Search Results

“I really wasn’t scared,” a grinning Chris Pittaro quipped. “That’s a lie. I was scared. Nervous. Everything.”1 And who could blame him? The 23-year-old had just made his major-league debut as the third baseman for the defending World Series champion Detroit Tigers on Opening Day 1985. Despite a fine 1984 campaign, when he batted .284 […]

What happens when two pitchers who are proud of how quickly they work face off? How about the shortest game in San Diego Padres history at 1:29?1 Jim Kaat was pitching for Philadelphia (9-10, 3½ games behind the Pirates in the NL East). He had a reputation as a quick worker on the mound. In […]

July 1976 was filled with breathtaking events. Operation Sail’s parade of Tall Ships in New York Harbor marked the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.1 NASA navigated the Viking 1 lander onto the surface of Mars to search for evidence of life.2 And Israeli commandos freed 103 hostages from a hijacked […]

The final game of the 1983 Eastern League season completed one chapter in New England baseball history, while serving notice that an exciting new chapter was poised to begin. The story that was ending belonged to the Lynn (Massachusetts) Pirates, Pittsburgh’s Double-A affiliate. The Pirates were successors to the Lynn Sailors, who were created in […]

“Nice work, kid,” St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Rogers Hornsby said to Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Glenn Wright as Wright tagged Hornsby.1 It was the top of the ninth inning at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on May 7, 1925. The 24-year-old Wright had caught a line drive and stepped on second before tagging Hornsby, completing the sixth […]

New York’s American League team, known as the Highlanders in the earliest years before morphing into the Yankees, was mostly moribund in its first decade and a half. Only twice, in 1904 and 1906, did it even challenge for the flag. The Yanks finished third in 1919, 7½ games behind the pennant-winning Chicago White Sox […]

When the New York Mets awoke on Wednesday, September 17, 2008, they found themselves in second place in the National League East, a half-game behind the Philadelphia Phillies. They had enjoyed a 3½-game lead just a week earlier before losing four of their next five games. The recent rough patch brought up memories of the […]

Springfield Sallies hurler Erma “Bergie” Bergmann looked in for the sign from her catcher, Sonia Vialat,1 wound up, and delivered the first pitch of the 1948 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) season.2 It’s not known whether the pitch was a ball or a strike, or if it was put in play by Helen Callaghan […]

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 […]

David Leslie Stapleton played his entire seven-year major-league career with the Boston Red Sox. An infielder and renowned utilityman, Stapleton made his lone World Series appearance as a member of the 1986 American League Champion Red Sox. Stapleton was born on January 16, 1954, in Fairhope, Alabama. He grew up in Loxley, Alabama with his […]

A left-handed pitcher who batted from the right side, Johnny Schmitz enjoyed a good time in baseball, though a four-year hitch in the US Navy during World War II interrupted a career that was just getting started. He was signed originally before the 1938 season (almost certainly in 1937) by Lou Nahin and Harold Schiefelbein […]

George Winn had one win and two losses in his dozen major-league games, and he hit .300 as a batter. Winn had first become known to baseball fans in Boston when secretary Larry Graver of the Boston Red Sox announced on March 3, 1919, that “Pitcher Winn had signed with the Red Sox. Winn comes […]

“I never wanted to be a superstar, or the highest paid player,” Don Sutton said. “[A]ll I wanted was to be appreciated for the fact that I was consistent, dependable, and you could count on me.”1 By that measure, Sutton achieved his goal and more, as few pitchers in baseball history were as reliable, and […]

For Johnny Mitchell, it was a long slog making it through the minor leagues and up to the bigs – but he made it and broke in with the New York Yankees in 1921. He’d paid his dues along the way and seemed to have a penchant for playing on pennant-winning teams, despite never being […]

It was a scene that even a Hollywood scriptwriter might find fantastic. As baseball’s 1972 regular season entered its final week, the Oakland Athletics, preparing for their second consecutive American League division playoffs, wanted to give their regulars some much needed rest. So with the minor-league season over, management decided to call up one of […]

Mike Palm is one of the relatively few Red Sox players to have been born in the city of Boston. Richard Paul Palm’s date of birth was February 13, 1925. After moving to a suburb, he picked up his nickname in high school, where Belmont High’s baseball coach was Myron “Mike” Palm, a former Penn […]

Of the two pitching Bennett brothers, briefly teammates on the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, Dave was the tall one (6-feet-5), the young one (by six years), the right-handed one, the reserved one, and the most sought-after one, having received a $70,000 bonus upon signing in 1963. They briefly drew comparisons to Dizzy and Paul Dean, the […]

“Mothell was the greatest utility man in the game of baseball. He could step in at any position, except pitcher, and you’d never notice that the regular player was missing.” – Cool Papa Bell1   Playing a variety of positions over the years, the versatile Dink Mothell was a member of three Kansas City Monarchs […]

Keith Hernandez, one of the major leagues’ all-time best fielding first basemen, played a key role in the New York Mets’ late 1980s successes. Hernandez, who was originally a St. Louis Cardinal standout, found himself in a predicament when he was traded in midseason to the struggling 1983 Mets. His trade was due to conflicting […]

Promise unfulfilled denotes the playing career of right-handed pitcher Mike Brown. When the Red Sox drafted the Clemson University star in the second round in the 1980 amateur draft, Boston Globe baseball writer Peter Gammons wrote that “two teams whose scouts I respect” considered Brown among the top 20 prospects in the country.1 But after […]

England has contributed 33 players to major-league baseball. About two-thirds of them played in the late nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century. Charles Joseph Hanford, who made his major-league debut in 1914 at the age of 31, is one of a minority of English-born major leaguers who made his major-league debut after […]

It seemed like Murray Wall and Boston were meant to be together. The right-handed pitcher debuted with the Boston Braves, next made the majors with the Boston Red Sox, and in 1959, was sent from Boston to Washington, but then sent back to Beantown three days later. Wall pitched in 91 big league games, all […]

Tony Kubek was a bit anxious. Not just because he was the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, or that he was a rookie who was participating in his first World Series. But the series had shifted to his hometown of Milwaukee. For the first time, his family would see him play in […]

Perhaps the most emphatic action ever taken by the Commissioner of Baseball occurred on August 3, 1921. On that day, Kenesaw Mountain Landis banished eight Chicago White Sox players from Organized Baseball for life for throwing the 1919 World Series, despite their acquittal in a court trial. The expulsion edict quickly became a baseball landmark, […]