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Miguel Cabrera’s list of accolades is long. His manager in 2022, A.J. Hinch, said it best, “I’ve tried to remind our players that we’re playing with a living legend.”1 A native of Maracay, Venezuela, Cabrera was the first Venezuelan and seventh player born outside the continental United States to reach the 3,000-hit plateau.2 He was […]

A sunny Friday afternoon in July is a perfect day for a baseball game. When the venue is Chicago’s Wrigley Field and the opposing teams are the crosstown rivals Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, the setting is all the more idyllic. Throw in a pitching matchup of two young stars and it’s easy to […]

A spate of premature deaths between 1970 and 1979 brought baseball fans face-to-face with the fragility of human life. In those 10 years, no fewer than 14 active or recently active professional baseball players lost their lives to accidents, disease, murder, and suicide. Most prominent among the deceased players were Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente […]

Zack Wheat, more than four decades after playing his last major-league game, experienced a revival of fame in 1969 thanks to another Dodgers slugger who put on a hitting clinic against National League hurlers. Willie Davis tied Wheat’s 29-game streak on September 1, 1969, in a game against the Mets; it ended two games later […]

“Cupcake,” a euphemism for a should-be-easy-to-beat opponent, entered the sports lexicon in the 1970s.1 Forty-some years earlier, the New York Yankees would’ve agreed it applied to their September 23, 1932, opponent: the cellar-dwelling, 63 games back2 Boston Red Sox. The hapless 1899 Cleveland Spiders were the last major-league team to face an opponent 60 or […]

The Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians were coming off second- and fifth-place finishes, respectively, in 1936, and Detroit was just two seasons removed from back-to-back World Series appearances. Each team had high expectations for the new campaign. On Opening Day 1937, Detroit hosted Cleveland at Navin Field before a crowd of 38,200, who saw right […]

Elyria, Ohio, 23 miles southwest of Cleveland, was a growing town of about 13,000 in 1907. Factories there produced steel, pipe, and automobiles, including the luxurious Studebaker-Garford touring cars. Elyria was proud of its semipro baseball team. Competing against local opponents, the team won three consecutive pennants in the Cleveland and Southwestern Trolley League from […]

Terry Francona raised the art of self-deprecation to a new level. Decades after his playing career ended, the man who had become one of the most successful managers in big-league history loved to downplay his talents as a ballplayer. He claimed that the last thing he wanted was his players to hit like he did. […]

    The Pittsburgh Pirates were firmly entrenched in sixth place heading into their August 27, 1949, game in Philadelphia against the fourth-place Phillies. The Pirates, near the middle of a long road trip, had taken two of the first three of the four-game series heading into the Saturday afternoon tilt. Thirty-six-year-old Ernie Bonham, known […]

American League greats debate the designated hitter, 1973: “It’s legalized manslaughter. The only thing preventing pitchers from throwing at hitters now is that they must come to bat themselves.” – Carl Yastrzemski1 “I’m not sure the rule will do what it’s intended to do, and that is produce more hits and runs. It gives the […]

It was one of the most bizarre batting races in National League history. Three players on the same team were competing for a batting championship, none of whom today would qualify for the honor. Not until December of 1926, nearly three months after the season ended, was it decided whether Bubbles, Cuckoo, or Rube had […]

Diminutive Texan outfielder Joe “Goobers” Bratcher had only one big-league at-bat in four games with the St. Louis Cardinals in late August 1924. Yet that was just one small facet of a baseball career spanning three decades. The happy-go-lucky outfielder played on seven pennant-winning minor-league teams in a five-year period. And no one could ever […]

With high-school graduation behind them, it was time for the Cates twins to decide upon a career course. Neither wanted the stable but strenuous future of life on the Cates family farm. For Levi, a painter’s job at the local cement factory beckoned. This is the bio of Eli, the brother who chose to pursue […]

Billy Moran joined the Los Angeles Angels midway during the team’s inaugural season in 1961, but it was 1962 in which both Moran and his club broke out in a major way. The infielder, who would spend seven seasons in the major leagues, posted career numbers across the board that season. In 160 games he […]

Pitcher Chuck McElroy was drafted out of high school in 1986 at the age of 18 and debuted at 21 for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1989. He made 647 relief appearances plus seven starts over 13 major-league seasons for nine teams. He was also picked up by two other teams but was traded or released […]

In 13 of his 15 seasons in Negro Leagues baseball, Dewey Creacy played for teams called the Stars. He was a third baseman who played on four championship teams, including three for the St. Louis Stars (1928, 1930, and 1931) and one with the Philadelphia Stars (1934). In 1925 St. Louis was the second-half champion […]

An itinerant late-19th century jack-of-all-trades, Tim O’Rourke played for more than 30 different ball clubs in a professional career that spanned almost two decades. His resume, however, includes only five seasons as a major leaguer. In retrospect, it appears that O’Rourke’s time at the game’s highest level was diminished because the assets that he presented […]

During a professional pitching career that spanned the Deadball Era, right-hander Bobby Keefe won more than 200 games. Regrettably for him, only 16 of these victories came while in a major league uniform. A curveball artist, Keefe’s time in the bigs was sidetracked by untimely health problems, a periodically sore arm, and the perception that […]

There is nothing more exhilarating or more intoxicating in baseball than the seventh game of a best-of-seven championship series. It is an unforgiving arena where history is written of both the heroes who carry the day and their vanquished opponents. Winning pitchers in a game seven instantly become legends not only to their own team’s […]

Dylan Matthew Bundy to his credit. He is Cherokee, born to Lori and Denver Bundy on November 15, 1992, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Lori Bundy worked as a plumber and pipefitter for the Ford Motor Co. and later at Home Depot in Owasso, Oklahoma. When Lori met Denver Bundy, he was a mechanic and also ran a […]

In the wee hours of July 7, 1920, near Wawa, Pennsylvania, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, prodigious New York Yankees baseball slugger and notorious automobile speeder, careened his $10,000 Packard around a tight corner, lost control, and overturned. Ruth’s passengers were his wife Helen, Yankees coach Charlie O’Leary, and two teammates: backup catcher Fred Hofmann and […]

The right-hander stood on the pitcher’s mound in Tucson, Arizona, watching his manager Rocky Bridges walk out for a visit. It was the eighth inning; the bases were loaded with his team in the lead. Bridges grabbed the ball and gave it a good rub. After placing it back in his pitcher’s glove he offered […]

San Francisco Bay Area native Tim Cullen signed with the A’s during spring training in 1972, returning to the region where he had been a two-sport star in high school and helped Santa Clara University become the nation’s top-ranked college baseball team. He did not play in the 1972 World Series and retired after the […]

In June 1959, International League secretary and longtime baseball historian Harry Simmons was ecstatic about the 24-year-old Montreal Royals right-hander making the jump from the Three-I League (Class-B) to Triple-A ball. “[Ed] Rakow could be the best pitcher to come along since Don Drysdale,” Simmons exclaimed. “He can throw hard and is … completely fearless […]