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“That kid’s got a hell of a stance! Everything’s perfect! He ought to become a great hitter!” Legend has it that Ted Williams uttered these words while critiquing a photo of an 18-month-old boy.1 He was absolutely right; that boy, Wade Boggs, went on to win several batting titles on his way to becoming one […]

As the center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1926 to 1930, Taylor Douthit was one of the game’s top defensive players. His career range factor ranks first among all outfielders,1 and his 547 putouts in 1928 remain the major-league record for outfielders.2 An effective leadoff hitter,3 Douthit averaged .302 over that five-year span […]

Given a comical nickname based on his last name and beaky nose, William Dayton “Poll” Perritt had a successful 10-year pitching career, pitched in a World Series, was bribed by Hal Chase, tussled with John McGraw and oil barons, and became a modestly successful Louisiana oilman. William Dayton Perritt was the first child born to […]

Outfielder Román Mejías played in 627 big-league games from 1955 to 1964. Alas, just three of those came with the 1960 Pirates, his one US team that won a pennant. He was not on the roster when Pittsburgh won the World Series that year. Mejías was “an affable, good-natured player …  whose demeanor, humility and […]

Here is one of the most moving, human-interest stories in the entire history of the game—a story that exemplifies the spirit of baseball and America . . . It is the . . . dramatic story of the skinny, under-nourished, weak-visioned kid, the son of a poor immigrant family, a product of New York’s tough […]

Mike Lowell was a New York Yankees prospect who won a world championship with the 2003 Florida Marlins (beating the Yankees). He then became part of a salary dump that saw him sent to the Boston Red Sox, where he picked up a second world champion ring and was accorded the honor of being named […]

John I. Taylor is one of the most controversial figures in Boston Red Sox history. After Boston won the first 20th-century World Series in 1903, American League president Ban Johnson faced a dilemma. The Boston championship team was owned and operated by Midwestern interests. Johnson wisely decided that the team should be sold to a […]

Right-handed-hitting backup catcher Tim Hosley came up through the Detroit Tigers farm system and broke in with the Tigers in 1970. Traded to Oakland, Hosley played for the 1973 and 1974 World Series champions, but spent much of those two seasons in Triple-A because the A’s were deep in catching with Ray Fosse and Larry […]

Morris “Red” Badgro is best known as a Hall of Fame end on the 1930s New York football Giants. His professional baseball career lasted six years and included two seasons as an outfielder on the 1929-30 St. Louis Browns. At the University of Southern California 1923-27, he starred in baseball, football, and basketball. Born December […]

In October 1935 Perry Noren of Jamestown, New York, drove his sons, Everett and Irving, to Detroit for the opening game of the 1935 World Series, and they saw Schoolboy Rowe pitch for the Tigers. The next time the family attended a World Series, Irv was playing in it. Perry, a native of Sweden, owned […]

José Cardenal, one of the last Cuban baseball players to leave that island before the Castro regime clamped down, played for 18 seasons in the US major leagues for nine teams. But that information only scratches the surface of a talented, yet complicated man who was once compared to Willie Mays as a young player. […]

A left-handed pitcher who batted from the right side, Johnny Schmitz enjoyed a good time in baseball, though a four-year hitch in the US Navy during World War II interrupted a career that was just getting started. He was signed originally before the 1938 season (almost certainly in 1937) by Lou Nahin and Harold Schiefelbein […]

It’s not every part-time player with a brief major-league career who takes part in a historic baseball event. However, when Emil “Hap” Huhn of the Cincinnati Reds crouched behind the plate in the bottom of the first inning at Chicago’s Weeghman Park preparing for Fred Toney’s first delivery, that is exactly what was about to […]

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound right-handed pitcher saddled with the seemingly unfortunate nickname Pinky was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, as George Rowland Woods on May 22, 1920. Every standard source presented the year of his birth as 1915, but after being asked why he was playing high school ball at the age of 23, his brother Francis confirmed […]

Pea Ridge Day was a big, strong Arkansas farmboy. If he hadn’t already had a colorful nickname denoting his hometown, he surely would have been dubbed Rube. Despite his entries in the baseball encyclopedias, Clyde Day wasn’t born in Pea Ridge, or Arkansas for that matter. Day grew up in Pea Ridge, though, and brought […]

The elder statesman of the Baby Birds staff that vaulted the Baltimore Orioles into pennant contention in the early 1960s was a mere 22-year-old. He is the only AL pitcher to lead the circuit in wins during a rookie campaign and the only one in either league to do so since Chicago Cubs righty Larry […]

Mike Sharperson was a super-utility man, a valuable role-player who could play any infield position or come off the bench to pinch-hit. While supersubs rarely get the credit they deserve, his skills were such that he made the National League All-Star team. Sharperson spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, winning a World […]

There was baseball in Marlan Coughtry’s family. “My dad began throwing baseballs at me as soon as I could walk,” he said. “My uncle, Ray Coughtry, had played in the Cardinal chain; my dad wants me to rise even higher.”1 Perry Coughtry was Marlan’s father. A native Californian, Perry worked as a checker for a […]

Baseball’s All-Star Game was played at Griffith Stadium in 1937 and 1956, and now it was time for another generation of local baseball fans to gather at the new District of Columbia Stadium to watch the feats of the greats. History told us later that the 1962 All-Star Game featured 18 future Hall of Famers.1 […]

In 1987, Ken “The Kid” Griffey Jr. truly was a kid: Just 17 years old, he was beginning his pro baseball career with the Bellingham (Washington) Mariners of the Northwest League. The first half of June 1987 was undoubtedly a whirlwind for the teenager, who had recently graduated from Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati. […]

Based on their franchise history, the St. Louis Cardinals didn’t expect to be a factor in a National League pennant race in 1921. Yet that’s exactly where they found themselves in the last week of the season. The Cardinals were in third place, relevant in the NL race for the first time in their history. […]

“Nice work, kid,” St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Rogers Hornsby said to Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Glenn Wright as Wright tagged Hornsby.1 It was the top of the ninth inning at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on May 7, 1925. The 24-year-old Wright had caught a line drive and stepped on second before tagging Hornsby, completing the sixth […]

When Harmon Killebrew signed with the Kansas City Royals in January 1975, he brought two decades of baseball wisdom honed by major-league experience dating back to the early days of rock and roll. To borrow from a popular song title in 1954, Killebrew’s first year in the big leagues, one might say that he shook, […]

It was a “titanic struggle,” declared sportswriter Jack Ryder about the longest, and surely one of the most exciting, games of the 1934 major-league season.1 It featured seven lead changes, clutch hitting, sensational defense, rubber-armed pitching, and some luck. The Cincinnati Reds were having another abysmal season when they engaged the St. Louis Cardinals in […]