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Jeff Bittiger’s professional baseball career spanned 23 seasons. But that long-playing career, which ended at the age of 40, included just 33 games – in parts of four seasons – in the major leagues. The handful of highlights from his time in the major leagues includes four victories as a right-handed pitcher – including one […]

Frank Thomas played during an era when team owners looked upon their players as chattels. By their standards, Frank Joseph Thomas was considered a rebel. Much of his career was spent bickering with management over his worth to them. In his early career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Thomas’s adversary in such battles was the man […]

In the Roaring Twenties a new breed of coed sprouted on college campuses across the nation. She smoked, drank, and danced the night away at fraternity parties. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and was a gleeful participant in panty raids. She was giddy, was often called a flapper, and could be persuaded to engage […]

In his book The Boys of Summer, author Roger Kahn relates how even after leaving daily 1950s baseball coverage to write for magazines, his “journalistic identity, such as it was, lived with my [New York Herald] Tribune stories” on the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Robert Frost consoled him, telling Kahn that “nearly everyone has to lead two […]

Charles Albert Bender with the Philadelphia Athletics. (Library of Congress)   American Indian. Innovator. Renaissance man. Charles Albert “Chief” Bender lived a unique American life, fashioned a Hall of Fame career, and was an important member of modern baseball’s first dynasty. He silently struggled against racial prejudice, became a student of the game, and was […]

After Fred Thomas of the Boston Red Sox left for the Navy in July of 1918, third base was a tough position for manager Ed Barrow to fill. Catcher Wally Schang played there on occasion, but the hot corner was mostly played by a succession of career minor leaguers. All had strengths and weaknesses as […]

In the first years of the 20th century, almost anyone with the given names Frederick Nicholas had a good chance to be nicknamed “Fritz,” and so it was with Fritz Coumbe, though his ancestry was British rather than Teutonic. But most of the papers of the day called him Fred. Fred’s father George Coumbe had […]

Bob Adams never played minor-league ball, either before or after his time in the major leagues. In fact, his entire career in professional baseball lasted less than 30 hours. He debuted on September 22, 1925 and wrapped up his career on September 23. The two games were very different experiences for him. He was a […]

A lefty reliever with a devastating curveball, Tippy Martinez pitched for 14 major league seasons from 1974 to 1988. Between starting his career with the New York Yankees and ending it with the Minnesota Twins, he spent 11 years with the Baltimore Orioles, where he was an All-Star and World Series champion in 1983. That […]

Steve Bilko was a heavy hitter. Baseball encyclopedias list him at 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds, the greatest tonnage that baseball allowed in print in the 1950s until the mammoth Frank Howard came along. When anyone asked Bilko how much he weighed, as so many did, he’d say between 200 and 300. Years later he told […]

By late in the 1884 season, the amateur Fall River (Massachusetts) City League had placed five recent graduates in major league baseball. The star of this quintet was Charlie Buffinton, a right-handed pitcher then on his way to compiling numbers nearly worthy of the Hall of Fame. Fellow city league alumnus Frank Fennelly became a […]

Dick “Cannonball” Redding pitched professionally from 1911 to 1936 and got his nickname from his blazing fastball that knocked back catchers.1 Redding claimed he once fired a brand-new baseball against the side of a building and the ball broke apart.2 His velocity was so legendary that some historians have wondered if Redding was the hardest-throwing […]

“One of the most durable and dependable catchers in the Negro Leagues era, Larry ‘Iron Man’ Brown was a master behind the plate, yielding a quick release and an arm to be envied.”1 Brown never pulled his mask off for a pop fly. Never staggered under foul balls like other catchers. Brown described the art […]

Hideo Nomo threw two no-hitters (one with the Dodgers) and struck out 17 in April 1996 against the Marlins. (Copyright Jerry Coli /dreamstime.com.)   It was a busy night for sports in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, April 13, 1996. The Dodgers had a home game with Japanese sensation Hideo Nomo starting, which usually […]

It would have been fitting if Rod Serling had gone to a baseball game in Geneva, New York, on August 22, 1961, and found himself trapped in some kind of twist ending – hit in the head by a foul ball, perhaps, to wake up alone in a deserted ballpark. After all, the danger of […]

The New York Mets were on a five-game winning streak, their longest of the 2003 season, when they took the field on August 18, 2002. After beating the San Francisco Giants in the first two games of a homestand at Shea Stadium, they won the first three games of a Friday-Monday series against the Colorado […]

Bob Stanley filled many roles during his career with the Boston Red Sox. He pitched 17 complete games in 64 starts between 1977 and 1981, including a 10-inning shutout in 1979. In 1982 Stanley was used exclusively as a reliever, and set an American League record for relief innings pitched (168⅓) while averaging 3½ innings […]

Coming into this Saturday night game in St. Louis, the focus was on the Florida Marlins’ new catcher, superstar Mike Piazza, who had just joined the team in a blockbuster trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Afterward, however, all anyone could talk about was another slugging All-Star, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire, and […]

Heading into the 1961 season, the National League pennant race looked to be a five-team battle. Only three teams, the Cubs, Phillies and Reds, appeared to have no chance to challenge for first place.1 However, Cincinnati manager Fred Hutchinson was optimistic about the team’s prospects. “I don’t care about anyone’s pick,” he said on the […]

In the 1926 Negro World Series, pitcher Claude “Red” Grier threw a no-hitter for the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, setting a Negro League milestone that one would have thought would last for a long time. But almost exactly a year later, another Bacharach, Luther “Red” Farrell, again hurling for the team in a World Series, […]

The San Diego Padres hosted the Cincinnati Reds in a National League West Division game two weeks before the 1993 All-Star break. Neither team was making a move in the standings. The sixth-place Padres (28-44) had returned to Jack Murphy Stadium for a four-game series against the Reds following a 3-6 road trip. They lost […]

It was an eagerly anticipated matchup between opposite styles of play: Harvey’s Wallbangers and Whiteyball. Skipper Harvey Kuenn’s Milwaukee Brewers who led the majors in home runs (216), runs scored (891), and slugging (.455) against manager Whitey Herzog’s St. Louis Cardinals who paced the NL in stolen bases (200) and fielding (.981), while hitting the […]

The Triple-A Rochester Red Wings’ home opener against the Richmond Braves on April 22, 1971, brought together some baseball names on their way up, others on their way out – and one caught intriguingly in the middle. The future stars on the rise included Rochester’s Don Baylor and Bobby Grich and Richmond’s Darrell Evans, who […]

Among the top scouts, few have possessed as varied a background and perspective as John Joseph (Jack) Doyle. During his remarkable 71 years in the game, Doyle performed as a front-line player and captain, major- and minor-league player-manager, National League umpire, minor-league club owner, and as the head scout of the Chicago Cubs during their […]