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In his major-league career Clay Kirby won 75 games, yet he is best remembered for one of his losses. On July 21, 1970, Kirby, on the mound for the San Diego Padres, pitched eight innings of no-hit ball against the New York Mets before manager Preston Gomez removed him for a pinch-hitter. Kirby had given […]

Garry Hancock was a strong-armed, good-hitting outfielder who did not earn a regular place in the star-studded Red Sox outfield of Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, and Dwight Evans. Instead, Hancock filled in for the outfield trio during the heartbreaking roller coaster ride that was Boston’s 1978 campaign. Ronald Garry Hancock was born on January 23, […]

Known as one of the steadiest setup and capable closers in Blue Jays history, Duane Ward was instrumental in the organization’s back-to-back World Series championships, in the early 1990s. Standing at 6-feet-4 and 210 pounds, he was a powerful right-handed pitcher capable of throwing 95-mph fastballs and hard, sweeping sliders. Ward’s versatility allowed him to […]

Redheaded lefty pitcher Charlie Perkins got into just 19 major-league games in 1930 and 1934. His record was an uninspiring 0-3, with a 7.50 ERA. “I had one fault,” he said looking back in 1976. “I had a good arm but I was wild. To stay in the big leagues, you had to throw that […]

John Stearns was a stalwart on some of the worst New York Mets teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He earned the nickname Bad Dude, which he picked up while talking to a reporter in 1970.1 It stuck with him throughout his playing days. The nickname was indicative of Stearns’s toughness and confidence. […]

“How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.” – Vin Scully1   Twenty-eight miles south of Pittsburgh, roughly along the Monongahela River (Western Pennsylvanians call it the Mon and the Mon Valley) lies the town of Donora. Donora and the surrounding communities were once a fairly thriving multi-ethnic area […]

A three-time All-Star with the Milwaukee Brewers, Dan Plesac was a left-handed pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and a biting slider who became one of the game’s dominant closers during the late 1980s. In addition to the time spent with the Brewers, Plesac’s 18-year major-league career included stints with the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto […]

Craig Lefferts battled all his life to make it to the major leagues. Once he did, he stayed there for a decade, and became famous for running from the bullpen to the mound, showing his lifelong enthusiasm for the game. Craig Lindsay Lefferts was born on September 29, 1957, in Munich, West Germany.1 His father, […]

Bob Hope entertained troops in war zones, hosted the Academy Awards 19 times, and had more wealth than Midas thanks to oil investments, real estate holdings, and television commercials for Texaco and Chrysler. His relationship with NBC, unparalleled in show business, started on radio in the 1930s and continued on television when it became a […]

Although he was a catcher in 527 of his 922 major league games, Mike Grady is best known as a third baseman who made a record number of errors on one ground ball, a play that never happened. At 5’ 11” and a muscular 190 pounds, Grady was a versatile player for the Phillies, Browns, Giants, […]

Walter Hackett spent his major-league career with two Boston teams in 1884-1885, the first with the short-lived Union Association, and the second with the National League. He was a solid defensive shortstop in his day, but it didn’t lead him to a lengthy career. We don’t know which side Walter batted or threw from, or […]

An outstanding three-sport high school athlete from Lima, Ohio, Bill Sharp earned a football scholarship from powerhouse Ohio State before entering professional baseball. With the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, Sharp was a spray-hitting swinger and a skilled defensive outfielder for parts of four major-league seasons (1973-1976) before knee problems ended his career. William […]

In his long and accomplished baseball career, San Francisco Bay Area native Emil “Lefty” Mailho managed over 2,500 hits, yet all but one — a pinch single in a 1936 contest — came in the minor leagues. One writer described Mailho as “arguably the best .056 lifetime hitter the majors (have) ever seen.”1 Mailho, who […]

Bill Stoneman wasn’t intimidated by the Big Red Machine. On June 19, 1972, in his previous start against the powerhouse Reds, Stoneman tossed a stellar four-hit shutout in a 2-0 Montreal victory. Considering that the Expos had one of the weakest offenses in the major leagues, he needed to continue putting zeroes up on the […]

The San Diego Padres have been in existence since 1969 and as of 2018 had played nearly 8,000 games but just nine games in the World Series. Of those nine games, fans of the Padres have only one World Series game victory to celebrate. That victory came at home in Game Two of the 1984 […]

Like muddy urchins tromping through Buckingham Palace and into the queen’s drawing room, here were the upstart Pittsburgh Pirates. What business did they have in October, challenging the New York Yankees? Fifteen World Series titles in the previous 30 years had made the Yankees a metaphor for elite performance. For Pittsburgh, those same years had […]

The Red Sox were still hopeful, even in the final days of August 1955. They were in fourth place, but the standings were tightly bunched and they were only five games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Before this day’s game, the Indians and White Sox were one and 1½ games back of New York, […]

Terry Felton had nothing to say. Not that anyone could blame him – what could Minnesota’s loveable loser say that he hadn’t already said after the first 15 losses of his career? Felton was once again the tough-luck loser on September 12, 1982. This time he left the game in the sixth inning with two […]

The 1968 season is remembered as “the Year of the Pitcher,” and for good reason. For the first time since the Deadball Era, both the American and National Leagues posted ERAs under 3.1 Only one AL hitter, Carl Yastrzemski, finished with an average of .300 or greater, and major-league batters as a whole averaged just […]

We may have all been there at one time or another. You begin the school year and the English teacher’s first assignment is for you to write a composition: “What I did this summer?” No doubt the subject of most of the papers submitted center on a family vacation, a summer job or perhaps something […]

How hard did Jerry Vezendy throw? Hard enough to strike out 102 batters in 71 innings in the Class A New York-Penn League in 1964. Hard enough for the Boston Red Sox to sign him to a major-league contract that October to prevent him from being drafted by another team.1 Hard enough, too, to land […]

Anyone who has stepped up to the plate in a baseball or softball game has dreamed about hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. On one magical weekend in 1985, it was more than a dream for Orioles center fielder Fred Lynn. On May 10 and 11 at Memorial Stadium, […]

After the 1973 season, Yankee Stadium underwent a $100 million renovation, forcing the Yankees to share Shea Stadium with the New York Mets in 1974 and 1975. Finally, on the unseasonably warm afternoon of April 15, 1976, the Yankees returned to the Bronx and their remodeled stadium, as a spirited crowd of 52,613 (the largest […]

The morning of Sunday, September 1, 1974 started out the same as any other late New England summer day; hazy and humid with a chance of some rain. The 1974 season was different than any other for most of us in that arguably the greatest individual record in all of sports had been broken, and […]