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Edward D. Steele was an Alabama fixture through and through. He was born in Selma on August 8, 1916, to Ezekial Steele and Viola Dawson, about whom nothing is known except that they were apparently married. Steele made it through the 10th grade before he began his own career both as a laborer and baseball […]

Ellie Rodriguez loved to catch. The catching position put him in the center of the action of a baseball game, from his sandlot days in the Bronx Federation League and a Spanish league in New York City to a nine-year major-league career with five teams. In 1969, Rodriguez was the Kansas City Royals’ only selection […]

Mike Mitchell was a strapping 6’1″, 185-pound right fielder with speed, power, and, according to noted baseball historian Bill James, the best outfield arm of the Deadball Era’s first decade. In addition to stealing 107 bases from 1909 to 1911, Mitchell led the National League in outfield assists in 1907 and triples in 1909 and […]

For 20 years, from 1902 to 1921, Jerome Kelly1 served as the groundskeeper for the Boston ballclub in the American League, maintaining the playing field during an era when the team won six American League championships. Jerome Kelly was born on August 8, 1858, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a town bordering Boston to the north.2 He […]

During an International League game between the hometown Ottawa Lynx and the Toledo Mud Hens, a Mud Hens runner was called safe in a play at the plate. The call angered Lynx fans, who booed the call lustily. When the inning ended, as the Mud Hens manager/third base coach returned to the dugout, a fan […]

John Kieran stands among the legends of baseball writing with his J.G. Taylor Spink Award and place of honor in the Scribes and Mikemen exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame.1 But baseball and even the broader realm of writing sports per se occupied only a part of Kieran’s career as a newspaperman, and he […]

A 13-year veteran catcher, Mike Scioscia has – through 2015 – managed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for 16 seasons, the first major-league manager to reach the playoffs in six of his first 10 seasons. He led the Angels to a world championship in 2002. Michael Lorri Scioscia was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, […]

A weighmaster at the tobacco market in the offseasons, a veteran of the Army Reserve, a farmer, and honored by being named a Kentucky Colonel. And a right-handed pitcher who was a veteran of 17 seasons in minor-league baseball, with a 147-131 record and a 3.87 earned-run average. Eleven of Herb Moford’s seasons were spent […]

Ray Moore was the long reliever and an occasional starter for the pennant-winning 1959 Chicago White Sox. Control problems that plagued Moore, especially early in his career as a highly-regarded Dodger prospect, resurfaced in 1959, limiting the big right-hander’s effectiveness. Raymond Leroy Moore, the ninth of 10 children of Clarence and Mary “Maggie” Moore, was […]

Since 1931 the University of Minnesota baseball program has been blessed with three fine coaches, Frank McCormick, Dick Siebert, and John Anderson, all of whom are enshrined in the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The most improbable and quite possibly the least appreciated success story has been Anderson’s tenure as coach of the […]

Elmo Plaskett had only two cups of coffee in the major leagues, but those brief stints barely hint at the full picture of a talented hitter who was devoted to baseball all his life. Plaskett, who died in November 1998 at the age of 60, remains a hero in the Virgin Islands. The city of […]

Dick Koecher, a left-handed pitcher from Philadelphia. joined his hometown Phillies for parts of three postwar seasons – 1946, 1947, and 1948. He had served in the United States Navy during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of fellow servicemen doubtless dreamed of pitching in the major leagues. Koecher accomplished his dream. He was 20 […]

Undersized and a powder puff hitter, late-19th century utility man George Ulrich parlayed hustle, cunning, and defensive versatility into a nine-season professional career that saw him don the uniform of 23 different teams, including, albeit briefly, three National League clubs. Perhaps tellingly, Ulrich never lasted a complete season with any one of them, regularly drawing […]

Bob Turley was a rich businessman who once won a Cy Young Award pitching for the Yankees. “Bullet Bob” was one of the hardest-throwing pitchers of the 1950s and one of the wildest of any generation. Turley’s business success far surpassed his baseball accomplishments. His top baseball salary was $35,000, but he earned millions in […]

Swift Canadian Mel Kerr made just one major-league appearance. It came with the Chicago Cubs as a pinch-runner in September 1925 as the team utilized the multi-sport athlete’s world-class foot speed. Yet, as is often the case, there is more to the story than that solitary moment in his life. Indeed, Kerr was ranked with […]

A superb gloveman, infielder Billy Clingman spent 17 seasons in professional baseball beginning in 1890. As a player he witnessed the start of Honus Wagner’s career, once cleanly handled 22 chances in a double header, and was the first Washington Senator to hit a home run. As a manager, he is given credit for developing […]

New York City sports fans with a few dollars in their pockets and a Wednesday afternoon free on August 11, 1943, had a choice. Both National League clubs were at home, so those with a baseball rooting interest could either catch the Dodgers at Ebbets Field or the Giants at the Polo Grounds. Those interested […]

Even had Kenny Rogers not tossed a perfect game on July 28, 1994, baseball fans would have remembered the date. Earlier that day, the executive committee of the Players Association had voted to go out on strike on August 12. The culmination of a long, bitter struggle between owners and players, the strike occurred over […]

In the 1970s the Cincinnati Reds were one of baseball’s dominant forces. The power-packed Big Red Machine piled up World Series titles in 1975-76, National League championships in 1970 and 1972, and National League West titles in 1973 and 1979. As with any dynasty, the players who made the Reds great had to learn their […]

After wins in Games Six and Seven in Cincinnati by scores of 5-4 and 4-1, respectively, it was clear the Chicago White Sox were no longer playing to lose. Dickey Kerr wasn’t as brilliant in Game Six as he was in Game Three, but he went the distance in a 10-inning affair that saw the […]

The potent Red Sox lineup of 1940 hadn’t been enough to overcome their own weak pitching. In between four second-place finishes (1938-39 and 1941-42), the Red Sox were mired in fifth place when the team began its final homestand on September 26. At the plate, the Red Sox were the equal of the first-place Tigers, […]

When the 1922 season began on April 12, the New York Yankees were without the star and face of the franchise Babe Ruth and slugger Bob Meusel, both of whom were suspended for six weeks after brazenly defying Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s order not to barnstorm after the 1921 World Series.1 Landis had told Ruth […]

On a miserably raw Wednesday afternoon in the first full year of the Great Depression, with two second-division ballclubs playing in front of a few thousand fans, a legendary pitching career reached an ignoble end. Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander was on his second stint with the Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he’d won 190 games in […]