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In the days before radio, Billy Sunday was the most successful evangelist America had ever known. The renowned preacher and temperance crusader found the Lord while playing for the Chicago White Stockings in the 1880s. He was an exciting player, speedy and daring on the base paths and acrobatic in the outfield. His earnest and […]

Bert Griffith (1896-1973) had a brief major-league career, playing for the Brooklyn Robins in 1922-231 and Washington Senators in 1924, principally as an outfielder. Hitting and throwing right-handed, Griffith was a stocky man who stood an inch shy of 6 feet and weighed 187 pounds. He appeared in 191 big-league games and sported a .299 […]

Duke Farrell played for two major-league teams in Boston, with 11 seasons in between. He led the American Association in home runs and runs batted for the 1891 Boston Reds, and then played in the first World Series ever staged, in 1903 for the Boston Americans, who became the Boston Red Sox. Both teams finished […]

This French-Canadian pitcher roamed widely but played just three big-league games in his career. During that one adventurous year, 1946, Roy hopscotched around Cuba, Mexico, Brooklyn — and his birthplace, Montréal. There Jackie Robinson played behind him as Branch Rickey’s “Great Experiment” moved forward. Then came a repercussion from Jorge Pasquel’s flashy raids. Roy jumped […]

In Jim Bouton’s revelatory 1970 book Ball Four, he describes a late September 1969 scene at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. “A group of terrorized pitchers stood around the batting cage watching Willie McCovey belt some tremendous line drives over the right-field fence. Every time a ball bounced into the seats we’d make little whimpering animal […]

Left-hander Ron Perranoski’s sinking fastball, sharp-breaking curve and ability to thrive in critical situations made him one of baseball’s top relievers. Over 13 seasons (1961-1973) with four teams, mostly the Dodgers and Twins as well as the Tigers and Angels, he pitched in five postseasons and three World Series — earning championship rings with Los […]

For generations, many American fathers have raised their sons with dreams of emulating their baseball hero, Mickey Mantle. Chipper Jones’s father was no different. From an early age, his son reminded him of The Mick: a small-town country boy with charming good looks, a Southern drawl, and a preternatural ability to hit a baseball from […]

Richard John McAuliffe was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on November 29, 1939. He grew up in the tiny town of Unionville, a burg “not exactly a breeding spot for major league athletes,” according to Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, another Connecticut native. “Chickens are more along its line. … Unionville has about nine months […]

The 1970 All-Star Game, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, was tied at 4-4 with two out in the bottom of the 12th inning. For the National League, Pete Rose was on second base and Billy Grabarkewitz on first. When Jim Hickman lined pitcher Clyde Wright’s offering to center field, hometown hero Rose broke from second […]

Nellie Fox was the heart of the 1959 Go-Go White Sox, the team that brought Chicago’s South Side its first pennant since the tarnished Black Sox season 40 years earlier. The image of Little Nel in his batting stance has become iconic — a choked-up grip on his bottle bat with a wad of chewing […]

June 14, 1908, South Side Park, Chicago. The White Sox had won 10 straight games. Manager Fielder Jones might well have uttered what would become a Hawk Harrelson catchphrase more than a century later: “Don‘t stop now, boys!”1 But Jones could see win 11 slipping away. After four innings, the New York Highlanders led 4-1. […]

“What did I do to deserve this?” If Theodore Bond had asked that question a few weeks into the 1935 Negro National League season, nobody would have blamed him. During spring training with the powerhouse Pittsburgh Crawfords, he rose from obscurity to become the starting shortstop. Though his batting average in those first weeks was […]

Of all those who proudly wore the uniform of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, Monte Irvin was one of the last surviving players. He went on to a Hall of Fame career as a pioneering African American player in the major leagues. Montford Merrill Irvin was born in Haleburg, Alabama, on February […]

Vivian Sheriffs Anderson played third base for her hometown Milwaukee Chicks in 1944, the city’s only year in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The spirited infielder suffered a season-ending injury in June of that remarkable season and missed out on the Chicks’ championship. Even though Anderson’s time in the AAGPBL was brief, the league provided […]

Tony Muser turned down his first shot at professional baseball, but about a year later signed with the Boston Red Sox and embarked on a career that included nine years in the big leagues as a first baseman and outfielder, 14 years as a major-league coach, and six years as a major-league manager. Of Austrian/German […]

Ralph Kiner was baseball’s leading home-run hitter for a few years after World War II. As a broadcaster for the New York Mets, he became famous for his verbal strikeouts. Although best remembered for his long career behind the mike, he still ranks as one of the premier sluggers in baseball history. Ralph McPherran Kiner […]

At the turn of the 20th century, baseball truly was America’s game. The Boston Daily Globe put it this way. “Once more baseball is king. From the National League to the [local] nine purchasing uniforms on the instalment [sic] plan, all is bustle. Never was [sic] there so many leagues and independent teams in existence […]

What a two-month roller coaster. University of Georgia star Carl Thompson1 set a collegiate record by striking out 22 Auburn Tigers in a regulation nine-inning game on April 6, 1912. Less than two weeks later, he was suspended by school administrators for unexcused absences, keeping Thompson from the annual showdown against their intrastate rivals, John […]

As a kid growing up in Pasco across the river, being able to stand on the mound at Sanders Field was as big for me as going to Yankee Stadium. — Bruce Kison1 Sanders Field, circa 1953 (Photos courtesy of the Eastern Benton County Historical Society)   Sanders-Jacobs Memorial Field, originally known as Sanders Field, […]

This article is part 1 of a planned multi-part series on the history of the Chicago Cubs franchise. This chapter covers the journey from the White Stockings to the Cubs from 1876 to 1919.   The 1885 National League champion Chicago White Stockings. 1-George Gore, 2-Silver Flint, 3-Cap Anson, 4-Sy Sutcliffe, 5-Mike Kelly, 6-Fred Pfeffer, […]

1912 Hilldale Club. Back row: Bill Anderson, Alice Robinson, Lloyd Thompson, Marian Caulk, Devere Thompson, Mark Studevan, Clara Ivory, Ed Bolden, Helen Barrett, Charles Gaskins, Mary Ricketts, Hubert Jackson, Grace Ricketts, Sam Anderson and Leon Brice. Front row: Hulett Strothers, Raymond Garner, Billy Hill, Frank “Chink” Wilson, George Kemp, Hugh “Scrappy” Mason and Clarence Porter. […]