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When there is a discussion regarding who is the best major-league baseball team in history, the conversation usually begins and ends with the 1927 New York Yankees. They ravaged the rest of the American League, posting a 110-44 record. At the time, it was the top mark in the AL and tied the 1909 Pittsburgh […]

Ecstatic and anxious Red Sox fans participated in round-the-clock vigils hoping to get World Series tickets while fans lacking tickets developed different strategies to follow the afternoon weekday games. Mill workers, cab drivers, and business people called in sick to work. And kids schemed to listen to pocket transistors at school. Fenway Park appeared ready […]

A sellout crowd of 52,033 fans turned out for the Houston Astros’ October 3, 1999, season finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers to commemorate the 35-year history of the Astrodome. The Astros had prepared a grand celebration to bid farewell to the venerable stadium, and many luminaries from the franchise’s past were in attendance. Craig […]

“The show gets better every nightAs Weaver’s cork blew out of sightAnother wild one to the lastToo bad the Tribe again got gassed”1   The Cleveland Indians were about as hot as they got in the 1970s. As the month of May 1979 came to a close, the Indians were in sixth place with a […]

An ordinary doubleheader on a lazy Tuesday afternoon turned extraordinary on one swing of the bat by Braves center fielder Bernie Neis. In his second at-bat of the first game, the 29-year-old Neis became only the second major-league player – and the first member of the Braves – to hit a home run over the […]

As the 49-year-old midtown Cincinnati ballpark hosted Game Five of what proved to be its final postseason, it sported a new paint job, applied after the end of the 1961 regular season. Crosley Field was all dressed up in its gaudiest colors in years. The outside of the ballpark had a gleaming coat of white […]

To some observers, the 1990 major-league baseball season seemed at times like a 162-game formality, a steady march toward the Oakland A’s winning their third straight American League pennant and repeating as World Series champions. Sports Illustrated, Athlon’s Baseball, The Sporting News Baseball Yearbook, Inside Sports Baseball Preview, and Baseball Digest all agreed that everyone […]

No team has ever begun its home opener with more authority than the San Diego Padres did in 1987. Their first three batters of the game all hit home runs, establishing a new major-league record for homers to open a game. But the visiting San Francisco Giants returned fire by battering five San Diego pitchers […]

On May 23, 1976, Minnesota pitcher Bert Blyleven beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1, and won his 99th career game, all with the Twins, for whom he debuted as a 19-year-old on June 5, 1970. He had a solid rookie season, going 10-9 with a 3.18 earned-run average in 27 games, all but two as […]

Through September 22, the Boston Red Sox had narrowed the New York Yankees’ lead in the 2004 American League East race from 10½ games on August 15 to 3½ games. Two days later, however, the Red Sox were 5½ games out with nine to play, after losses to the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees.1 The Red […]

The buzz from the wildly successful start to their inaugural season had worn off.1 The fledgling Expos had just lost their 18th consecutive game, and they were about to head out on a grueling 18-game road trip. Instead of going directly to Los Angeles to prepare to face the Dodgers, they made a side trip […]

“If you pitch long enough with good enough stuff,” said Tom Seaver, “you are bound to pitch a no-hitter sooner or later.”1 But even Tom Terrific probably did not think it would take 396 starts and 211 victories into his Hall of Fame career to toss his first and only no-hitter. Seaver’s masterpiece was “more […]

Ending a topsy-turvy, roller-coaster ride, first baseman Joe Kuhel rapped a bases loaded 12th-inning single through the pitcher’s box to lift the Washington Senators to an 11-10 victory over the Cleveland Indians at Griffith Stadium. Kuhel’s fifth hit of the game capped a 3-hour 34-minute marathon in which the two teams combined to use 11 […]

Ed Eiteljorg had just turned one year old when his family disembarked from their ship Main at Castle Garden, New York in 1872. Soon after landing in the United States, the family settled in Greencastle, Indiana, where Eiteljorg learned the ways of America, including the national pastime of baseball.  Eighteen years later, he would be […]

As Allie Moulton stepped onto the field for his major league baseball debut, he was no doubt already sweating. September 25, 1911, was unseasonably hot and humid—reaching temperatures not seen in Boston for decades. Then again, Allie had endured far worse early in his career playing in Mississippi and Arkansas. He had more reasons to […]

Pitcher Charlie Bell was a lifelong Cincinnatian, but his tenure in hometown baseball livery was confined to a single game — his final major-league appearance in July 1891. But that game was hardly Bell’s last appearance in a Cincinnati uniform. Beginning around 1898 and for close to 30 years thereafter, Bell proudly wore the blue […]

The life of a ballplayer is a life on the road. Half of your season is spent traveling around the league, and even your “home” can be temporary, uprooted by a trade at any moment. Some players are lucky enough to stay in one place for more than a season or two, and it is […]

“Everywhere I go, Greek baseball fans call me up, and I have to tell them that I am a Lithuanian instead of a Greek. But I do eat at Greek restaurants. Maybe I’ll have to change my name to something simple like Martin.” That’s what Alexander Mustaikis told sports columnist Bob Ray of the Los […]

The Red Sox party boarded the train in Boston on February 28, 1927, bound for spring training in New Orleans. During a four-hour layover in Cincinnati, eight more players got on. Among them was a prospect, F. A. Bennett. He didn’t make the team, but was “loaned” to Portland, Maine.1 About 3,000 people turned out […]

A turn-of-the-century minor-league standout, Joe Bean was among those auditioned at shortstop by the pre-McGraw New York Giants. Sadly, Bean failed to impress, his hitting and fielding being deemed below big-league caliber. After appearing in 50 games, Bean was released by New York in late June of 1902. Thus came to its close the brief […]

Oscar Jones was a man of many talents. In 1903, the Brooklyn Eagle listed them: “all around ball player, champion bicycle rider, sprinter, boxer, tumbler, gymnast, wrestler, cartoonist and cigarmaker.”1 To this list can be added showman, draftsman, farmer, and tire repairman. As a pitcher, Jones won close to 300 games in a 15-year professional […]

If you were going to make a movie of the life of Claude Alfred Thomas, you’d ask Gary Cooper to play the lead. The lanky cowboy actor and the 6’1″ left-handed pitcher bear a striking resemblance in their photographs. Lefty was a professional pitcher for most of 16 seasons, appearing in 644 games, a remarkable […]

Born on Washington’s Birthday in 1874 in Rochester, New York, William Joseph “Bill” Klem became one of the greatest umpires to ever take the field. “I was born of German parents in the Irish section near ‘Dutchtown’ in Rochester, New York,” Klem later said.1 Both father Michael Klimm and mother Elizabeth were from Bavaria. Bill was […]

A tall, slender 6″2″, 175 pounds, Bob Groom possessed an athleticism, cunning, and tenacity that bespoke his roots in the southern Illinois coal fields, where his grandfather and father had found success as mine owner-operators. Born on September 12, 1884 in Belleville, Illinois, to John and Mary Catherine Dickinson Groom, he was named Robert for […]