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Martin Flaherty was a major-league owner, player, and umpire during the 1880s – sort of. Mostly, he was a fan. For six innings in 1881, he played outfield as an emergency substitute for the Worcesters, a National League team he partly owned. The following season he umpired a single game: the Worcesters’ final nine innings […]
It is easy to imagine that at the end of her final day of filming with acclaimed director Ken Burns, Rachel Robinson must have felt some sense of relief. When Jack died, she was only 50 years old. Since then, she had been blessed with a long life and had spent almost as many years […]
He made his big-league debut on a day when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed thousands of civil rights marchers on the Boston Common, and flourished as a pitcher during the Summer of Love. As he struggled with injuries, Americans grappled with the strain of assassinations, racial riots, and the escalating Vietnam War. Jim Lonborg’s […]
Perhaps no other player in major-league history has been blessed with as much talent and at the same time burdened by such erratic impulses as José Canseco.1 Amassing borderline Hall of Fame numbers with 462 home runs and 1,407 runs batted in during a 17-year major-league career, the former American League Rookie of the Year […]
Jay Kirke was a formidable hitter of the 1910s and 1920s. According to sportswriter Norman E. Brown, Kirke hit the ball “as hard as anyone who ever swung a bat.”1 His line drives “burned with smoke.”2 Kirke “hits everything — bad balls, good balls, curves, fasts and slows,” said outfielder Sherry Magee.3 A left-handed slugger, […]
George Weiss presided over the greatest sustained run of excellence in baseball history. Under Weiss’s leadership, from 1948 through 1960, the New York Yankees won ten pennants and seven World Series. After a slip to third place in 1959 Weiss retooled his squad and returned to the top the following season. For this accomplishment The […]
One might think a pitcher with a 29-45 career record had been something of a bust, but Ken Sanders had the misfortune to often play for losing teams. His best season is indicative of the situation: with the last-place A.L. West 1971 Milwaukee Brewers, he was 7-12 despite a major-league-leading 31 saves and an ERA […]
Dorian “Doe” Boyland was a good prospect who never got a proper chance to show what he could do in the major leagues. The first baseman received three trials with the Pittsburgh Pirates — in 1978, 1979, and 1981. He got into a total of 21 games, but started none of them and played in […]
Wayne Bromley “Rasty” Wright spent his entire adult life pursuing his two passions, baseball and his alma mater, The Ohio State University. Wright was a star collegiate pitcher for the Buckeyes from 1915 through 1917. Going directly from college to the majors — a rarity throughout baseball history — he went on to pitch for […]
James Gilmore, left, and Charles Weeghman of the Federal League, circa 1914 (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) In the early 1890s “Lucky Charlie” Weeghman descended on Chicago as a teenager seeking fame and fortune. A natural salesman, he soon became one of Chicago’s best-known restaurateurs and a celebrity man about town. Then the baseball bug bit. […]
During a 16-year professional baseball career spanning 1959 to 1974, Roberto Peña was a stalwart shortstop in his homeland, the Dominican Republic. He played for two winter league champions and earned posthumous retirement of his uniform number by the Santiago-based Águilas Cibaeñas. Over parts of six big-league seasons (1965-1971), Peña broke in with the Chicago […]
Dick Brown signed his 1966 contract with the Baltimore Orioles in January, shortly after his 31st birthday.1 During his nine-year major-league career with Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox, Detroit, and Baltimore, the catcher typically entered spring training battling for a starting job – most often ending up as a reserve. However, with the trade of […]
Victor Starffin’s life reads like a Hollywood novel and, in a way, so do his pitching statistics …” — Richard Puff It is highly probable that no professional baseball player — from any era, country or league — ever lived a more erratic, dramatic, and in the end tragic life than did the pitcher […]
Ray Collins might have been on his way to the Hall of Fame but for an abrupt and mysterious end to his career after only seven seasons. In 1913-14 he won a combined 39 games for the Red Sox, and his lifetime 2.51 ERA is impressive even for his low-scoring era. Collins was a good […]
In a brief trial with the 1909 Cincinnati Reds, Clare Patterson compiled the entirety of his major league record: four games, eight at-bats, one hit, one RBI, four put-outs. A quick washout—or so it would seem. In truth, Major League Baseball did not finish its evaluation of the outfielder’s talents. Patterson would later earn a […]
In his 92 years of life, Clarence Eldridge wrote for big-city newspapers, practiced law, held leadership roles at an automobile manufacturer, worked in New York’s advertising world, occupied senior positions at two well-known food companies, and served as a marketing and management consultant with such sagacity that he was eventually elected to the American advertising […]
Eddie Dyer was one of the “Rickey men” who built baseball’s first farm system. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals to their last World Series championship of the Branch Rickey era. Edwin Hawley Dyer was born October 11, 1899, in Morgan City, Louisiana, the fourth of seven children of Joseph M. and Alice Natalie Dyer. […]
At age 17, outfielder Greg Blosser was a prime prospect. The Boston Red Sox made him their first selection in the June 1989 draft, ahead of both Mo Vaughn and Jeff Bagwell. Scout George Digby said of the Sarasota (Florida) High School product, “He’s the best hitter to come out of this state since Mike […]
At 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds (or more), burly Joey Meyer could really lay into a ball. The Hawaiian was a very promising minor-league slugger. On June 2, 1987, he unloaded a homer that is still talked about today — a shot into the second deck of the left-center stands at Denver’s Mile High Stadium that […]
John Beckwith was a tremendous slugger who has received more attention for home runs hit outside of regular season Negro League play than for his superlative production during Negro League games. However, he has yet to receive induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This lack of recognition may reflect his frequent position and team […]
Delos Daniel “Del” Drake was born on December 3, 1886, in Girard, Ohio, to William H. Drake, a dentist, and Mary E. (Schuck) Drake. A younger brother, William, died in infancy. Dr. Drake was credited for his son’s athletic prowess, and one article discovered by the author makes the claim, which the author has been […]
October 9, 1961. Game Five of the World Series, at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. All that separated the New York Yankees from another championship was outlasting the Cincinnati Reds. New York scored five runs in the top of the first, chasing Reds starter Joey Jay. A home run by Roger Maris in the top of the […]
Erv Dusak, whose prodigious power in the minor leagues earned him the nickname “Four Sack,” came up in the St. Louis Cardinals organization in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Some considered him a better prospect than his minor league teammate, Stan Musial. Like many of his contemporaries, Dusak missed three seasons in the prime […]