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Brad Woodall was a left-handed pitcher who pitched in five major-league seasons. He played for the Atlanta Braves (1994-1996), the Milwaukee Brewers (1998), and the Chicago Cubs (1999). Woodall made 55 career appearances, 27 as a starter and 28 as a reliever. For his career, Woodall posted a 10-14 record with a 5.31 ERA. He […]

An adept base stealer known for taking unusually large leads from first base, Wid Conroy used his raw speed and acrobatic skills to earn a reputation as one of the most versatile defensive players of the Deadball Era. During his eleven-year major league career, Conroy played a significant number of games at third base, shortstop, […]

Billy Bayne, a bricklayer’s son, started playing ball in the Pittsburgh area with the Aspinwall Independents in 1917 and the American Bridge Company team of the Steel League in 1918. He’d been born in Hoboken, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 1899. The town is now named Blawnox, and is situated about 10 miles up the Allegheny […]

Whispering Bill Barrett was a Cambridge, Massachusetts, man through and through: born in Cambridge (May 28, 1900), died in Cambridge (January 26, 1951), and buried in Cambridge (Cambridge Cemetery, 7113 Chapel section).  He’s also one of four Cantabrigians who played major league ball for the Boston Red Sox; the other three are Fred Mitchell, Carl […]

“A pitcher can make great use of his tallness when he is as big as me, because when he gets on the hill he can zip ’em through there so fast it’s like tryin’ to hit a ball thrown off the top of the Washington Monument, and you have got a fine chance of hitting […]

Jim French was a backup catcher for the Washington Senators whose path to the major leagues took him from the fields of rural northeast Ohio to the nation’s Capital on the banks of the Potomac River. His journey to the major leagues and career with the Senators provided more than the opportunity to play baseball […]

Si Burick’s byline adorned the sports pages of the Dayton Daily News in seven decades, from the 1920s to the 1980s. Over that impressive span, he demonstrated that it’s possible to have a big-league career without ever working in a big-league city. In 1983 he received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award “for meritorious contributions to […]

During the 19th century, Pittsburgh became one of the major hubs for livestock being shipped from the Midwest to the markets in the East via the Pennsylvania Railroad as well as those destined for local buyers.1 As the industry grew and new railroads came through the area, a central choke point for the convergence of […]

His induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983, not to mention his inclusion in 1996 on the list of the 50 greatest players in National Basketball Association history, is clear evidence that Dave DeBusschere did not err in choosing basketball over baseball in 1964. At the same time, the 1963 decision by the White […]

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 […]

The 21st-century epithet “ump show,” coined to describe umpires who make themselves the center of attention, could have been created 100 years earlier to describe Charles Van Sickle. Brawls, riots, ejections, and suspensions followed Van Sickle throughout his 20-year career, which included 67 games in the 1914 Federal League and stints in more than a […]

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 […]

Like classmate Jim Thorpe, Frank Jude was one of many outstanding all-around athletes at the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian Industrial School in the early 1900s. He was rushed to the major leagues before he was ready because teams hoped to uncover another American Indian star like the Philadelphia Athletics’ Chief Bender. News features at the time […]

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, […]

“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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

John Shea’s parents came to the United States from Ireland and met in the Boston area. John J. Shea immigrated in 1890 and his future wife, Bridget Kearney, did so in 1894, marrying John shortly afterward. They had five children—Annie, Mary, James, John, and Roger. John J. Shea worked as a letter carrier for the […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Bob Moose’s strong pitching at two levels of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor-league system in 1967, punctuated by a pair of outstanding starts in the International League’s championship series, led to a September call-up that made him the Pirates’ first-ever amateur draft selection to reach the majors. On September 29, 10 days before his 20th birthday, […]

“That is the way this game is — you win, you lose, you celebrate and you suffer.”1 – Vin Scully Before divisional play came to the American and National Leagues in 1969, the pennant winners – the soon-to-be World Series opponents – were determined during the regular season. The turning of the calendar to the […]

A Sunday crowd of 30,000 fans1 came to the Polo Grounds2 on September 24, 1922, hoping to see their defending World Series champion New York Giants clinch another National League pennant. They might have been disappointed with that expectation, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Giants 10-6, but they were still witnesses to history: […]