Search Results

On the night of July 22, 1978, a future Hall of Famer’s career ended in sudden and disputed fashion – and at the time, nearly no one noticed. Of course, not being noticed was part of this Hall of Famer’s agenda from the beginning. Nestor Chylak, an American League umpire since 1954, embodied the classic […]

Only 825 spectators, the smallest crowd of the season at Comiskey Park, had turned out the night before to see the White Sox score two runs in the eighth and beat Boston, 6-4, but tonight would be different. Tonight the New York Yankees were in town. The Yankees of 1962 were not the fence-busting juggernaut […]

Chasing their fifth consecutive American League pennant and 14th in 16 years, the New York Yankees had experienced a more difficult season than expected as they hosted the Kansas City Athletics on September 19, 1964. Beginning play that day, the Yankees were embroiled in a tight three-way battle for first place. New York was in […]

When Tom Seaver pitched his last game in a major-league uniform, Top Gun dominated the box office. Two other Toms starred in this 1986 blockbuster. Tom Cruise played a Navy fighter pilot striving to be “the best of the best” and Tom Skerritt played his mentor, a veteran pilot who flew with the young pilot’s […]

The Houston Astros (originally the Colt .45s) had begun play in 1962, and the Astrodome had opened in 1965, but the team had endured a long wait for its first postseason appearance. In 1980 the Astros survived a one-game playoff with the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the NL West division with a 93-70 record. […]

On July 17, 1972, young Mark Murphy of Newark, New York, beat out 2,302 other fans to win the Pony Night promotion offered by the Newark Co-Pilots of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. Murphy opted not to keep the prize animal, instead selling it back to its original provider for an unspecified sum.1 […]

Even with Dave Goltz, the Twins’ best pitcher, on the mound, on Wednesday, July 26, 1978, the Twins lost the first of a two-game midweek series with the Toronto Blue Jays, baseball’s most hapless team. The Twins were now 12½ games out of first place in the American League Western Division, and getting back in […]

Boston Red Sox first baseman Al Flair answered a want ad and got a job playing baseball. The Sporting News explained: “An advertisement placed in the classified section of a Memphis newspaper [by Little Rock Travelers manager Doc Prothro] led to Flair’s entry into O.B. [Organized Baseball] A woman friend of the Flair family in […]

Ramiro Mendoza was signed as a free-agent starting pitcher in 1991 by the New York Yankees, but as his career progressed, he became a bullpen staple and occasional spot starter to support the pitching needs of both the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The transition from starter to reliever suited Mendoza, who went 23-19 with […]

Left-hander Clyde Shoun played for the Braves near the end of a long 14-year career in the majors that saw him make all but the last 16 of his 454 appearances in the National League. Typically used in relief, he started just 85 contests and posted a 73-59 lifetime record with a career 3.91 ERA. […]

Ernie Nevers’ football career as a fullback and coach is well documented. While a full biography has yet to be written, much ink has been spilled in the telling of his gridiron glory. His baseball career has not been so well scoured in the near century since he pitched professionally. It is only natural that […]

The 1906 season opened for the Boston Beaneaters in Brooklyn on April 12. Making his major-league debut that day with Boston was outfielder Johnny Bates, a compact left-handed swinger (5-feet-7 inches and around 170 pounds). Batting fifth in the lineup, Bates strode to the plate to face Harry McIntire in the second inning. The 22-year-old […]

During a decade-long career in professional baseball, catcher George Starnagle had numerous contract disputes with his employers but was also the victim of unscrupulous tactics by team owners on several occasions. He was talented enough to have been drafted or signed by no less than six different major league teams, but all of this interest […]

This wiry catcher didn’t have much power, but his agility, strong arm, and knowledge kept him employed behind the plate for more than two decades. Turning pro as a youth of 15 in 1973, Alex played in 939 major-league games with five teams from 1978 to 1990. He ran well enough to serve as a […]

Today Jack Graney is best remembered as the man of the firsts. Graney was the first hitter Babe Ruth faced as a pitcher in the major leagues for the Boston Red Sox, one of the first major leaguers to take the field with a number on his uniform, and in 1908 was part of the […]

At the end of the 2019 baseball season, 25 former major-league baseball players who had seen military service in World War II survived. One of them was Massachusetts native George Edward Yankowski, who served in the United States Army and saw combat with General George S. Patton’s Third Army. At age 96, this ex-catcher said […]

Right-hander Frank Corridon achieved some success pitching in the early Deadball Era. But plagued by a fragile constitution, recurring illness, and arm miseries, Corridon’s major league career was over by 1910. Yet a century later, the name of this otherwise unmemorable player lingers in baseball annals. The reason: Frank Corridon is often cited as the […]

Shortstop Greg “Moe” Mulleavy played 78 games for the White Sox and one for the Red Sox – but enjoyed 20 years in the minor leagues. His father, Thomas, was a machinist in a Detroit automobile factory, having moved from Canada to the United States in 1903 with his wife, Bertha Freytag Mulleavy. Gregory was […]

Ed Connolly was not a switch-hitter, but it appears he made a switch in his hitting. When he first signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1928, he was a left-handed batter but at some point he switched over to hit from the right side. Connolly, a catcher, was a Brooklyn native who’d previously played […]

The etymology of the term “ace” meaning the best pitcher on a team derives from the nickname of Asa Brainard, one of the top pitchers of baseball’s early years. Upon settling with the Excelsiors of Brooklyn in 1860, he was initially a second baseman and outfielder because the great James Creighton was positioned in the […]

The older brother of a similarly short-tenured major leaguer, Frank Bell was a 10-game catcher/utilityman for the 1885 Brooklyn Grays of the American Association. Bell was out of baseball several years after his brief big-league audition and working in security when his life came to an abrupt end at age 28. He was fatally shot […]

“I was mean on the mound,” said Bob Buhl, a tough competitor for the Milwaukee Braves during their heyday in the 1950s.[1] Forming part of the Big Three with Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, Buhl notched 109 of his 166 career wins for the Braves. Self-confident, brash, and sometimes wild on the mound, Buhl was […]

There are hundreds of major-league players who fall into the nebulous category of having had a “cup of coffee” in the big leagues; a baseball idiom for a short time a minor-league player spends playing in the major leagues. It could be for a single game, or a few short weeks. The time period is […]

Greenlee Field, located in the 2500 block of Bedford Avenue, had its official opening on April 29, 1932, when the Crawfords hosted the New York Black Yankees and lost a tough 1-0 game. (NOIRTECH RESEARCH, INC.)   In 1931 the United States economy was drowning in the sea of the Great Depression, which brought nearly […]