Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Four must-win games over the previous four days had prepared them for the postseason. “Since we’ve been through it […]
Stretched out across a seat near the rear of his minor-league team’s bus, Woody Crowson hoped to relax on the ride back home after he watched his Greensboro Patriots teammates drop a tough Class C Carolina League game to the last-place Martinsville Athletics on August 13, 1947. It had been over two years since Crowson […]