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Stan Musial’s first and last appearances in Forbes Field spanned just short of 22 years and 3,002 major-league games. The iconic ballpark in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section had been a fixture in the National League since 1909. Musial was born 11 years later in Donora, Pennsylvania, 20-plus miles down the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh.1 He’d played […]

Wade Boggs registered the first of three five-hit performances during his Hall of Fame career on Tuesday, May 20, 1986, at Fenway Park, as he led the Boston Red Sox to a 17-7 victory over the Minnesota Twins. Boston’s 27-year-old third baseman slapped four singles and a double in six trips to the plate.  The […]

On Wednesday evening, September 25, 1974, Ralph Houk was managing an aging Tigers squad trapped in last place in the AL East at 71-83, 12½ games behind the first-place Orioles. The season’s high point had come the previous night. Al Kaline reached “his promised land,” becoming the 12th player to get 3,000 hits.1 Earl Weaver’s […]

Pitching on a staff with three established 30-something stars and sharing a dugout with the league’s best player, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 22-year-old southpaw Lefty Leifield probably recognized that copy would be hard to find during the 1906 season, but not this difficult. After Leifield tossed a darkness-shortened six-inning no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies on September […]

It was the stuff of boyhood dreams. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning and the bases loaded, 25-year-old Tony Perez stepped into the right-handed batter’s box against veteran hurler Jack Fisher with a chance to send the 15,006 Cincinnati fans home happy. Perez had just won the All-Star Game for the […]

Monday, August 10, may well have been the most important day of the entire 1981 baseball season. This was the day that regular season play would resume after a two-month players strike had wiped out more than one-third of the schedule. Furthermore, in Philadelphia that night, Pete Rose would become the all-time National League hits […]

It’s a storyline practically as old as baseball itself: An aging veteran goes back down to the minor leagues to prove himself, convinced against the evidence that his bat, arm, glove, and legs still have enough left to help a big-league team. In the spring of 1967, it was a future Hall of Famer’s turn […]

Sandy Koufax posted a career 57-15 won-loss record at Dodger Stadium and a 1.37 ERA. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Sandy Koufax and Warren Spahn, two of the most accomplished left-handed pitchers in baseball history, started against each other six times. Their final faceoff was especially tight and well-pitched–the kind of game fans think about when they […]

Many baseball fans have heard of the 1983 game between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals, where George Brett temporarily lost a home run, and his mind, because of excessive pine tar on his bat. Pine tar had been around for decades, with The Sporting News occasionally running advertisements for “JDM Kwik Grip” […]

When Mike Schmidt retired on May 29, 1989, during his 18th season with the Philadelphia Phillies, he was widely regarded as the greatest third baseman of all time. Selected in the second round of the June 1971 amateur draft, Schmidt, an Ohio University product, reached the majors in 1972. A breakthrough season followed in 1974, […]

“It was the best of times, It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, It was the age of foolishness.”   Charles Dickens may have been writing about the French Revolution in his classic book A Tale of Two Cities. However, the oft-referenced literary phrase would also have described Hank Aaron’s […]

When the topic of discussion turns to great two-sport athletes who played major-league baseball during the last quarter of the 20th century, names like Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Brian Jordan, and Danny Ainge often come to mind. However, despite enjoying success in both baseball and golf, Rick Rhoden is often overlooked as two-sport standout. Rhoden […]

“Martin Duke, the well-known pitcher, died in this city on Saturday, Dec. 31, of pneumonia. He had not played ball for several seasons and earned a precarious livelihood by working around a local saloon. He was a strong pitcher in his time and held engagements in the National League, Eastern League and Western League. In […]

Two injuries defined Mort Flohr’s pitching career—one wildly exaggerated, the other all too real. Flohr, fresh out of Duke University and pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics, hit Babe Ruth on the wrist with his very first major-league pitch on June 8, 1934. Sportswriters inflated the event in later retellings: One account had the young left-hander […]

American popular culture has always had affection for the medical profession. Television images of Gunsmoke’s Doc Adams, Star Trek‘s testy “Bones” McCoy and the almost god-like Marcus Welby, have made these characters cultural icons. Media images often conflict with reality, doctors as miracle workers or good guys have an instinctive appeal. Fact often surpasses fiction […]

Trading a promising young outfielder — a future All-Star — for a pitcher with a large contract at the end of his career may be the worst trade Harry Dalton ever made. But the pitcher was future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. The arrival of the 37-year-old Sutton wowed Brewers fans and was the final […]

“He scares you to death. He’s scowling and gnashing his teeth, and if you try to dig in on him, there goes your Adam’s apple. He’s gonna win if it kills you and him both.” So the Cincinnati Reds’ Danny Litwhiler described the unnerving experience of batting against Sal Maglie. Between 1950 and 1956 Maglie […]

Journeyman right-hander Lynn Nelson was a very good hitter for a pitcher, and was often used as a pinch-hitter during his major-league career. But he may have been saddled with one of the most unfortunate nicknames a pitcher can have. He picked up the moniker “Line Drive,” partly for his hitting prowess, but mostly for […]

With his spectacles and quiet demeanor, Vic Sorrell gave the impression of a professor or preacher instead of a baseball lifer. After a standout career as a high-school and collegiate star in North Carolina in the early 1920s, right-handed pitcher Sorrell debuted for the Detroit Tigers in 1928. Toiling during some of the team’s leanest […]

In the spring of 1986, as he was beginning his ninth professional season, Rick Anderson wondered if he would ever get the chance to pitch in the big leagues. Anderson, who had spent the previous six seasons in the pitching-rich New York Mets’ organization at Triple-A Tidewater, was 29 and knew he was running out […]

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 […]

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 the years before American entry into World War I, Pittsburgh native Al Mamaux was a hometown athletic prodigy. He first came to public attention as a gridiron and pitching standout at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Staying local when he turned baseball professional, the hard-throwing right-hander thereafter posted back-to-back 21-win seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates. […]

Peter Patrick “Padney” Gillespie was one of the original New York players whose height suggested a name for the team that today plays in San Francisco. With three fellow Troy players, he signed with John B. Day’s New York franchise for the 1883 season, and the group formed that would become known as the Giants. […]