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With the possible exception of Sandy Koufax, no Dodger pitcher ever threw harder than Rex Barney. Throughout the late 1940s, Barney’s fastball was the talk of baseball. In 1947, at the age of twenty-two, he struck out Joe DiMaggio with the bases loaded in a World Series game. On a rainy night at the Polo […]

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 […]

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 […]

Prospects who don’t fulfill their promise are a dime a dozen throughout baseball history. Boze Berger could be the epitome of that kind of prospect. While his major-league service was not exemplary, Berger had a flexible glove in the field, giving him some value to a few American League teams. After spending three seasons with […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Some pitchers are more intense than others. Randy Johnson hit 190 batters in an era when brushbacks were frowned upon. Lefty Grove threw furniture in the clubhouse after tough losses. Among the fiercest competitors in history, Johnny Allen took his frustrations out on anyone who barred his path to victory. Allen’s temper was so notorious […]

The Texas Rangers won 89 games in 2004 – their first winning season since 1999 – but finished third, three games back of the Anaheim Angels, in the four-team American League West.1 They looked to continue the improvement the following season and perhaps capture the AL West crown, a feat the franchise had achieved three […]

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 […]

The 1984 Kansas City Royals were nobody’s idea of an offensive juggernaut. They pulled off the rather amazing feat of making the playoffs despite being outscored for the season, one of only four teams to do that since divisional play began in 1969. Kansas City finished 11th in the American League in runs scored. Even […]

It was hot and humid in Washington when the Detroit Tigers took the field against the Senators for a doubleheader on Sunday, August 27, 1961. They were hoping to make ground on the New York Yankees as they prepared to play a doubleheader. (The second game was a makeup of a rainout on June 21.) […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates seemed poised to win their first National League pennant since 1909. They had taken took a big step forward in 1921. The emergence of rookie hurlers Whitey Glazner and Johnny Morrison gave Pittsburgh the best pitching staff in the National League by a wide margin.1 Perhaps more importantly, the offseason acquisition of […]

Camilo Pascual had good reason to be anxious about his start for the Minnesota Twins against the Baltimore Orioles on the final day of the 1962 season. In his ninth major-league season, it was the closest he had come to winning 20 games in a season. With 19 wins under his belt for the first […]

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 […]

In late February 1985, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Pete Peterson signed veteran right-handed pitcher Rick Reuschel to a one-year deal with the Hawaii Islanders, Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. The contract provided Reuschel an opportunity to compete for a spot with the Pirates in spring training. In June 1982 he had been […]