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“His beautiful swing never varies,” raved Chicago Cubs beat reporter Edgar Munzel about Billy Williams. “[It’s] a marvel of repetitive action. And it doesn’t matter who the pitcher [is].1 In the midst of a torrid streak in 1972, the most productive season of Williams’s Hall of Fame career, the Whistler, Alabama, native’s extra-inning walk-off home […]

The warning signs about Lou Gehrig had been accumulating all spring of 1939: The New York Yankees’ venerable iron man suddenly wasn’t what he used to be. Gehrig wasn’t necessarily ancient. He was still just 35 years old — past retirement age for ordinary ballplayers, but still comfortably within career range for all-time greats, and […]

On a clear, 71-degree October night in the hills above downtown Los Angeles, the Atlanta Braves, one loss from postseason elimination but also one win from forcing a winner-take-all game on their home field, lined up to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game Four of the 2013 National League Division Series. The Dodgers’ manager, […]

The St. Louis Cardinals’ dismal start to the 1921 season – one win in their first 10 games – seemed to augur yet another disappointing campaign for Branch Rickey’s team. The Cardinals’ losing record wasn’t that unusual, since they had been mostly a second-division club throughout their history. The franchise had never been in serious […]

With only a little over a week until the 1935 All-Star Game, the St. Louis Cardinals played the second of a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. The visiting Cardinals (36-27) had lost their last two games and were clinging to third place in the National League, eight games behind the New York Giants. The […]

In 1963 Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley proposed the use of orange baseballs as beneficial for players and fans. Finley, an insurance magnate who’d bought the Athletics three years earlier from the estate of Arnold Johnson, said it was easy for him — and presumably other fans — to lose the ball while tracking […]

Any time a baseball team ends a game with more errors than hits, chances are that it had a tough day at the office. That sums up the Kansas City Royals’ performance against the Oakland Athletics on the night of May 13, 1974. The six-hit complete-game pitching of Oakland’s Vida Blue would have been tough […]

According to the way baseball statistics are recorded, Jimmie Foxx played this entire game between his Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns – and scored a couple of runs, including the winning run – but never had even one at-bat in the game. Six-time American League walks leader Eddie Yost picked up the […]

Detroit Tigers right-hander Lynwood Thomas “Schoolboy” Rowe “gave one of the most courageous exhibitions of pitching ever seen in World Series,” wrote H.G. Salsinger of the Detroit News.”1 After the Tigers’ demoralizing 8-3 loss to Dizzy Dean and the St. Louis Cardinals in Game One of the 1934 fall classic at Navin Field in the […]

Tucked in the northwest corner of Rhode Island, just 10 miles from both Massachusetts and Connecticut, is the village of Chepachet, where Phillips Steere Paine was born on June 8, 1930. When Paine was a teenager in the 1940s Chepachet didn’t have a high school, so each school day Paine traveled five miles north to […]

What if? Are there any more tragic words in the English language? Helen of Troy’s face is reputed to have launched a thousand ships. Miguel Fuentes’ story may have launched fewer conversations, but the former is a myth while the latter is reality. Or in Shakespearean terms, a tragedy. For the Seattle Pilots’ fans, whose […]

For most of five seasons, Val Picinich was Walter Johnson’s personal catcher. He saw action during 18 major-league seasons, never playing in more than the 96 games he played for Cincinnati in 1928 – almost certainly his best year – and only playing as many as half his team’s games in six of the seasons. […]

In 1937 rookie outfielder Gibby Brack captured the imagination of the baseball world with a 12-game hitting streak in the first two weeks of his major-league career, topping the National League in hitting. “There is power in his swing and speed in his legs,” exclaimed The Sporting News. “[H]e started out to make good for […]

“Berardino is one of those intense fellows who believe the greatest shame in the world is not doing your best every time. He hustles until the last out of every game, and he doesn’t sit around crying about his hard luck.” — Bill Veeck, 1948.1 Known to generations of television viewers as Dr. Steve Hardy […]

The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates had their fair share of heroes and players who had career years, but when all is said and done, without Vernon Law they might well have been just another team that came close to glory. Heading into 1960, Law had just turned 30 and was an eight-year veteran of the Pirates, […]

Through the 2021 season, 29 of the 30 major-league teams have started a shortstop from the Dominican Republic on Opening Day at least once.1 Fifty-two different Dominican-born shortstops have achieved the feat, including 15 who became All-Stars the same year, four Gold Glove winners, and one MVP.2 Only Rafael Robles of the 1969 San Diego […]

“Henry Aaron in the second inning walked and scored. He’s sittin’ on 714. Here’s the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There’s a drive into left-center field! That ball is gonna be … outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!”  — Atlanta Braves’ announcer Milo […]

Kenneth Smith Harrelson was born on September 4, 1941, in Woodruff, South Carolina. In the sixth grade, he moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he and his older sister would grow up. Harrelson was the youngest child of a single mother, Jessie, who was his biggest supporter, closest confidante, and best friend. Jessie worked hard to […]

“Baseball was his life,” said Gene Myatt of his father, George Myatt, who spent four decades in baseball (1933-1972) as a player, coach, and manager, and was the third-base coach for the 1964 Phillies1 Most of his playing career was as a second baseman, but he also played third base, shortstop, and the corner outfield […]

In the minor leagues, Ramón Monzant won 61 games and lost only 25, spanning 784 innings, for a .709 record. No minor leaguer who hurled at least 1,000 innings ever came close to that rate.1 Alas, he was merely mediocre for the New York and San Francisco Giants of the National League, for whom he […]

“One feller I want to meet if he’s still alive and can be found is that fellow Henriksen,” remarked 72-year-old Hugh Bedient to Jamestown Post-Journal sportswriter Frank Hyde. It was March of 1962, and in four weeks’ time Hugh was expected in Boston along with the other surviving members of the 1912 World Champions for […]

Elmer Steele was a baseball team owner even before he took his first job as a player outside the region from which he came. In the long run, both Elmer Steele and his father William seem to have pursued allied occupations associated with delivering the mail, save for Elmer’s foray into professional baseball over an […]

Harlond Clift was the major leagues’ first modern third baseman, an outstanding defensive player who also possessed power, production, and patience at the plate. Until Clift came to the majors in 1934, third basemen – with the notable exceptions of Home Run Baker and Pie Traynor – were primarily thought of as being similar to […]

The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series championship in 2006, their first season at the new Busch Stadium. (Kevin Ward/Flickr.com. Used by permission: CC BY-SA 2.0.)   Introduction The St. Louis Cardinals have achieved a level of success in Major League Baseball that has been outdone only by the New York Yankees. Through the […]