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As Harold Daugherty strolled across the Weir High School diamond where he had played as an infielder on West Virginia’s first-ever high school baseball championship team, the announcer of the ceremony honoring that 1945 team mentioned that Daugherty had had a brief career with the Detroit Tigers after his graduation. Brief would be an understatement […]

Inconspicuous yet ever-present, from 1911 to 1915 Detroit catcher Oscar Stanage was the most durable backstop in the American League, appearing behind the dish in 560 games, 125 more than any other American League catcher. In 1911, Stanage caught 141 games for the Tigers, the most of any American League catcher during the Deadball Era, […]

Heinie Groh was undoubtedly the National League’s best third baseman of the Deadball Era. Historian Greg Gajus suggests that Groh would have won at least one Most Valuable Player award (for the 1919 season) and perhaps two others (1916 and 1918), and that eight of his 12 full seasons were of All-Star quality. Furthermore, contemporaries […]

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 […]

From 1993 through 2010, Trevor Hoffman recorded 601 career saves. That was briefly a major-league record until Mariano Rivera surpassed him in 2011. He was the first major league pitcher to surpass the 500- and 600-save marks as a closer. It was enough to get Hoffman into the Hall of Fame in 2018, when he […]

On December 14, 1977, the Boston Red Sox traded pitcher Fergie Jenkins, who had clashed with manager Don Zimmer, to the Texas Rangers for 6-foot-5, 210-pound left-hander John Poloni and $25,000 cash.1 Poloni had made his major-league debut with the Rangers in September after spending the season at Triple-A Tucson. “It’s not that we wanted […]

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 […]

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 […]

A “flashy infielder” known for his fancy defensive work rather than his bat, Tom Carey played eight major-league seasons with the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Red Sox, retiring with a .275 batting average, 2 home runs, and a .972 fielding percentage in 466 games. According to St. Louis sportswriter J. Roy Stockton, the infielder […]

It was Game Six of the 1964 World Series. The Mayor and the town Treasurer of Alba, Missouri were relaxing in box seats behind the St. Louis Cardinal’s dugout at Busch Stadium. Both His Honor and the Treasurer enjoyed a singular advantage over all of the other spectators in the ballpark on this autumn day. […]

James McCormick amassed 265 victories from 1878 to 1887 in the National League and the Union Association. He possessed an excellent fastball and was one of the earliest pitchers to master the curveball. His repertoire also included a “drop” ball. Many fans believe he is an overlooked candidate for the Hall of Fame. Baseball-Reference, for instance, has […]

Daniel Staub? Who the hell is Daniel Staub? Nobody has ever heard of a ballplayer named Daniel Staub. But everyone has heard of Rusty Staub, and for the French and English fans of a brand-new ball club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he was known — and loved — as Le Grand Orange. Daniel Joseph “Rusty” […]

Southpaw pitcher Pete Dowling made his major-league debut with the Louisville Colonels on July 17, 1897, just two days after his 21st birthday, and two days before Honus Wagner played his first game with the Colonels. Louisville acquired the two in separate transactions, Dowling from Paducah, Kentucky, of the Central League for pitcher Jim Jones […]

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 […]

“I’ve been told as long as I can remember, ‘You’re too small. You’ll never pitch in the big leagues. You’re too short.’ I’ve always used that to kind of fuel my fire” – Shane Nance, June 12, 2002.1 “When you get sent down, your goal is to get back up. I got some things figured […]

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 […]

A native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin (born on May 4, 1888, according to both the 1900 Census and his World War I draft registration), Ralph Benjamin Pond became a star  baseball player for the University of Maine, and seems to have joined the Boston Red Sox on the road in Chicago in 1910 right after […]

In articles about Danny Boone adjectives such as little, tiny, short, diminutive, and sparky typically preceded his name. In retrospect the more important description was expressed by Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox in 1981: “Boone is amazing. He may not throw hard, but he knows how to pitch.” He added, “If Dan Boone weighs […]

Charlie Hautz was a man of modest baseball talent but much baseball enthusiasm. He parlayed his limited abilities into a long career as a first baseman and outfielder during the pioneering years of nineteenth-century baseball in St. Louis and other Western locales. While he spent only parts of two seasons with major-league clubs, he always […]

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 […]

Puerto Rico and baseball. From the legendary Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda to Roberto Alomar, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and Pudge Rodriguez, the small island with only 3.5 million inhabitants has left an indelible footprint on the major-league landscape. As of 2016, the Caribbean nation has produced no fewer than 250 big-league players, including at […]

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 […]

A World Series berth was 161 games and an NL playoff away. Coming off a third-place finish in 1972 with an 83-73 record – 13½ games out of first place – the Mets began ’73 with a 3-0 shutout against the Phillies and a declaration of power from a beloved member of the blue-and-orange squad. […]

If a team’s success is attributed to how many world championships it has won, the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies would be on even ground since 1995. As of 2018, each club had raised the Commissioner’s Trophy exactly once. The Braves won the whole enchilada in ’95, and the Phillies in 2008.  Atlanta by far […]