Search Results

After two successful seasons at Triple A, Matt Brown was in his third spring-training camp with the Anaheim Angels in 2009. An exhibition game in late March showed what a challenge it was for Brown, 26 at the time, to make the Angels’ Opening Day roster. The Angels and Brown both got off to good […]

All across the world, when it comes to moments in baseball there are various scenes that play out in the minds of boys and girls. Most will think of hitting a home run to win the World Series a la Bill Mazeroski off Ralph Terry or Joe Carter off Mitch Williams or even Warren Morris […]

Bob Feller was a 35-year-old veteran of 15 major-league seasons in 1954 when the Cleveland Indians won 111 games and swept to the American League pennant by eight games over the New York Yankees. His fastball had lost a good deal of its luster and manager Al Lopez had reportedly wanted to release him during […]

Jon Matlack was one of the most underrated and unappreciated New York Mets pitchers in their first half-century of existence. Matlack’s baseball records are one of the best examples of why won-lost records may not be the best way to measure a pitcher’s efforts. Jonathan Trumpbour Matlack was born on January 19, 1950, in West […]

The telegram was brash and a bit disrespectful. Simply stated, it read “DEAR MOOSE: TOLD YOU SO. JOE PEP.”1 The New York Yankees needed pitching help—specifically a boost to their rotation—following the 1962 season. They set their sights on Stan Williams, a right-handed twirler for the Los Angeles Dodgers who had won 14, 15, and […]

Rich Hand showed a lot of promise early in his career, but he damaged his own prospects with bitterness every time he felt slighted, and that, along with arm injuries, caused his pitching career to be over by the time he was 26. Richard Allen Hand was born on July 10, 1948, in Bellevue, Washington. […]

A picture of Tony Batista at the plate perhaps deserves some recognition in a corner of Cooperstown. When the right-handed batter came to plate, he had an open stance that caused his chest to face the pitcher. His left leg was nearly even with his right leg. His hands were at eye level with the […]

As aptly put by a baseball card blogger, “If your name alone could get you into the Hall of Fame, then Coot Veal would surely have been inducted years ago.”1 Decades after his last professional game, Inman “Coot” Veal’ is most often remembered for this nickname rather than for his accomplishments as a player. His […]

For one magnificent season, “Colby Jack” Coombs was the equal of any pitcher of the Deadball Era, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander included. Armed with an above average fastball and a devastating drop curve, Coombs had one of the most dominant pitching seasons in baseball history in 1910, rolling up a 31-9 […]

Southpaw Pat Caraway garnered national attention in his rookie season with the Chicago White Sox in 1930 for his unorthodox pitching motion. “[He has] one of the most elaborate, complete and amusing windups ever seen in the majors,” mused sportswriter Hardin Burnley. “The lanky human slingshot twists himself into an intricate knot before suddenly hurling […]

When The Sporting News profiled baseball’s greatest second basemen in 1929, four photos appeared at the top of the page: Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins, Frankie Frisch, and Hughie Critz.1 As Sesame Street teaches us, one of these things is not like the others. Hughie Critz hit over .300 only once, never reached double figures in […]

Right-hander Schoolboy Rowe endured chronic, career-threatening shoulder pain to win 158 games in his big-league career from 1933 to1949. In his second season, he won 24 games, including an AL-record-tying 16 consecutive victories to help lead the Detroit Tigers to their first pennant since 1909. The next season, 1935, he won 19 games as the […]

A member of the three-time American League champions, Ed “Farmer” Willett was a fixture in the Detroit Tigers rotation from 1908 to 1913. During that six-year period, the 6-foot, 183-pound right-hander won at least 13 games in each season, topping out with a career-high 21 victories in 1909 when the Tigers captured their third consecutive […]

The story of Tony Horton, the young and talented slugger for the Red Sox and the Indians, is ultimately a tragic one from a baseball perspective. Just entering his prime seasons at the age of 25, he was forced to leave the game because of an emotional disorder, and ultimately he never returned. Piecing together […]

Sam Crawford sprung from fertile Midwestern farm soil, and like a storm blowing across his native Nebraska’s prairie swept over the major league baseball landscape for nearly two decades. One of the Deadball Era’s most consistent performers, the powerful Crawford never led his league in slugging percentage, but finished in the top ten in that […]

A.J. Bushong was better known as Doc or Bush in baseball circles. The Bush nickname is self-explanatory. The doctor reference denotes his degree in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained the degree early in his major-league career but only dabbled at the profession until his baseball career ended nearly a decade later. As […]

“I didn’t like how my baseball career ended, particularly because I was so young. I won only 19 games total. But I realized how fortunate I was to have made it to the majors. Not many make it. And how many guys who played for many years didn’t get to play in the World Series […]

In 1962 the Los Angeles Times veteran sportswriter Braven Dyer offered in three short sentences an apt analysis of the brief career of Ron Moeller: “Moeller is something of a problem pitcher. At times, he seems to have everything. The next time out, he seems devoid of confidence.”1 Emerging on the major league stage in […]

The New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to close out the 1965 season with a three-game weekend series at Shea Stadium. The games had no impact on the National League standings. Philadelphia, 82-76, was in sixth place, 12 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, while New York was mired in the NL […]

Between April 1923 and August 1938, there were 13 no-hitters in the major leagues. None were at Yankee Stadium. Although the Yankees had their share of Hall of Famers on the mound, Yankee Stadium was known as a hitters’ park, with pinstriped sluggers taking the home-run crown in 12 of the park’s first 15 years […]

While the starting pitchers in Game One of the 1963 World Series had been the obvious choice of staff aces, the second-game starters were dictated by the configuration of Yankee Stadium, a venue that rewarded left-handed batters and punished right-handed pitchers. Right-handers Jim Bouton of the Yankees and Don Drysdale of the Dodgers were clearly […]

It had been more than 116 years since the Boston Red Sox had found themselves in a road game where they trailed the New York Yankees by multiple runs with two outs in the ninth inning – but rallied and won the game. On June 2, 1908, the Red Sox were playing the New York […]

On the path to the 2004 World Series championship, the rain-shortened June 25 Red Sox win over the Philadelphia Phillies was notable in many respects. The 11-run margin of victory was the largest of any Red Sox game in 2004, matched by three other such games.1 Manny Ramírez had five runs batted in, the first […]

Fort Wayne, Indiana, has hosted only 12 major-league games in its long association with professional baseball, including the final game of a ten-game postseason series between Chicago and Providence of the National League in 1882. However, one of those 12 contests was the very first major-league game, played in 1871 at the Kekionga Ball Grounds.1 […]