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Despite his busy schedule as one of baseball’s top hitters with the Milwaukee Brewers, Paul Molitor took time to partake in some dress-up in the middle of the 1991 season. Before a July 31 night game, Molitor made an appearance at the Women for the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Children’s Luncheon and Fashion Show […]

The Brooklyn Tip-Tops had just lost five games at Washington Park to the visiting Indianapolis Hoosiers, who now stood atop the Federal League standings. Today the Brooklyn nine faced a doubleheader with player-manager George Stovall’s Kansas City Packers. Ed Lafitte, a big right-hander, took the mound for the first game against Kansas City left-hander Nick […]

“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 […]

Detroit’s management was searching for answers to the team’s 10-18 start in 1987, which left the Tigers in sixth place in the AL East, 10 games out of first, on May 9. The Tigers’ roster featured Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, and Jack Morris, all familiar names from Detroit’s 1984 World Series championship club. […]

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 […]

After a three-season Negro National League liftoff, Minnie Miñoso’s career as integrated baseball’s first Afro-Latino star blazed almost entirely in the American League, from 1949 debut with the Cleveland Indians through late-season appearances with the Chicago White Sox more than a quarter-century later. Miñoso crossed over to the National League only once, in 1962, when […]

Both the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers were out of contention when they played the final game of the 1952 season on September 28, but there were still some individual titles to be decided, including the American League home-run crown. It had been only five years since Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947; […]

A month into the 2008 season, the top two teams in the American League’s Central Division battled in the second game of a three-game series. The 16-15 Minnesota Twins held a one-game lead over the 15-16 Chicago White Sox. The Wednesday-night contest before a crowd of 21,092 fans at U.S. Cellular Field was delayed by […]

Two solo home runs – and excellent pitching – helped the streaking Boston Red Sox win their 10th game in a row and 16th of their last 17, in the opener of a three-game Labor Day weekend series with the Texas Rangers. The winning streak had started on August 24, with a 5-4 win over […]

The Boston Red Sox were red hot going into the last month of the 1946 season with a league-leading 13½-game lead over the New York Yankees, and no one on the team was more sizzling than pitcher Dave “Boo” Ferriss. He was tied for the American League lead (with Detroit’s Hal Newhouser) with 23 wins […]

Father Time remains undefeated, but for one day in June 1966 at Houston’s Astrodome, 35-year-old Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs turned back the clock to a decade earlier, when he was in the top 10 in triples in the National League.1 The Houston Astros (30-25) had won the opening game of the three-game series […]

He was known among his colleagues and sports scribes as “The Silencer,” a name he acquired from a Pacific Coast League sports writer in 1962 while playing for Portland. The nickname followed him through his professional baseball career. Dan Osinski, who would later pitch for the Boston Red Sox, was an original “fireman,” as the […]

“I’m on the bench with two out. My heart was breaking. Just a terrible feeling I had, as well as we played all game. You sit and try to comprehend what we just did. It’s hard to believe. It’s something you sit back and say, ‘Geez, how did we do it?’ I don’t (understand). I […]

“I’ll never forget the experience of going to spring training for the first time. Then, there was our first opening day against the Mets in New York. We came back to Denver for our first home game and Eric Young hit the home run leading off the bottom of the first inning. The home run […]

Eddie Waitkus was a slick-fielding first baseman who in an 11-year big-league career for three teams batted a solid .285 and struck out only 204 times in 4,681 plate appearances. Although a fine ballplayer, he would today likely be little remembered but for what happened to him on June 14, 1949, in a room at […]

Quincy Trouppe’s passion for baseball led to a long career as player, manager, and scout. An exceptional catcher and switch-hitter, “Big Train” played on Negro League teams including the St. Louis Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, and the Homestead Grays. He also played for and managed the Cleveland Buckeyes, twice leading them to the Negro American […]

By some standards, Ed Swartwood toiled in relative obscurity, playing nearly his entire career in the American Association, an under-appreciated major league in the 19th century. Even the teams he played on weren’t impressive. During the league’s inaugural season, 1882, he came up with the Pittsburg Alleghenys, a poor club during his three summers there. […]

If any player could be called Mr. Brewer it is Robin Yount. He played his entire 20-year major-league career with the Milwaukee Brewers, debuting as an 18-year-old shortstop in 1974, and helped reinvigorate and re-energize a fan base that had been reeling since the Braves abandoned Milwaukee for Atlanta in 1966. Yount led the Brewers […]

For over a century, the veterans service organization known as the American Legion has sponsored a nationwide amateur youth baseball program. Early Hall of Famers who participated in the program include Bob Feller, Ted Williams, Joe Medwick, Stan Musial, and Roy Campanella. However, the very first graduate of the Legion program to reach the major […]