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The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies were meeting for the second consecutive year in the 1978 National League Championship Series. LA took the series in 1977, ousting the Phillies in four games. “Three is my lucky number,” said Philadelphia manager Danny Ozark. “I wear number 3 and this is our third time here. […]

No ballpark was more suited to the Deadball Era in which it was built than cavernous Braves Field. Modern-day estimates of the former ballpark’s outfield distances vary, but they were all huge. In the 12-plus seasons from August 8, 1915, the day Braves Field was opened, through the end of the 1927 campaign, when the […]

In 1959 the San Francisco Giants were in a three-way pennant race with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves. After a four-game losing streak dropped San Francisco out of first place,1 Giants management shook things up. On July 29, they called up Willie McCovey, the 6-foot-4 first baseman nicknamed “Stretch.” The 21-year-old McCovey, […]

In a tight contest that lasted almost five hours on May 28, 1979, the Kansas City Royals defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4, ending what was then the longest game in Royals Stadium history. George Brett launched a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 16th inning to give the Royals their fifth consecutive victory. […]

Johannes “Joe” Blyleven, the youngest of seven Blyleven siblings,1 admitted that he didn’t have his older brother Bert’s legendary curveball. Perhaps as a result, Joe didn’t have his brother’s Hall of Fame-level professional success, either. Pitching in the lowest reaches of the California Angels’ minor-league system in 1977 and 1978, he posted a 6-8 record […]

By the close of the 1905 season, first baseman Joe Nealon was the most highly coveted minor league prospect on the West Coast. Young (not yet 21), large (at least 6-foot-2, 200-plus pounds),1 and athletically gifted, his services became the object of an intense bidding war among major league clubs ultimately won by the Pittsburgh […]

In the outfield, Jack Mayo was an excellent fielder, smooth, graceful, and fast. On the basepaths, he was one of the fastest men in the National League. His speed and fielding prowess earned Mayo a place on the famous Whiz Kids of the Philadelphia Phillies. But his inability to hit consistently limited him to part-time […]

Kenneth William Penner was a baseball lifer. From the time he broke into organized ball as a 17-year-old pitcher in 1913, until his final pitch, thrown at the age of 47, Penner spent parts of 28 seasons in the minor leagues, pitching for 17 teams in 11 leagues and four classifications. In between, the right-hander […]

As major-league debuts go, Mark Grant’s did not lack in drama. On April 27, 1984, the former first-round pick got the start for the San Francisco Giants, squaring off against Joe Price and the Cincinnati Reds at Riverfront Stadium. Grant took the loss despite working six innings. It was a 9-3 contest between two teams […]

Monroe “Dolly” Stark – not to be confused with his namesake Albert “Dolly” Stark, the first Jewish umpire in modern baseball – endured an Odyssean journey through baseball.  Monroe Stark, the original “Dolly Stark,” logged an itinerant career in baseball from 1904 to 1922 in several minor leagues, as well as a brief fall call-up […]

Bob Quinn was a baseball man for more than 60 years. He started as a player in the 1880s, although he never made the majors, and then became a business manager/general manager. At various points from 1917 through 1945, he held this role at the big-league level with the St. Louis Browns, the Brooklyn Dodgers […]

A smallish spitballer, right-hander Jimmy Dygert joined the Philadelphia Athletics in September 1905. Two years later, his career season almost enabled Philadelphia to overtake Detroit in the heated 1907 American League pennant race. From there, Dygert’s wildness undercut his prospects. When the Athletics claimed their first world championship in 1910, Dygert was an afterthought, his […]

Viola Thompson’s contribution to World War II was a rather unusual one. She didn’t do war work in a factory, or enlist in the armed services. Rather, she became a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), and helped to keep the national pastime going during the war years. She was modest about […]

Joe Quinn’s 17 seasons between 1884 and 1901 marked the first appearance by an Australian in major league baseball. For 102 years, Quinn was the only player from “Down Under” to feature at the top level of American pro ball, and he remains the only Australian to manage in the major leagues. He played on […]

Roy Partee’s career as a scout rivaled that of his career as a catcher. He caught for the Boston Red Sox for five seasons, 1943-48, and he scouted (mostly for the Mets) for more than a quarter of a century. He also managed in the minor leagues and helped win World War II. Partee was […]

“My big idol was Larry Kopf, who played with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 World Series. They’re still my team. That’s a big thing for a town our size to have a guy in the big leagues.” So said Abraham A. “Abe” Ribicoff, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and a former Governor of […]

“Yes sir, it’s great to be a Yankee,” Fred Sanford said.1 Making it even greater, he was traded from the nearly bankrupt St. Louis Browns to the pinstriped promised land. Presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, Sanford flopped. After the right-hander had lost 21 games for the Browns in 1948, the Yankees paid $100,000 […]

Several years ago, I picked up a large package of records belonging to obscure minor-league ballplayers whose big league dreams had ended in the bushes. Previously rescued from a trash heap by a resourceful collector, these materials had been purged by the San Francisco Giants to make room for the tracking of newer generations of […]

Steve Macko died from cancer ten weeks after his 27th birthday, leaving behind a sparse record of 25 games over two seasons with the Chicago Cubs. But the cold cadences of baseball’s official ledger misrepresent his life’s true measure. Macko continued a distinguished family lineage in the game, spearheaded an improbable College World Series bid, […]

Massachusetts-based contractors Lou Perini, Joseph Maney, and Guido Rugo became majority owners of the Boston Braves baseball club in 1944. In 1947, through a working relationship with Perini, Massachusetts native Joseph Cairnes shifted his career path from construction engineer, in the private and public sectors, to major league baseball administrator with the Braves. Perini, familiar […]

Pitcher Mike Prendergast toiled over 600 innings in back-to-back seasons with Peoria in the Illinois-Iowa-Indiana League. He followed that up with a 180-game major-league career. His work ethic earned him the nickname “Iron Mike,” but he would likely be long forgotten had he not been included in the Chicago Cubs-Philadelphia Phillies trade that sent Pete […]

Dwight Bernard took an unusual path to the major leagues. He played one year of high-school baseball, in which he pitched just a few games and won only one, then went to a tiny Baptist college that did not offer intercollegiate sports. He transferred to another small college that had a baseball team but to […]

Considered one of the “smartest” hurlers of his era, Ben Cantwell jumped from the Class B Jacksonville Tars to debut in the major leagues with the New York Giants in 1927.1 Traded the following season to Boston, he earned his reputation as a versatile pitcher for the Braves, winning 20 games in 1933. Just two […]

Ebbets Field has been gone for more than half a century, but the place still has a remarkable grip on our consciousness. At least three books have been devoted to the lovable old ballpark in Crown Heights.1 Yet even these in-depth works don’t shine much light on what happened after the Dodgers left Brooklyn. They […]