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The 2002 World Series was the first between two wild-card teams.1 This Series had no Cy Young Award winners, 2 and as of 2024, none of the participants had been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. One team, the Anaheim Angels, had never reached the World Series in their 42-year history.3 The other, […]

In what could be billed as one of the wildest games in major-league history, the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs met on a Thursday afternoon in front of 14,952 fans at Wrigley Field. The wind was blowing out at 18 mph.1 A little more than four hours later, the Phillies emerged victorious, securing a 23-22 […]

Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie is often referred to as the American’s League’s first superstar, excelling both offensively and defensively. Cy Young, who knew Lajoie first as an opponent and later as a teammate, said of the career .338 hitter, “Lajoie was one of the most rugged hitters I ever faced. He’d take your leg […]

It looked as though it was going to be a split doubleheader on Tuesday, June 2, 1908, at New York City’s Hilltop Park. The New York Highlanders were hosting the Boston Red Sox, in the first season that Boston’s American League team was named the Red Sox. The doubleheader resulted from a rainout on April […]

The 1951 National League season is usually remembered most for the legendary “Shot Heard ’Round the World” capping the New York Giants’ September pursuit that plucked the pennant from the Brooklyn Dodgers. But a May game in Boston matching the Braves, then in pennant contention, with the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates featured an odd pitching performance […]

When Nap Lajoie was a child, he earned the nickname Sandy from his baseball-playing friends in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The moniker had nothing to do with the game, but everything to do with shielding Lajoie from his mother’s wrath. Celina Lajoie did not care for baseball. The widowed mother of eight surviving children saw participating […]

During the last week of June 1982, the Detroit Tigers slumped into Baltimore with a 10-game losing streak. They had been swept in consecutive series by the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, and Boston Red Sox, and that dropped them from first place in the American League East Division to third.1 Their offense was struggling, averaging […]

At first blush, it might appear that a kid growing up in the western Massachusetts area known as the Pioneer Valley wouldn’t be playing baseball in a hotbed of the national pastime. But for those who excel at an early age and persist, there are rewards to be reaped, and this was exactly the case […]

Considering how dreadful his first full professional season was, it’s a wonder Mike Cvengros made it to the major leagues at all. Yet make it he eventually did, and he went on to win 25 major-league games over parts of six seasons, plus 177 in the minors. Over the course of his career, two themes […]

“Savidge has mastered the ‘finger nail curve.’ He believes it is an improvement on the ‘fade-away,’ the ‘boomerang,’ the ‘spitter,’ or ‘knuckle curve,’ and Manager Babb and veteran first baseman George ‘Scoops’ Carey, who have seen all sorts of new wrinkles from modern and ancient slab men, agree with Savidge. “The ‘finger nail’ curve is […]

William Henry Wright, better known to the baseball community as “Harry” Wright, today strikes historians as, in the words of Bruce Markusen, an “especially underrated Hall of Famer.”1 Popularly regarded in his time as “The Father of Professional Baseball,” Wright’s modern legacy pales in comparison, though many of his innovations characterize the game that we […]

On the way to a last-place finish, the 1914 Cincinnati Reds regularly auditioned marginal pitching prospects. Among these hopefuls was Pat Griffin, an inexperienced 21-year-old righthander plucked from a Northeast Ohio semipro team. Assigned ninth-inning relief duty in a lost-cause game against the defending NL champion New York Giants, recruit Griffin turned in a nightmarish […]

A hard-luck catcher with a strong bat, Jack O’Brien was a fan favorite among Philadelphia baseball fans during the 1880s. Sporting Life described him as a catcher with “a great pluck and sure catch,” who struggled with throwing.1 He was often injured, earning the reputation of being a luckless player whose career was summed up […]

Perseverance and a love for the game guided sure-handed utility infielder John Donaldson through a 12-year career in Organized Baseball (1963-1974), including parts of six seasons with the Kansas City/Oakland A’s and the Seattle Pilots. The hard-nosed North Carolinian played in 405 big-league games and weathered trades, demotions, promotions, and outright releases, but looked back […]

From 1993 through 2010, Trevor Hoffman recorded 601 career saves. That was briefly a major-league record until Mariano Rivera surpassed him in 2011. Through the 2017 season, nobody else had as many as 500 — or will get there soon. It was enough to get Hoffman into the Hall of Fame in 2018, when he […]

Negro Leagues encyclopedist/historian James A. Riley summarized outfielder Pete Washington’s skill set as one of a “very fast outfielder with exceptional range afield … got a great jump on the ball and was one of the best defensive outfielders in the East during the ’20s and ’30s. However, his offensive punch was not equal to […]

“I’m going to have a good year because I’m Al Oliver. I always have a good year. The question is how good.”1 That confident self-assessment came in 1978, a little over halfway through this slashing line-drive hitter’s long and successful career. In 18 seasons, the lefty-swinging first baseman-outfielder amassed 2,743 hits and posted a .303 […]

For decades after they last played together, the Boston Red Sox’ outfield of Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker, and Harry Hooper, who toiled next to each other for six years in the Deadball Era, was often considered the greatest in baseball history. Although all three, especially Speaker, were fine hitters, their reputation was due largely to […]

Before embarking on a minor-league managing and coaching career spanning nearly 30 years, Jim Pankovits played for two big-league teams: 316 games in the National League for the Houston Astros and two games in the American League for the Boston Red Sox. Astros fans who saw him play from 1984-88 might remember him as a […]

In the summer of 1952 the Eau Claire Bears, the Boston Braves’ affiliate in the Class C Northern League, featured two young African-American outfielders who would go on to have long careers in the major leagues. One was Hank Aaron; the other was Wes Covington. Aaron went on to become one of baseball’s all-time greats […]

Crosley Field was the “married” name of Cincinnati’s beloved National League ballpark. Situated at the intersection of Findlay Street and Western Avenue, it lived the first 23 years of its life using its “maiden” name, Redland Field. Then in 1934, Powel Crosley appeared, swept it off its feet and blessed it with his own name. […]

Early in the morning of September 13, 1948, an Oroville, California, telephone operator told police the phone was off the hook in the Myers Street apartment that was the home of the Oroville Red Sox’ business manager Julian Wera, the former New York Yankees third baseman. Wera’s wife, Ruth, and her nine-year-old daughter, Jerry, had […]