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Rudolph Ash played in eight league games for the 1920 NNL champion Chicago American Giants, though he also may have participated in a few exhibition games. Subsequently, it took another three years before Ash’s name again was mentioned in association with baseball in the press. At that time, he was enrolled in the University of […]
Tony Lloyd at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field in 2023 (Courtesy of Jeb Stewart) Tony Lloyd1 was a second baseman for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1959, which was his only season in professional baseball. He was a right-handed hitter and thrower who stood 5-feet-9 and weighed 150 pounds.2 Anthony Carl “Tony” Lloyd was born on […]
The hallmark of right-handed pitcher Harry Gumbert’s 15-season major league career was versatility. Depending upon club need, he assumed the role of staff ace, rotation regular, spot starter-reliever, or closer. But whatever assignment Gumbert was called upon to fulfill, his persona remained steadfast. Handsome Harry (as he was often called in the press)1 was affable, […]
Getting caught stealing forever links Ray Morgan to Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore. Getting out of jail — a month into a year’s sentence — when Clark Griffith showed up in court with a scouting job offer — is another reason Morgan has a place in the game’s lore. Morgan played second base for the Washington Senators in the final […]
Developing a passion for umpiring began at a young age for Dave Phillips, and baseball was simply in his family’s DNA. His parents met on a St. Louis baseball field in the 1930s while his mother, Helen Creamer, was playing softball and his father, Bob Phillips, was umpiring her games. Their son grew up to […]
In the spring of 1973 Dick Ruthven achieved a rare baseball feat. He became just the fifth pitcher since the abolition of the final bonus rule in 1962 to leap straight from college baseball into the major leagues. Stardom was predicted. He drew comparisons to Tom Seaver. Ruthven became an All-Star and earned a World […]
From Babe Ruth in 1920, through Reggie Jackson in 1977, and down to Alex Rodriguez in 2004, when the New York Yankees announce a player transaction it usually involves a big-name player coming to New York, with large amounts of money going elsewhere. But it was quite the reverse on July 27, 1945, when the […]
Major league baseball’s biggest contribution to the nation’s bicentennial celebration in 1976 could be summarized in two words: “The Bird.” Mark Fidrych exploded on the baseball world as an unheralded 21-year-old rookie pitcher. He revealed his talent in each of his 19 victories for the Detroit Tigers, his quirkiness in his public conversations with both […]
Besides having had a key pinch-hitting appearance in the 1914 World Series, Larry Gilbert is arguably the greatest minor-league manager of all time. Managing for 25 years solely in the Southern Association, Gilbert’s record was 2128-1627, good for an astounding .567 winning percentage. His teams won the pennant nine times, won the Shaughnessy playoffs three […]
In his first three professional seasons, James “Wickey” McAvoy played for a World Series champion, an American League champion, and a team that lost 109 games. This dramatic shift of fortune required no action on McAvoy’s part: The catcher joined Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics in 1913 and lingered there as Mack traded some of his […]
There have been two big leaguers named Joe Morgan — and it’s not hard to tell them apart. Joseph Michael Morgan played fractions of four seasons in “The Show,” finishing with three games for the 1964 Cardinals. He is white. Joe Leonard Morgan’s Hall of Fame career ran from 1963 to 1984. He is black. […]
To many who saw Al Luplow dive over the right-center field fence at Fenway Park on June 27, 1963 to glove a potential game-winning home run, it was the greatest catch they’d ever seen. An outfielder with the Cleveland Indians, Luplow was instinctively doing something he’d done as a Michigan State running back — launching […]
Henry “Hank” Schenz was claimed off waivers by the New York Giants from the Pittsburgh Pirates midway through the 1951 season, setting in motion a unique connection to the most famous event in baseball history. As told by Joshua Prager in The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot […]
On October 20, 1988, the Los Angeles Dodgers were on the verge of winning it all. They held a comfortable lead over the Oakland Athletics in the World Series, three games to one. LA was in a good spot for sure as its ace, Orel Hershiser, was the starting pitcher. After Kirk Gibson’s dramatic pinch-hit […]
Sandy Nava, the first Mexican-American in major-league history, was quite a bit younger when he entered the major leagues than the encyclopedias indicate, ten years in fact. He was actually 22 years old at the time of his debut with the Providence Grays, as a backup catcher for Monte Ward and Hoss Radbourn in 1882. […]
The son of a brilliant but combative Hall of Fame baseball executive, Lee MacPhail inherited his father’s intelligence and a love of baseball, but a wholly different personality. While Larry had a short and somewhat mercurial baseball career colored by both triumph and controversy, his son Lee spent four decades in baseball and earned the […]
An 11-year major-league infielder, Darrel Chaney stayed in the game due largely to his versatility and positive attitude. After a career that included appearances in three World Series, Chaney became a successful announcer, businessman, and motivational speaker. Darrel Lee Chaney was born on March 9, 1948, in Hammond, Indiana, the second of Carlos and Eleanore […]
Eccentric behavior, particularly when it came to fast cars, a disdain for off-season training, and bad luck with injuries limited Fred Carisch to parts of eight major-league seasons as a backup catcher in the early 20th century. However, he remained in the game for more than two decades – indeed, his first and last games […]
It could be a good question in a serious trivia contest: “Who was the first African-American ballplayer honored by the Hall of Fame?” Rather few people would correctly guess Grover Jones. “My real name is Grover William Jones, Junior,” Deacon Jones explained in a 2008 interview. “Everybody started calling me Deacon because my father was […]
A major-league ballplayer gets called a lot of things during his career, and a manager probably more so. In the case of Edgar Frederick Yost III, some of those things include taxidermist, catcher, grinder, idiot, app developer, survivor, twitter hashtag (#yosted), clothier, pot scrubber, and hunter. Oh, and one more thing — World Series champion […]
If God had not created Hustling Dan O’Leary, Damon Runyon would have. O’Leary is not well known today but he was well appreciated by the sportswriters of his time, as he was usually involved in something that would make an amusing story. He danced on the edge of fame and infamy, and even The National […]
“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]
Game Seven of the 1968 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals ranks among the greatest of all time. Screenwriters could not have created more drama. The two historic franchises had last met 34 years earlier, in 1934, in a bitter World Series battle that ended in a painful Game Seven […]