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Jack Brickhouse, a broadcaster best known for covering Chicago Cubs baseball, also covered many other sports and teams and did a significant amount of non-sports broadcasting, including coverage of several national political party conventions, and interviews with four U.S. Presidents and Pope Paul VI. “My father ran the gamut of the entertainment world,” wrote Jack […]

Upon his arrival in the major leagues, Ken Holtzman was promoted as the new Sandy Koufax. A hard-throwing, left-handed Jewish pitcher, Holtzman quickly became the ace of the Chicago Cubs staff and one of the best pitchers in the majors. He enjoyed a fine career, spending his best years with the tumultuous and talented Oakland […]

Billy Sorrell was the type of player scouts coveted: a 6-foot, 190-pound left-handed hitter with power and speed who could play both infield and outfield. Legendary scout Tony Lucadello tracked and signed Sorrell for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959. Sorrell was a good batsman, often clutch, who played 14 professional seasons from 1960 until 1973, […]

Before the time of extensive scouting, there are numerous stories of teams offering a tryout to a local phenom and, if he made good in his audition, signing him to a contract. Some of these “finds” went on to stellar major league careers. However, roster limits necessitated that when a new youngster was added to […]

Right-handed pitcher Bob Spade had one notable season in the majors (17-12 with 2.74 ERA) with the 1908 Cincinnati Reds but it almost never happened. An ill-advised trade attempt and paperwork nightmare necessitated the Reds ownership formulating a deal for Spade even while he was still in uniform with them. Spade had two more lackluster […]

With his brothers and sisters, Al Van Camp could almost have fielded two baseball teams. Edward Victor Van Camp, born in Lille, France, in 1871, came to America in 1884. There he met Alice Rose Van DePutte from Altre, Belgium. The two married in Moline, Illinois, in August 1892. And became a quite productive couple; […]

Right-handed pitcher Happy Finneran played major-league baseball for five seasons. After playing two years for the Philadelphia Phillies, Finneran jumped to the Federal League in 1914 and played until the league folded in 1915. In 1918 he pitched for the Tigers and the Yankees. Joseph Ignatius Finneran was born on October 29, 1890, in East […]

Named after one president and toiling in the shadow of another pitcher named after the same president, Grover Cleveland “Slim” Lowdermilk had a career that spanned the second half of the Deadball Era. From 1909 to 1920 Lowdermilk was an adequate pitcher with occasional flashes of steadiness for six different teams. He closed out his […]

Charles G. “Charlie” Fisher played just 11 games in the majors, and that’s based on the status of the Union Association of 1884 as a top-level circuit. Yet the infielder still has a unique distinction. Alaska is known as the “Last Frontier” for good reasons. With an abundance of unsettled land and a sparse human […]

Clint Brown was a member of the Cleveland Indians starting staff for four years before a broken wrist sidelined him in 1934. He was relegated to the bullpen and eventually was sold to the Chicago White Sox. With Chicago he established records (all since broken) for relievers by appearing in 220 consecutive games without a […]

Montana’s Moonlight Graham, Wyman Andrus appeared in a single game at third base for the 1885 Providence Grays. His post-playing days, however, were spent as a distinguished leader of medicine and politics in an old west cattle town. William Wyman Andrus was born October 14, 1858, in the village of Orono, Ontario, Canada. He was […]

Jack Perrin’s major-league playing career lasted just two days, but he got four games in. Perrin played right field for the Boston Red Sox, debuting on July 11, 1921 and finished his playing time on July 12 – appearing in both halves of back-to-back doubleheaders. He was 3-for-13 at the plate, all singles, and never […]

New York fans had to be pleased at the scene that was unfolding before their eyes on May 12, 1959. Their Bronx heroes trailed the league-leading Indians 7-6 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning. Cleveland starter Cal McLish, who was attempting to raise his record to 5-0, was lifted by manager Joe Gordon […]

As the Boston Red Sox pounded the Cleveland Indians in front of 11,410 fans at Cleveland Stadium on July 3, 1943, Boston rookie Leon Culberson became the first player of the season to hit for the cycle. The New York Times reported that “Culberson’s contributions formed the major share of a 12-hit barrage laid down […]

For a while, Boston National League fans who saw Brooklyn play at Braves Field had a decent chance of seeing a lot of extra baseball. On May 1, 1920, the teams played 26 innings to a 1-1 tie – still the longest game in major-league history as of spring 2022. Two days later they played […]

“Sock” and “Socko” were nicknames given to Ken Szotkiewicz, but they weren’t tributes to his hitting skill.1 In 98 plate appearances with the 1970 Detroit Tigers, shortstop Szotkiewicz hit just .107. If he’d come to the plate twice more without a hit, he would have posted the lowest career batting average of any twentieth-century position […]

The 1974 season was only about two months old. Yet on June 9, two National League teams – the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants – played a game that was a turning point in both of their seasons. The Pirates were on a 12-game road trip against NL West Division clubs. They had […]

Rain delayed the final game of a three-game series between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals on June 27, 2007. The teams had split the first two games of the series. New York won the opener, 2-1, on Shawn Green’s 11th-inning walk-off home run. St. Louis came back to win the next night, […]

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) had a grueling schedule.1 In its inaugural campaign, in 1943, teams shoehorned 108 regular-season games into a three-month period by playing seven days a week, with a Sunday doubleheader thrown in for good measure.2 Since each team carried only four or five hurlers on its 16-woman roster,3 top […]

“We got seven runs early and felt we were in pretty good shape,” California Angels manager Doug Rader groaned. “We got pounded. It’s the worst one I’ve been in.”1 “It was one of those days that no matter what they threw, everything fell in for hits for us,” marveled the Brewers’ Jim Gantner.2 “They hit […]

Entering the 1958 season, only two major-league teams – the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox – had never employed a Black player. Controversy in each city guaranteed that the first player across the line would play under extra attention and pressure. The Tigers acted first, introducing their first Black player in June.1 The […]

Walter Alston lost his first game as a major-league manager in a tight one-run decision. It happened on April 13, 1954, at New York’s Polo Grounds, as the New York Giants trimmed Alston’s Brooklyn Dodgers by a 4-3 score. Fast-forward 23 seasons, 2,040 regular-season wins, 4 World Series titles, and 1 cross-country move later, and […]

With the best pitching in the National League taking on the league’s best offense on July 11, 2003, at Coors Field, the outcome of the game rested on a confrontation between a backup third baseman and a well-traveled set-up reliever. The 2003 season had been very good to the Dodgers pitching staff, which had given […]