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Praised for his outfield defense and savvy base running skills, Matty McIntyre was the starting left fielder and leadoff hitter on two Detroit Tiger pennant winning teams. Although a broken ankle in 1907 somewhat diminished his defensive abilities, McIntyre was still able to contribute with the bat upon his return and was considered to be […]

Dan Shay was a hard-nosed infielder at the turn of the twentieth century, playing 231 major league games during his long professional career. His style of play can best be imagined by the nicknames he accrued: Scrappy and Hustlin’. His major league resume, though, was scant. He preferred the employment conditions, lifestyle and climate of […]

There were a couple of big families in Doc Farrell’s life. He was the eighth of 10 children, and had seven of his own. He enjoyed nine years in the big leagues, and seems to have had an affinity for two-team cities, playing for both New York teams, both Boston teams, and one each of […]

“Timber Like Mapel What Browns Need” — The Sporting News, September 4, 1919 In his major league debut on August 31, 1919, St. Louis Browns left-hander Rolla Mapel held Ty Cobb hitless in five plate appearances. That turned out to be the highlight of his 12-day, four-game MLB career. But “Rollie” Mapel will forever be […]

“Good field no hit” is a label that can doom any player. When that player is pushed through the system, it can stunt his natural growth into a position. And when he’s competing against several others for the same spot – people who have much more support from the team – the opportunities may just […]

In his first full season in the majors, Dan Griner lost a big-league-most 22 games with the moribund St. Louis Cardinals in 1913. But few probably gave him a hard time for that dubious feat because “Big Dan,” a chiseled 200-pound former football player, didn’t take kindly to insults. He KO’d three teammates the following […]

Elmer Steele was a baseball team owner even before he took his first job as a player outside the region from which he came. In the long run, both Elmer Steele and his father William seem to have pursued allied occupations associated with delivering the mail, save for Elmer’s foray into professional baseball over an […]

Pittsburgh’s historic Ammon Field was renamed Josh Gibson Field in 2008 to honor the Baseball Hall of Famer who started his semipro career there in 1928. Harold “Hooks” Tinker, the Ammon Field regular who signed Gibson while player-manager of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, once spoke very fondly of a mutual teammate, middle infielder Charlie Hughes: The […]

Three great passions shaped Gordon Richardson’s career in baseball: his family, his southwest Georgia farm, and his dream of becoming a big-league pitcher. Richardson (nicknamed Gordie) once characterized his fastball as “not overpowering.” Instead he was a control specialist with good breaking stuff and an excellent change-up.1 He acknowledged that he had to hit his […]

He was a baseball man in the purest and most complimentary sense of the term, at various times in his professional career playing as a pitcher and an outfielder, along with a few occasions at second base, and finally working as a manager over a 26-year professional span. “He was a good contact hitter, had […]

Although Jack Dittmer may not have achieved the level of major league stardom many predicted for him, he was an outstanding athlete who was liked and admired for both his performances on the field and his cheerful, outgoing personality. He was a nationally recognized athlete in high school and college who played football, baseball, and […]

The day the Yankees won Game Two of the 1953 World Series, 17-year-old Frank Leja was in New York signing a contract that made the sports pages across the country. The second-youngest Yankee ever reportedly received a $100,000 bonus.1 But like many mid-1950s “bonus babies,” Leja was a victim of the revised “bonus rule” of […]

Nearly forgotten today amid the pantheon of great Deadball Era hurlers, Earl “Crossfire” Moore–so nicknamed for his unorthodox method of shooting a sidearm pitch from the very end of the rubber–ranked as one of the American League’s most promising young players during the first five years of its existence. Six feet tall, square-jawed, and with […]

He never had a hit, never made an error, and pitched only 32 2/3 innings in 13 major league games, but he was a member of the World Champion 1918 Red Sox. Standard reference books show Vincent Leo Molyneaux as born near Niagara Falls, in Lewiston, New York, on August 17, 1888, although August 17, […]

After the 2003 season, which saw the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees take the fight for the pennant to Game Seven of the American League Championship Series, with New York winning and the Red Sox once again out in the cold, both teams had made moves to bolster their rotations. At Thanksgiving, the […]

A paid crowd1 of 28,922 settled in to watch a scheduled doubleheader between the Astros and Mets on a Wednesday afternoon. Less than a week before, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins returned safely in the spaceship Columbia, concluding the Apollo 11 mission and the historic walk on the moon. In 1969 the Mets […]

“New York and Boston finished tiedIn baseball’s roller coaster rideThey played one-hundred-sixty-twoAnd even that was one too few”1       Seemingly, the Boston Red Sox were on their way. At the All-Star break in 1978, the Red Sox enjoyed a healthy nine-game lead over second-place Milwaukee. Behind the Brewers were the New York Yankees (11½ […]

During his eight seasons with the California Angels (1972-1979), Nolan Ryan led the American League in strikeouts seven times, walks six times, and shutouts three times. Signing with the Houston Astros as a free agent for 1980, the hard-throwing Ryan trimmed his season walk total under 100 for the first time since 1970 – but […]

Chuck Tanner is a household name in much of Western Pennsylvania, after a 19-year major-league managerial career that included nine seasons with the Pirates and a championship in 1979. He was a much more remarkable manager than he was a player. In eight major-league seasons with four teams between 1955 and 1962, Tanner batted .261 […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates outlasted the Atlanta Braves 17-9 in the rubber match of a three-game series at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on May 9, 1979, a game in which the 26 hits, 10 walks, and 26 runs scored (10 unearned) were not the only notable numbers. The sloppy, beanball-marred slugfest also included five errors, three passed […]

In some sense, it’s always significant news to Boston Red Sox fans when their team beats the New York Yankees. Since the 1918 Red Sox won the World Series, the Yankees had won 26 World Series as of 2004 and the Red Sox had won none. As the 2004 season began, there had been three […]

If you were looking for one word to summarize Tom Norton’s no-hitter of June 21, 1975, you might choose “imperfect.” Pitching for the Triple-A Tacoma Twins, Norton issued 11 bases on balls to the opposing Hawaii Islanders. But the Hawaii lineup, made up entirely of past or future major leaguers, couldn’t solve him for a […]

It was a “perfect” Saturday night for baseball: 19 degrees and sleeting, winds at 30 miles per hour, gusting to 45. On the eve of the 1982 season, the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies were set for an exhibition game to open the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. “Dome” was […]

Game Four was the first day game of the 1979 World Series, but the 42-degree game-time temperature was no warmer than it had been for any of the previous games. The crowd of 50,883 cheered as the Pirates summoned up a bit of their glorious past in the person of former general manager Joe L. […]