Search Results

As the end of the year 1894 approached, prospects appeared bright for Tommy Cahill. A college graduate on hiatus from medical school studies, he also had a season of playing major league baseball on his resume. And after having just batted .328 for the high-minor Eastern League Scranton (Pennsylvania) Miners, a likely return to the […]

In the waning weeks of the 1962 season a player with a career .190-1-10 batting line played a crucial role in the National League pennant race. On August 23, San Francisco Giants’ infielder Ernie Bowman launched his only major league home run in New York’s Polo Grounds. Five innings later he delivered the game-winning single […]

In 1884, Henry Lucas upset the baseball world with the Union Association, a self-proclaimed major league he established to challenge the reserve rules of the times, as well as to get himself the major-league franchise he was unable to secure in one of the existing leagues. His club, the St. Louis Maroons, were easily the […]

As a star pitcher with the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian School, Charlie Roy was favorably compared to a famous alumnus, and his fellow Ojibwe from Northern Minnesota, Chief Bender. The right-hander attracted the attention of several major-league organizations, and was the subject of a drawn-out contract dispute between two of those clubs. However, his big-league career […]

“Dr. Frederick L. Wood, Dentist, Dies Suddenly” announced the London (Ontario) Free Press on November 18, 1935.1 The obituary for the “well-known dentist” amounts to one unassuming paragraph. 2 Surprisingly, it makes no mention of his many and varied accomplishments in sports — including 13 games in major-league baseball in 1884-85 — music, and the […]

Once a coveted young left-handed pitching prospect, Eddie Eayrs was nearly 30 when he finally received some regular major league playing time with the 1920 Boston Braves. Always a good contact hitter, Eayrs promptly capitalized on outfield assignments accorded him by manager George Stallings, and by season’s end he led Braves batsmen in batting average […]

Mel McGaha’s life was part Frank Merriwell, part Greek tragedy. Like Merriwell, the fictional athlete popularized in dime novels, McGaha (pronounced mŭ-GAY-hay) was a clean-cut, handsome figure who excelled in multiple sports as a collegian. A University of Arkansas graduate, he was a basketballer drafted by the New York Knickerbockers, a two-way football player signed […]

Mike Blyzka was part of one of major-league baseball’s biggest trades – a 17-player mega-swap between the Orioles and Yankees in the fall of 1954. Headlining New York’s acquisitions were future Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley and Don Larsen – the pitcher who later twirled the only (as of 2022) perfect game in World […]

“When I lost Frank I lost one of my best friends. Baseball lost one of its best managers. He was one of the best catchers we ever saw.” — Buck O’Neil1 Frank Duncan’s legendary Negro League career lasted 27 years and his unquenchable zest for life was etched across each and every one of them. […]

A hard-throwing southpaw and two-time All-Star, Max Lanier won 45 games and posted an impressive 2.47 earned-run average from 1942 to 1944 for the St. Louis Cardinals, who captured three consecutive National League pennants and two World Series championships in those seasons. At the height of his career, in 1946, Lanier stunned baseball by breaking […]

For every 30-home-run hitter and 20-game winner, there is often a role player who, though contributing less, is embraced by the fans and given nearly unconditional support in return for those elusive attributes scrappiness and hustle. For the pennant-winning White Sox of 1959, that player was Sammy Esposito. Despite spending the majority of his career […]

Carlos May was called “Tank” for his burly stature. At 5-feet-11 and 200 pounds, he had the physique of someone who carried a pigskin on a football field. However, May was also a talented baseball player, adept at hitting the horsehide. He reached the big leagues in 1968 at the age of 20. His career […]

There have been more than 200 father-son combos in the majors as of 2018. One lesser-known pair is the Jacquez men of Stockton, California. Between them, Thomas “Hawk” Jacquez and his father Pat pitched in just 11 big-league ballgames. Pat, a righty power pitcher, appeared twice in relief for the 1971 Chicago White Sox. Thomas, […]

Although the 1970s Reds were famous for their great offense, a pitcher holds one of the team’s – and baseball’s – most impressive records. Jack Billingham has the lowest earned-run average in World Series play, 0.36. He allowed just one earned run in 25⅓ innings spread over three different World Series for the Reds. In […]

Deacon White was a baseball pioneer. He caught baseball fever after the Civil War and played until the 1890s. His baseball career spanned the end of the amateur era and the start of professionalism, the establishment and demise of the National Association, the founding of the National League, and a players’ revolt that led to […]

Charles Herbert Klein was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 7, 1904. His parents, Frank and Margaret, were German-born farmers who had immigrated to America shortly before the turn of the last century. The couple owned a relatively small corn farm a few miles south of the state capitol. In addition to farming, Frank Klein […]

Josh Gibson has often been called “the black Babe Ruth” since he, like the Sultan of Swat, was his league’s most-feared home run hitter, but Wilmer Fields – Gibson’s teammate during four of his seasons with the Homestead Grays – had much more in common with the Babe than Gibson did. On the surface, this […]

After serving his country for three years during World War II, Chuck Diering played parts of nine seasons (1947-1956) for three major league teams. Regarded as a top-notch defender by his contemporaries, the lithe center fielder became the first player to earn team Most Valuable Oriole honors when big league baseball returned to Baltimore in […]

Rollie Fingers was clearly excited as he caught a leaping Ted Simmons, his catcher, after Fingers struck out Detroit’s Lou Whitaker to nail down the victory and the second-half American League East title for his Milwaukee Brewers in 1981. (The unprecedented split season was devised after the players’ two-month strike was settled.) The Brewers were […]

He had just 11 big-league at-bats in 1990, but Brian Traxler was still a cult figure. Over 13 years as a pro, the first baseman delighted fans across the minors, the Caribbean winter leagues, Asia, and independent circuits. His immediate appeal was visual. “Trax” was rotund — leniently listed at 5-feet-10 and 200 pounds, he […]

One could pull up Dickey Pearce’s statistics at the reference sites and be completely unimpressed. His numbers in the National Association and the National League are unremarkable. This is only part of the story; he was 35 years old when the National Association started and 40 when the National League began. Pearce’s reputation and contributions […]

Introduction On Saturday, March 25, 1905, a small yet curious article appeared in the Salt Lake Telegram that announced a baseball game to be played the following day between the Salt Lake Browns and the Ogden Chocolates at Walker’s Field in Salt Lake City.1 This would be the first formally organized game of baseball between […]

A weak offense marked the Washington Nationals’ 2005 season, so an offseason trade for a bat seemed inevitable. On December 8, 2005, they obtained Alfonso Soriano from the Texas Rangers in exchange for outfielders Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge and minor-league pitcher Armando Galarraga. Soriano was a four-time All-Star and a Silver Slugger winner who […]

In 1946, the Esquire’s All-American Boys’ Baseball Game, in its third year, was moved from New York to Chicago and was played at Wrigley Field on August 10. The game brought together 33 boys, aged 16-18, sponsored by 32 US newspapers. The players represented 25 states, and the East All-Stars played the West All-Stars. In […]