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Fenway Park’s iconic left-field wall, the Green Monster, has served as the canvas for many memorable home runs. The game-winner that Carlton Fisk waved fair in Game Six of the 1975 World Series cleared that 37-foot-tall left-field barrier, as did Bucky Dent’s go-ahead homer in the 1978 American League East tiebreaking playoff and the first […]

“Dressen first saw this boy in Boston in 1944 when a group of boys came to Braves Field for a tryout. Charlie liked him then and the club (Brooklyn) signed him.” – Brooklyn scout John “Red” Corriden, speaking about Clem Labine, October 2, 19511   He would ultimately become known as the man with the […]

Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart grew up in Oakland, playing youth baseball together.1 Whether it was at Bushrod Field in North Oakland or on diamonds in East Oakland,2 they played regularly with buddies who also made it to the majors, such as Gary Pettis and Lloyd Moseby. The Oakland area has a proud tradition of […]

In their ongoing struggle to outdraw the Red Sox, their team’s longtime rivals for the affections of New England baseball fans, owners of the Boston Braves usually finished on the losing end. Cavernous Braves Field, situated just off an unexciting stretch of automobile dealerships on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue, was no match for cozy Fenway Park […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs began 1949 with an unprecedented matchup: the National or American League’s first-ever Opening Day clash of starting pitchers who had reached their 40th birthdays.1 In a game scoreless until a ninth-inning unearned run, with both Pittsburgh’s Rip Sewell and Chicago’s Dutch Leonard going the distance on fewer than 100 […]

On December 23, 1958, the Philadelphia Phillies, after finishing last in the eight-team National League, made a trade to fill a pressing need at second base. The Phillies sent three players (Jim Golden, Rip Repulski, and Gene Snyder) to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Sparky Anderson, a 25-year-old who had spent the last six seasons […]

In 1933, Chicago was celebrating its centennial by hosting a World’s Fair, entitled A Century of Progress Exposition. Fair officials asked the local sports editors to think of an athletic event that would attract fans to Chicago from around the country. Arch Ward, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, suggested a baseball game to be […]

By September 30, the next-to-last day of the regular season in 1933, the teams playing in that season’s World Series, the Washington Senators and New York Giants, had already clinched their respective league pennants.1 However, there were still tight races for second and third places in the National League. The Pittsburgh Pirates held a one-game […]

On June 6, 1935, Winnipeg’s Osborne Stadium reopened after renovations with an exhibition that featured future Hall of Famers Willard Brown, Satchel Paige, and Bullet Rogan. The game ended in a scoreless tie. The Kansas City Monarchs, an independent team in 1935, were considered the home team for the exhibition, while the integrated professional team […]

As many baseball fans know, Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman is the only player to die from an injury sustained during a major-league baseball game. But 27 years after Chapman was struck and killed by a pitch, a Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder came frighteningly close to becoming the second. Long before 1947, Pete Reiser had a […]

Friday evening, October 2, 1908: Billy Murray walks the streets of Philadelphia. Cigar in mouth, immersed in thought, he continues mile after mile, hour after hour.1 The fourth-place Phillies team he manages is well out of contention. But as one of the most famed pennant races in baseball history draws to a close, one of […]

Fiddler Bill McGee is far better known as a musician in the Mississippi Mudcat Band organized by Pepper Martin than as a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants from 1935 to 1942. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound righthander was a handsome guy with grey eyes, light brown hair, a ruddy face, and, according […]

This infielder was the original “Sugar Bear” — several years ahead of Floyd Rayford, who bore the same nickname in the 1980s. With their pleasant, sleepy-eyed expressions, both men resembled the easygoing cartoon character in the ads for Post Super Sugar Crisp cereal. Yet contrary to popular belief, that is not how Blanks got his […]

In four years of high school and two in college, Daryl Spencer won just one varsity sports letter. In his first season of Ban Johnson baseball, he hit about .260. Not a single major league scout even nodded toward him until well into his first season of professional baseball. Yet he was in a major-league […]

A fine major league pitcher for several years, Jim Brosnan wrote the first honest portrayal of the life of a baseball player. The Long Season and subsequent works have earned him continued praise ever since. His writings paved the way for many other players’ “autobiographies,” usually written with considerable help, and filled with more tawdriness […]

Gene Crumling always envisioned himself as a baseball player. “He dropped the ‘b’ from his name when he started playing professional baseball because he said it looked better in print. Our folks didn’t mind,” said his brother Bill.1 Crumbling turned into Crumling in 1941 when Gene kicked off his 12-year professional-baseball career, spent primarily in […]

How many people can claim Benjamin Franklin, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Washington Irving as their brothers? Lil Stoner could! The 9th edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia lists him as Lil Stoner, but he was born Ulysses Simpson Grant Stoner. Lil pitched for parts of nine seasons in the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers, […]

R C Stevens, said one of his minor-league managers, was “capable of breaking up a game anytime he took his bat in hand.” He hit 191 home runs in 12 minor-league seasons, but didn’t meet the test in the major leagues, and played only briefly in four seasons, three of them (including 1960) with the […]

It wasn’t unusual that Chris Speier was a Bay Area dude who played for the San Francisco Giants, nor that he was discovered by a major league scout while playing semi-pro ball. But for a California dude to be discovered playing ball in a Canadian town better known for its annual Shakespeare festival than for […]

There are few players in the history of professional baseball who have made as strong an impact in their debut season as did Pat Zachry. Through the 2012 campaign, Zachry remains one of only three pitchers to secure Rookie of the Year honors while helping lead his team to a World Championship. Establishing other remarkable […]

Enos Kirkpatrick played in four major league seasons in two different leagues. He spent part of 1912 and all of 1913 in the National League with the Brooklyn Dodgers; he then jumped to the Federal League, donning the uniform of the Baltimore Terrapins in 1914 and 1915. Overall, Kirkpatrick’s professional career lasted 11 seasons, from […]

Since the earliest days of professional baseball, the sport has offered aspiring players not only a chance to fulfill a dream, but also a shot to escape to a better life than what they could imagine in their small towns and urban centers across the country. Perhaps that’s what teenage Al Gerheauser thought. A high-school […]

Like so many of the state’s early settlers, Bert Abbey’s ancestors were farmers who came to Vermont from Connecticut. Bert’s father, Pearl Castle Abbey, aspired to become a Baptist minister, but at his father’s insistence remained on the family farm in Essex Center. He was still living there on November 29, 1869, when his wife […]

The Bluefield Orioles played their final minor-league game on August 31, 2010 at Bowen Field in Bluefield, Virginia. (Photo courtesy of Davebanner12 / Creative Commons 1.0)   In the early 1900s in the town of Bluefield, West Virginia, the colors blue and gray still stirred bitter memories of the Civil War. Along the ridges that […]