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As the manpower needs of World War II drained the baseball talent pool, major league ball clubs resorted to stocking their rosters with those available: veteran players overage for military service, the physically unfit, and others unlikely to be conscripted, including a handful of high school students. One of these was Ralph Kraus, a 17-year-old […]

Don Gile was a catcher and first baseman for the Boston Red Sox who, almost exactly two years to the day after Ted Williams did it, hit a home run in his final at-bat in the major leagues. Unlike Williams’ home run, Gile’s won the game in a walkoff. The date was September 30, 1962, […]

Frank Skaff’s big-league playing career spanned a mere 38 games and 75 at-bats in 1935 and 1943. That was far fewer than observers projected when the talented athlete emerged on the stage. However, Skaff spent six decades in Organized Baseball as a player, coach, manager – including 79 games with the 1966 Detroit Tigers – […]

Bill Campbell could be excused for deeming life as unlucky as a crooked draw. His mother died giving birth to him on September 7, 1923, in Atlantic City. Dad kept the secret from him till Bill was 11. He lived with his father, a traveling paint salesman, then aunts, then Dad again, changing schools six […]

 “LaMarque was probably the most unassuming of all the Monarch players. … He didn’t stand out. And he liked it like that. Lefty quietly went about his business.”  – Ray Doswell, curator, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum1   Jim LaMarque, who like so many southpaws was nicknamed Lefty, said he almost quit in 1942, his first year […]

Four men named Dave Roberts have played major league baseball. David Leonard Roberts, who appeared in 91 games in the 1960s for the Houston Colt .45s and Pittsburgh Pirates, is probably the least known, at least in the United States.1 But across the Pacific in Japan, that Dave Roberts is by far the best known […]

After hitting his dramatic walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Seven of the 1960 World Series, Bill Mazeroski excitedly circled first and then second base, waving his arms with his cap in his hand. As he reached third base he was greeted by Pirates third-base coach Frank Oceak, who […]

When the Washington Senators arrived in Pompano Beach, Florida, for spring training in 1971, manager Ted Williams couldn’t help but gush over his first overall pick in the January draft a year earlier. “That kid has major leaguer written all over him,” the Hall of Famer said of 20-year-old Detroit native William Roger “Bill” Fahey. […]

In a nine-year career spent with three teams, outfielder Tito Landrum never received more than 205 official at-bats in a season. Yet he earned two World Series rings and was a League Championship Series hero for both the 1983 Orioles and 1985 Cardinals. Terry Lee Landrum was born on October 25, 1954 in Joplin. Missouri. […]

Johnny Morrison had one of the deadliest, most knee-locking curveballs baseball had ever experienced. “You simply couldn’t see it,” raved contemporary Pat Duncan. “The ball came in like a fast ball and it dropped so fast that it fell completely out of your vision unless you were looking for such a hook.”1 That pitch became […]

What was Yankees manager Bucky Harris thinking? With his team leading the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3–2, with two outs in the sixth inning of Game Seven of the 1947 World Series, he sent rookie Allie Clark up to pinch-hit for rookie Yogi Berra. Out of context, given Berra’s Hall of Fame career, the move might seem […]

In the late 1980s the story of DeWayne Buice was one of success through rare determination and perseverance. He spent nine seasons in the minor leagues before he finally reached the majors. Twice the righty suffered a broken bone in his arm while pitching. After recovering, no team would give him a chance – but […]

Bill Baker immersed himself in baseball as a player, coach, umpire, and youth program leader. His playing skills were just adequate–good enough to hold a roster spot over seven seasons on three clubs, including a World Series champion, but with enough deficiencies that he rarely started. And when he finally reached the majors as a […]

The obstacles a rookie follows to become a major leaguer are daunting. Add to that the pressure of being described as a can’t-miss prospect or the next Joe DiMaggio and that process can be overwhelming. Johnny Groth faced such a situation with the Detroit Tigers in the spring of 1949. He would become and remain […]

“Dad always told me: ‘When you put on a uniform, you hustle.’” So said Del Unser in 2011, looking back at his career and the lessons he learned from his father.1 Al Unser served the game for more than 40 years as a professional player (including four in the majors during World War II), manager, […]

Before the 1915 Army-Navy baseball game, 24-year-old Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower led his fellow Army cadets in the “Long Corps” yell: “Rah, Rah, Ray! Rah, Rah, Ray! West Point, West Point, AR-MAY!”1 Playing left field for the Army team was 22-year-old Omar Bradley. By a score of 6-5, Army defeated Navy for the seventh consecutive year […]

Young Lee Delhi attended Santa Monica (California) High School and pitched for its baseball team 1908-10. As a pitcher for Santa Monica, he was known as Turk, Red and Demon Delhi. By 1909 Delhi had began to draw attention from the Pacific Coast League. Happy Hogan, the manager of Vernon, wanted to sign the young […]

A major-league pitcher for 18 years, Clarence Mitchell is best remembered not for a pitch he threw from the mound, but for one he hit while standing in the batter’s box. It was Sunday, October 10, 1920, the fifth game of the World Series between Cleveland and Brooklyn. The series was tied at two games […]

“Oh, Gertrude, when sorrows come they come not as single spies but in battalions.” – Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5, a favorite quote of Ned Martin when the Red Sox were having a particularly bad day   “With this back and these knees? Mercy,” Ned Martin asked rhetorically, using his trademark exclamation when asked if […]

Author’s note: Many a night, when I should’ve been doing my homework, I spent valuable time “studying” the encyclopedia of baseball. I especially became fascinated with obscure players having brief careers. I didn’t get far into the alphabet before coming across Buzz Arlett; how could someone with seemingly good numbers play only one season in […]

When Andy Piercy reported for duty with the vaunted Chicago White Stockings in early April 1881, “the weather was intensely cold, the ground frozen hard, and the ball-field covered with ice and snow.”1 It signaled an ominous beginning to an abortive major-league baseball career for the 24-year-old rookie. He came to the club as the […]

An article appearing in the Galveston Daily News during 1912 reads, “It was the first of the seventh when the redoubtable Christy Mathewson stepped into the pitching box to perform for the last three innings. He was greeted by an ovation from grandstand and bleachers as he trotted upon the field and grinned one of […]

The picture is familiar. From a very young age, a father and son throw a ball back and forth in the backyard or the playground or the street. A bond is formed and with it, the dream emerges. “I was hoping just to get to the Show and stayed 14 years.” So it was that […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 18, in 1998. For additional commentary about this story, read “The Veracity of Veeck,” by Robert D. Warrington and Norman Macht in the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal and Warren Corbett’s SABR biography of Bill Veeck.   Baseball is a game in […]