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Griffith Stadium was death to home runs, yet inside-the-park home runs dictated the results in a game between the hometown Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics. Ty Cobb, playing with the A’s at age 41 in what was his final year, batted second, going 0-for-4 and showing his liability in right field. Cobb hit 46 […]

With the Atlanta Braves’ unprecedented playoff run one defeat from expiration, 21-year-old left-hander Steve Avery’s second dominant start of the 1991 National League Championship Series kept the Pittsburgh Pirates scoreless through eight innings of Game Six on October 16 at Three Rivers Stadium. Clutch play by Ron Gant, Greg Olson, and Alejandro Peña then secured […]

The uniform seemed strange. Gone were the Yankee pinstripes and the interlocking “NY” on the left breast. The jersey that Babe Ruth buttoned over his considerable paunch was that of the Boston Braves, his new team. “Trimmed with red piping, (it) looked comical and cheap after the sober Yankee garb he had worn for so […]

Not even the oppressive St. Louis heat could break Bob Sykes on the Fourth of July in 1980. With the Busch Stadium on-field temperature a reported 140 degrees,1 the Cardinals left-handed pitcher spun a 10-inning shutout against the Philadelphia Phillies. Center fielder George Hendrick hit a walk-off home run with one out in the bottom […]

The reigning two-time world champion Yankees were mired in fourth place, 15½ games behind Baltimore, as they came to Fenway Park to face the Red Sox on September 12. The Sox were in third place, 13½ games behind the first-place Orioles. Both teams appeared to be going nowhere; their seasons were due to end, as […]

The Arizona Diamondbacks woke up on Sunday, April 27, 2008, already leading the National League West Division by six games but carrying a worn-out bullpen. No starter had thrown a pitch in the seventh inning since the previous Monday, forcing the bullpen to cover more than 20 innings in five games – including 7 1/3 […]

“When I go, I want to be buried in my umpiring suit, holding my indicator.”1 When Tom Gorman died, his children carried out their father’s final desire. Gorman was dressed in his suit, which was meticulously buttoned, and wore his blue cap with the white “NL” embroidered on the front of it. He also held […]

Art McGovern, the carpenter’s son. He came to America and made good in New England, only once in his baseball career briefly returning to the land of his birth, Canada. Art was a right-handed catcher who was born in St. John, New Brunswick, on February 27, 1882. His father, John, was a native New Brunswicker […]

“It’s the starting pitcher’s job to win the game. My job is to save it. Sure the starters make more money. They don’t have as much fun.” — Don “Every Day” Elston1   If a Chicago Cubs skipper picked up the bullpen phone during the late ’50s or early ‘60s, chances are he was calling […]

A seven-game major-league career rarely affords a player much chance to leave a lasting impression on the game. Still, the imprint left by turn-of-the-century left-hander Warren McLaughlin is fainter than that of most marginal big leaguers. The availability of box scores from the era permits baseball reference works to construct a statistical line for McLaughlin, […]

Injuries forced Chicago White Stockings player-manager Cap Anson to dip into his reserve team early in the 1884 season and call up a promising right-handed pitcher named George Crosby. He actually pitched respectably in the three games he started, but those three games were the extent of his major-league career, and as far as can […]

“He was a missionary extraordinary for the game itself. … Wherever he went … Barrett talked and preached baseball.” i He was referred to as the King of Weeds, a play on words about scouts who “beat the bushes” for prospects. He signed the second most major-league players in baseball history, second only to his […]

“I’d like to have played in the Majors.”1 — Spotswood Poles   Spotswood Poles. One could not ask for a more memorable name. And with the unique appellation, not surprisingly, his name was misrepresented in multiple ways in official documents. The1886 Winchester, Virginia Register of Birth, the earliest official notification of Poles’ arrival, spelled his […]

Sometimes cited as the worst player in major-league history, John Gochnaur played shortstop for Cleveland in 1902 and 1903. His batting statistics those two seasons are amazingly similar, as he hit a lowly .185 with 16 doubles and four triples each year. His 1903 stats did show 17 more sacrifices and 11 more stolen bases […]

You would not be expected to play major-league baseball if you were five-feet-six and 155 pounds. Nor would you be expected to play on the left side of the infield if you threw left-handed. You most certainly would not be expected to spend nearly 20 years in a jail if you had never been charged […]

Right-hander Lou Knerr (pronounced Nerr) debuted in 1945 when big-league rosters were ravaged by World War II. He posted a modest 5-11 slate with the cellar-dwelling Philadelphia A’s, but took umbrage with the label of wartime player. “Sure there were a lot of players who shouldn’t have been in the major leagues, . . .” […]

Ron Luciano was a football All-American, baseball umpire, TV broadcaster, and best-selling author. He barged through the world like a gnu amid a herd of Shetland ponies, entertaining many, offending a few, and hiding behind a cheerful and outrageous persona until life somehow proved unbearable. Everyone knew him, but nobody did. He was born June […]

Joe Murphy was a major league pitcher at 19, a world-class sprinter at 21, and charged as an accessory to murder at 23. He then reinvented himself as a nationally respected figure in horse racing for more than 40 years. Joseph Aiken Murphy was born in St. Louis on September 7, 1866, the second of […]

On October 1, 1983, at Fenway Park, in the seventh inning Red Sox center fielder Lee Graham drove in Boston’s only run of a game against the Cleveland Indians. It was to be the only RBI of his brief five-game major league career. The Indians had scored one run in the top of the fourth […]

As a baseball coach at Army, Eric Tipton amassed a record of 234-201-5 during the years 1958 through 1977. Tipton, known in the big leagues as Duke or Blue Devil, debuted on June 9, 1939, for the Philadelphia Athletics, as an outfielder. He played in 501 games for Philadelphia and the Cincinnati Reds from 1939 […]

For Larry Colton, one night in June 1968 seemingly devastated everything he had worked for. Just a few weeks after making his big-league pitching debut with the Philadelphia Phillies, a bar fight led to Colton’s shoulder separation, ending his time in The Show. During his one outing at the top level, he allowed one run […]

In the spring of 1992, at the age of 84, Vernon Kennedy was still competing athletically. At the Missouri Senior Olympics, Kennedy took part in the discus, long jump and shot put. He won a gold medal in the discus, captured a bronze in the long jump, and finished fourth in the shot put. Kennedy’s […]

Lou Brissie still has the wristwatch he was wearing when a 170mm German artillery shell exploded near him, breaking the watch and both his feet and also shattering Lou’s left tibia and shinbone in 30 places. Shrapnel also pierced his right shoulder, both hands, and both thighs. And, one might assume, crushed Corporal Brissie’s hopes […]

Baseball lore is filled with stories of players who distinguished themselves on the diamond despite physical limitations. Examples include Dummy Hoy, Three-Finger Brown, One-Armed Pete Gray, Monty Stratton, and more recently, pitcher Jim Abbott. But Washington Senators left-handed pitcher Bert Shepard remains the only player to have ever played in the major leagues on an […]