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The summer of 1980 was undoubtedly the high-water mark in the brief history of the Double-A Eastern League’s Holyoke Millers franchise. Affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers, the organization moved from Pittsfield’s Wahconah Park in 1977 because of drainage issues that temporarily condemned the historic ballpark.1 During the six years the team was based in Holyoke, […]

The University of Texas Longhorns arrived at the 1972 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, as an established force in college baseball with a chance to win the tournament. In contrast, the University of Connecticut Huskies’ arrival for their first Series berth since 1965 went largely unnoticed.1 But anything can happen in a single game. […]

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. […]

As the second month of the 1920 season opened, the New York Yankees routed the Boston Red Sox at the Polo Grounds, 6-0, behind Babe Ruth’s first home run1 as a New Yorker. The first-place Red Sox, coming into this contest with a record of 10-2-1, had beaten the Yankees (4-7) in their four previous […]

Brock Holt admits he was swinging to hit a home run. And why not? It was the top of the ninth inning and the Red Sox already had a 14-1 lead in Game Three of the American League Division Series. Yankees manager Aaron Boone had conceded the game, inserting a position player – backup catcher […]

“I told my team, ‘We really don’t know how to deal with this because we’ve never had to before.’ — Joe Torre1 A generation — commonly referred to as the baby-boomer generation — and the generations that followed had been going to baseball games for many years and before each game the national anthem had […]

As most baseball fans know, in 1988 the Chicago Cubs were the last team in the major leagues to install lights at their home ballpark – decades after every other team had turned on the switch from day to night. Across town, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was experimenting with night baseball at his […]

Playoff baseball in the wild-card era is unpredictable. Teams that dominate during the summer routinely get ousted early in October by teams with less impressive regular-season records. Perhaps no franchise has benefited from expanded playoffs more than the Miami Marlins. Since they entered the National League as an expansion team in 1993, when they were […]

Stan Wasiak’s nearly five-decade bus ride in professional baseball reached its final stop on August 28, 1986. Wasiak, known as “the King of the Minors,” spent a record-setting 37 consecutive years as a minor-league manager in cities from Valdosta, Georgia, to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to Appleton, Wisconsin, to El Paso, Texas. Working at every level […]

In March 1939, sportswriter James C. Isaminger looked back at a 44-year career covering major-league baseball. When asked to name his greatest baseball thrill, there were thousands of regular-season games and dozens of World Series to consider. Yet he didn’t hesitate: “It was in a game between the Cubs and the Phils, in the old […]

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 […]

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, […]

To many in the game, Ron Negray’s talent portended something better than a 6-6 lifetime record over less than 200 innings in the majors, scattered over four seasons from 1952 through 1958. Front office executives at times questioned his competitiveness. Maybe he was just too nice a guy. Ronald Alvin Negray was born February 26, […]

Buddy Hassett was a New York boy who played for two of his hometown teams and almost made the trifecta. The first baseman had two distinctions: his ability to put the bat on the ball and his tenor voice. “The Bronx Thrush” would sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” at the drop of a leprechaun. […]

On September 19, 1937, Jerome “Jerry” Lynn, a 21-year-old infielder from Scranton, Pennsylvania, stepped onto the field at Griffith Stadium as the Washington Senators’ starting second baseman. He collected two hits, including a double, in three at-bats and flawlessly handled seven defensive chances, recording four putouts and three assists and turning two double plays.1 It […]

During the 1880s, when the pitcher delivered his serves from the pitcher’s box rather than the pitching rubber, Dick Conway played two major league seasons and a portion of a third, compiling a lifetime 15-24 record in 41 games as a pitcher for Boston in the National League and Baltimore in the American Association. Conway […]

In 1942 St. Louis Cardinals’ farm director Branch Rickey singled out a particular right-handed hurler among a small army of top-flight pitching prospects: Max Surkont “can become another [Bob] Feller for us,”1 declared the future HOF executive. But by the end of spring training the Cardinals, blessed with the major leagues’ best pitching, assigned Surkont […]

The Yankees grabbed all the headlines in 1961. Roger Maris set the new single-season home run record with 61. Mickey Mantle hit 54 home runs himself and was neck and neck with Maris for much of the year. Maris and Mantle finished first and second in the American League MVP voting, respectively, and the team […]

When he died in 1979, Charlie Deal was the last surviving member of the 1914 Miracle Braves. A third baseman, he played in 89 games for the 1913 and 1914 squads, and jumped to the Federal League in 1915 after a salary dispute. It wasn’t the first time Deal and the baseball establishment clashed over […]

Rich Hacker worked in professional baseball for many years as a player, coach, manager, and scout. He had a brief stint in the majors as a shortstop for the Montreal Expos in 1971 but is best known as a coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays. Richard Warren Hacker was born in […]

Ike Butler is a one-year major-league baseball anecdote – a player whose inclusion in a baseball encyclopedia was made possible by an opportunistic telegram sent during a franchise upheaval. However trivial his two-month major-league career was, Butler’s minor-league career, especially the decade spent on the West Coast, included more than 200 professional wins and at […]

The highlight of Fred Curtis’s professional baseball career was a two-game appearance in St. Louis subbing for injured rookie first baseman Hal Chase and the 1905 New York Highlanders. Curtis’s personal life, however, hit a tragic low just four years later with the loss of his two infant children in an apartment fire. Frederick Marion […]

New York Yankee rookie Tom Tresh was living a dream. He stepped into the lineup of the defending World Champions in 1962, became a key contributor, faced some adversity, and here he was starting in the World Series. Not only was he contributing, he was the favorite to be named the American League Rookie of […]

Catcher Rick Cerone had an 18-year career in the major leagues (1975-92), but he used his athletic talent and fame well beyond the baseball field. An excellent multiple-sport athlete in his youth, his real love was baseball. Prior to his major-league career, he was a college baseball star, and after his time in the majors, […]