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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

With a fourth-grade education from the Marshall Street school in San Antonio, Jake Volz did his family proud. Born in the city of San Antonio on April 4, 1878 to parents who had immigrated from Germany a little over 10 years earlier, Jacob Phillip Volz took up baseball as a youth and broke in professionally […]

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 […]

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 […]

If You Are There had done an episode on nineteenth century baseball, Edward “Eddie” Kennedy could have been the lead character. He would play in the first World’s Series, and both the first professional game and the first American Association game in New York City. His career would also mirror the experience of many of […]

Sid Gordon was a solid ballplayer with the New York Giants, the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. A powerfully built man, he came to play every day no matter whether the manager played him in the outfield or third base or where he inserted him in the lineup. An amiable and well-liked […]

Bobby Grich was one of the best second basemen in baseball over a 17-year major-league career that began in 1970. During his first season, Grich played with the Orioles primarily as a utility infielder. Known for his sharp fielding and consistent hitting, Grich became a regular in 1972 and played in his first All-Star Game […]

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 […]

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 […]

Vermont is one of the least-represented states on Baseball-Reference’s state-by-state register of minor-league and independent teams. At the end of the 2020 season, the Green Mountain State had hosted just 62 professional teams, trailing only Alaska, Wyoming, and Hawaii among US states.1 You can imagine, then, that the arrival of a new pro team in […]

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 […]

The bleachers at Ebbets Field were filled two hours before the first pitch. The game was a sellout by noon, and many of the estimated 10,000 fans who were turned away continued to line the streets around the park. Young boys tumbled over a gate near the corner of McKeever Place and Montgomery; most were […]

By 1931, Al Capone was the kingpin of the criminal enterprise system that ruled Chicago from top-level politicians down to neighborhood shopkeepers. There were other gangs, but his South Side “Chicago Outfit” stood supreme. This was not to say, though, that he was secure. He was in constant danger from rivals—to the point that he […]

As the Red Sox prepared to host the New York Yankees in the first of a four-game series at Fenway Park, there was a sense of wariness in the air. Less than a week earlier, Boston held a three-game lead over New York. After losing two out of three at Baltimore and three straight to […]

In the summer of 1975, a London punk named John Lydon was invited to audition for a rock band after he was seen wearing a T-shirt with the phrase “I HATE PINK FLOYD.”1 He passed the audition and adopted the name Johnny Rotten. The band became the Sex Pistols, and the pen-scrawled shirt entered punk-rock […]