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Louisianan Paul Sentell finished second to Ty Cobb in the 1905 South Atlantic League batting race. As a major-league rookie infielder, Sentell broke his hand in a fistfight with John McGraw. As a minor-league manager, he became a renowned umpire-baiter. Finally, Sentell became a skilled arbiter himself, ascending back to the major leagues in three […]

Of the players officially expelled from Organized Baseball in the early 1920s, Gene Dale was among the least notorious. A lanky right-handed pitcher, Dale had won 18 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1915 but was no longer a major leaguer at the time of his banishment. Rather, his disgrace emanated from suspected involvement in […]

Twenty-five years after his playing days ended, Pastor Tom Johnson was again coming in as a reliever; this time, though, he was headed half-a-world away from the scene of his success as a home-grown Minnesota Twins pitcher. Speaking humbly, but still exhibiting the confidence he took to the mound, Johnson explained his move to the […]

After graduating from Duke University in 1974, John Poff made it to the majors for 31 games in 1979 and 1980. He hit .218 in 91 plate appearances. The first baseman-outfielder retired after the winter of 1981-82. “My career in baseball was frustrating,” he later said. “I wanted and felt I deserved a lot more […]

At the time of his death, Fred Roat was remembered fondly as “one of the base ball celebrities of the country” who had “played contemporaneously with Billy Sunday of evangelistic fame and was at one time a protégé of the renowned Captain Anson.”1 Despite the flowery description of his baseball ability, however, Roat’s major-league career […]

Before Mike Lum came along in 1967, only three men born and raised in Hawaii had played in the majors, and none since 1945.1 Both before and after World War II, quite a few Hawaiian ballplayers had gone to Japan – but for mainland fans, Lum became a longstanding reminder of baseball in the Aloha […]

This lanky pitcher was the first Mexican player to win a World Series ring. El Ejote – The Stringbean — was a member of the Oakland A’s bullpen in 1973. His motion was quirky and memorable: Whipping the ball from a low side-arm/submarine angle, Piña then swung wide and landed hard with his trailing right foot. NBC’s […]

Henry Frazier Robinson was born on May 30, 1910, in Birmingham, Alabama, to the Rev. Henry and Corrine (Black) Robinson.1 The Robinsons had seven children: Edward, Theophilus, Maybelle, John, Estelle, Henry Frazier, and Norman.2 The family moved to Oklahoma City when Frazier was less than a year old to escape the segregation of the South […]

Over his 22-year career, fleet-footed center fielder Bernard “Frenchy” Uhalt knocked out more than 3,000 hits and was elected to the Hall of Fame. His name might not be familiar to many baseball aficionados, though, since 21 of those seasons and all but 40 of his hits came in the minor leagues, and because he […]

Bobby Reeves entered the major leagues like a comet, a famous collegiate star in two sports who skipped the minor leagues entirely. He did not have the career many expected of him, partly due to injuries and circumstances, but also possibly because the talent evaluators of the time might have been overly optimistic about his […]

Russ Nixon spent more than half a century in baseball. A catcher who played 12 years for the Red Sox, Indians, and Twins, he went on to coach and manage at levels from rookie ball to the major leagues, with five seasons as a big-league manager.     The son of farmers Thomas and Edith Nixon […]

“Baseball is our way of life in the Amaro family,” said Rubén Amaro Sr. Four generations of Amaros have played professionally. Amaro’s father, Santos, had a long and distinguished career in Cuba and Mexico. His son, Rubén Amaro Jr., became a player, executive, and coach in the major leagues. Rubén Sr. was in the majors […]

Bobby Mathews, nearly forgotten today, was one of the top pitchers of the early professional era despite his small stature (5-feet-5½-inches tall, weight about 140 pounds). Between 1871 and 1887, he won nearly 300 games, 297 to be exact – more than any other pitcher not inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His […]

George Lee “Sparky” Anderson was one of the great baseball men of all time in terms of success, integrity, and personality. He led the Cincinnati Reds to back-to-back championships in 1975 and 1976, and the Detroit Tigers to a World Series title in 1984, becoming the first manager to win the World Series in both […]

Edythe Perlick (later Keating), the star left fielder for the Racine, Wisconsin, Belles from 1943 through the 1950 season, exemplified the kind of women who played hardball in the All-American Girls Base Ball League, today called the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. A steady and productive hitter, a speedy defensive outfielder with a strong and […]

[A glue guy] is a guy who’s unselfish and who’s a good teammate… A guy who communicates well and who’s honest with his teammates and himself. Somebody the other guys can count on to offer advice or encouragement. He keeps everybody loose, but at the same time, focused… It’s a guy who — in baseball […]

Don Chevrier was there from the beginning, a 9-5 win against the Chicago White Sox that began as a snowy Thursday on April 7, 1977, at Exhibition Stadium. And he was there for the next 20 years, too. He would have stayed even longer but the broadcasting contracts were moved as deftly as Roberto Alomar […]

If there had been a draft in the baseball world of 1890, a Chicago-born shortstop likely would have been the number one selection by any of the 24 teams of the three major leagues operating that season. In his prime of the 1890s, and even before, as he made his way toward national stardom, the […]

When George Brett incurred some nuisance back problems in the late stages of his career with the [Kansas City] Royals, he sought relief from a chiropractor in Overland Park[, Kansas]. On one of his first visits, perhaps the first, Brett lay face down on the table — vulnerable, as he recalls — waiting for treatment, […]

A “short, stocky, active, aggressive” second baseman, Otto Knabe teamed with shortstop Mickey Doolan to provide the Phillies with one of the most notorious double-play tandems of the Deadball Era.1 After seven years in Philadelphia, Knabe jumped to the Federal League in 1914 to lead the Baltimore Terrapins. But in Baltimore and two later minor […]

This article was originally published in Ebbets Field: Great, Historic, and Memorable Games in Brooklyn’s Lost Ballpark (SABR, 2023), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.   On July 30, 2006, Effa Manley was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She and her husband, Abe Manley, had been at the helm of one of the great […]

Yogi Berra played in 2,120 major-league games. All but four of them were in a New York Yankees uniform. The three-time American League MVP ended his playing days with the crosstown Mets; his final effort came on May 9, 1965, in the first game of a Mets-Braves Mother’s Day doubleheader at Shea Stadium. Berra went […]

Carlos Bernier’s game-changing speed fueled the native Puerto Rican’s rise through the minor leagues after Jackie Robinson integrated major-league baseball in 1947. Reaching the majors in 1953 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bernier’s debut as a pinch-hitter in a 4-2 loss to the New York Giants at Forbes Field on April 22 made him – in […]

In the midst of a successful career in the major leagues, Jim “Nixey” Callahan quit the Chicago White Sox after the 1905 season, pinning his fortunes on a plan to establish a semipro club in Chicago. He first purchased the rights to an old amateur playing field in Logan Square, a section of Chicago. Then […]