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Well aware of Carl Yastrzemski’s reputation as the best prospect in the Boston Red Sox minor-league system, Minneapolis Millers manager Gene Mauch couldn’t wait to get the young second baseman into his lineup. He should have. The timing seemed perfect. Mauch’s Millers had finished their American Association season in second place in the Eastern Division […]
The courses of the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Beaneaters had diverged by the time Boston arrived in Philadelphia for a three-game series on Monday, August 26, 1889. A week before, Boston had stretched its lead in the National League pennant chase with three victories over the second-place New York Giants, while the Phillies continued to […]
The Philadelphia Phillies opened a two-game weekend series at Wrigley Field on Saturday, April 17, 1976, in a bit of a slump. Their record four games into the new season was an uninspiring 1-3, putting a damper on the enthusiasm surrounding a team that had been picked by many to win the National League East. […]
In early September 1960, the Green Bay Packers football dynasty under Vince Lombardi was gathering steam. First-year coach Lombardi steered the 1959 team to Green Bay’s first winning season in a dozen years, and excitement was building for still greater success in 1960 as the season’s first game approached.1 The Green Bay Press-Gazette reported on […]
Like thousands of youth pitchers, Frank Castillo dreamed of winning a game in the major leagues. He was drafted out of Eastwood High School in El Paso, Texas, in the sixth round of the June 1987 amateur draft by the Chicago Cubs and progressed quickly through the minors. After reaching Triple-A Iowa to start the […]
Welcoming back their popular soldier-catcher Hank Gowdy after nearly a two-year absence, the Boston Braves held a ceremony in his honor on Saturday afternoon, May 24, 1919, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds.1 Gowdy had been the first active major leaguer to enlist for military service in World War I. John Heydler, the president […]
Howard Camp was a teenage starter in the inaugural game of the Georgia-Alabama League for the Talladega (Alabama) Indians, later becoming a manager and umpire in multiple Southern leagues, and, finally, a Detroit Tigers scout. He was one of a quartet of New York Yankees to make their debut on the same September 1917 afternoon. […]
Joe Adcock smashed some of the longest home runs ever witnessed. Although measuring the distance home runs traveled has historically been an imprecise science, driven by myth and legend, Adcock belongs to a select few sluggers, among them Mickey Mantle, Frank Howard, and Willie Stargell, whose feats still inspire awe. As a vocal leader of […]
Pinky Pittenger was a backup infielder who played for three major-league clubs during the decade of the 1920s. He picked up the name Pinky from a comic-strip character of the day. It was perhaps better than Clarke Alonzo Pittenger. That’s the name he was born with, son to William J. and Anna (Gray) Pittenger, born […]
His nickname says it all: The Human Rain Delay. In the years before seemingly every big-league ballplayer stepped out of the box after every pitch to go through a routine of incessant equipment adjusting, Mike Hargrove was an anomaly and drove pitchers, managers, fans, and even broadcasters mad. “With machine-like precision,” wrote Bob Sudyk, “Hargrove […]
“Every time I see his name on a lineup card, I feel like throwing up.” — Mickey Mantle1 The pitcher who made the great Mickey Mantle reluctant to step into the batter’s box was the one and only Dean Chance. Mantle uttered his memorable quote during Chance’s remarkable 1964 season. As sportswriter Phil Pepe wrote […]
Following the Pittsburgh Pirates’ loss to the Chicago Cubs on October 1, 2000, 60-year-old Willie Stargell emerged to throw a ceremonial final pitch at the soon-to-be-demolished Three Rivers Stadium. Even though most people who followed the Pirates knew “Pops” was in poor health his frail, spectral appearance that afternoon was shocking. He was almost unrecognizable, […]
Ken McBride anchored the pitching rotation for the Los Angeles Angels during their first three years in the American League. He led the staff with 36 wins during those years and was the starting pitcher for the American League in the 1963 All-Star Game. In that game, in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, McBride faced […]
The angle of a bouncing baseball can often shape the course of one’s career. That such an occurrence came at a high school track meet and put Jeff Yurak on a path to the major leagues makes his success nothing short of remarkable. Jeff Yurak was born in Pasadena, California, along with a twin brother, […]
Jack Heidemann played well during spring training in 1978, so well in fact he thought he had made the Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day roster. It came as a shock when, shortly before the team broke camp, he heard the words no player ever wants to hear: “Hey, Jack, Bambi wants to see you.” “Bambi” was […]
He never played a game of baseball until he was a freshman in high school, but his skills blossomed so quickly that he signed a professional contract after his junior year. Only 16, Wally Post started a baseball career that lasted 18 years and saw him transform from a pitcher-first baseman to a hard-hitting, superb […]
Franklin Walter Olin was born on January 9, 1860, in a backwoods logging camp in Woodford in the southernmost corner of the Green Mountains, near the Vermont-Massachusetts line. From that humble origin he went on to build a multi-million-dollar business that became the giant Olin Corporation, one of the largest in America’s military-industrial complex. En […]
Susan Fornoff’s childhood influenced her career choice; the location left an imprint on a particular part of that career. Fornoff was born February 4, 1958 and grew up in Baltimore, the oldest of four children (the others were boys) to Bill Fornoff, a factory foreman at Domino Sugar, and Romaine Fornoff, a homemaker and teacher’s […]
After experiencing success in its infancy as the birthplace of professional baseball, Cincinnati was without a championship team from 1883 until 1919. Although the 37 years without a winner were hard to swallow, the Queen City faithful continued to come out to the ballpark and root for a number of talented athletes wearing the Cincinnati uniform. […]
In all their history since Babe Ruth arrived, the New York Yankees have suffered through very few lean years. The most notorious were 1966 and 1967, when they finished 10th and 9th in the American League. One of the few bright spots in that period, however, was Dooley Womack. In 1966, the righty reliever made […]
Stan Benjamin used to say, “If they let you steal first base, I would have batted a thousand.”1 He was easygoing with a great sense of humor, often self-deprecating. His personality must have been forged early in life because a cartoon of the top regional high-school football players in 1932 labeled him “happy-go-lucky” and showed […]
The history of Maple City Park in Hornell, New York, spans everyone from Babe Ruth and Maury Wills to minor-leaguers with a single season’s statistical line. There’s a hefty portion of Brooklyn Dodgers nostalgia mixed into the story, as well as memories of the long-ago days when everyday people could pool their cash donations […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the SABR BioProject Committee April 2016 (Special Sidd Finch Edition), Volume 1, Number 4 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley From the Editor From the Director Advice from the Experts Project Profile: Jacob Pomrenke Project Poobahs From the Editor Welcome to the latest High and Inside, all the news you […]
This essay is adapted from an article published in the September 2013 issue of “The Inside Game,” the newsletter of the Deadball Era Committee. Of the more than 300 figures enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, perhaps the most enigmatic is George Davis. Although occasionally embroiled in controversy during his heyday in […]