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The New York Mets took sole possession of first place in the National League East Division on April 24, 1986, by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 5-4 in 10 innings, for the sixth win of what turned out to be an 11-game winning streak.1 They built up a six-game lead over the rest of the […]

In the years that followed, it was simple to say that victory in Game Seven was preordained after their miraculous escape from Game Six, but triumph in the deciding game was far from assured. As in the 1975 World Series, the Red Sox — after their own legendary ’75 Game Six win on Carlton Fisk’s […]

It was quite a game for a holiday – or any day. It was quite a game for the 16,571 mostly Boston Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. And it was quite a game for slugger Jim Rice, who hit the only walk-off grand slam of his 16-year career to make the Red Sox winners […]

If Bobby Ojeda tantalized the team he once played for in Game Three of the 1986 World Series, Ron Darling tortured the team he grew up rooting for in Game Four. A night after Ojeda got the New York Mets on the board for the first win of the Series by holding Boston to 1-for-7 […]

When the Boston Red Sox scored three ninth-inning runs to walk off the Seattle Pilots on August 7, 1969, it probably wasn’t divine intervention at work; it was probably just a first-year expansion team frittering away a game, the way expansion teams do. But with hundreds of nuns1 and one of America’s most prominent churchmen […]

Among trivia buffs, Houston Astros pitcher Larry Yount is often cited as having the shortest career in big-league history. Called into one game in 1971, he was injured while warming up, and was removed without facing a batter. About 1,000 players have reached the big leagues for only one game1 — including defensive substitutes who […]

Darryl Strawberry struggled early in the 1985 season. He injured his hand on May 11 when he made a diving catch and tore a ligament in his thumb. The injury forced him to miss seven weeks. He was still voted to the National League All-Star team that year. (He seemed embarrassed by his selection.) Strawberry […]

A teenage Willie Mays with the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays’ father did not allow him to join the Black Barons full-time in 1948 until school was over at the end of May. (Courtesy of Memphis Public Library)   The Birmingham Black Barons and the Kansas City Monarchs met at Rickwood Field for Game Two of […]

Richard Leo Gedman fulfilled his childhood dream in his tenure in the major leagues, suiting up for over a decade for the team he grew up rooting for. Gedman, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, spent parts of 11 seasons (1980-1990) as a catcher for the Boston Red Sox. The two-time All-Star also played for the […]

A journeyman who spent parts of seven seasons in the American League, Wally Mayer joined the Red Sox in 1917 and spent two campaigns as a reserve catcher.   Although he did not appear in the 1918 World Series, “Kid” Mayer did help Boston get there by smacking a pair of 12th-inning game-winning hits against AL […]

Pitcher Jim Wilson was a right-hander who played 16 years in professional baseball, including 257 games in major-league ball over the course of 12 seasons — despite being near death after having his skull fractured by a line drive off the bat of Hank Greenberg. He went on to become the first Executive Director of […]

The last position player who played with a major-league club for an entire season and hit .400 was not Ted Williams, but it was a fellow Red Soxer: Roger LaFrancois. Roger used to go to Red Sox games as a kid. He signed with the Red Sox and came up in their system, even receiving […]

The game meant nothing. Well, virtually nothing. The Detroit Tigers were ending a three-game series in Cleveland looking for a sweep after taking the first two contests. But that was all that Detroit was playing for on August 14, 1958. The Tigers and Indians were playing out the string, holding down fourth and fifth place […]

The 1934 Philadelphia Stars, champions of the second iteration of the Negro National League (NNL2), used a balanced four-man rotation that consisted of two righties and two lefties for most of their league games. Slim Jones, a 21-year-old southpaw, emerged as the team’s ace as he pitched to a 20-4 record and a 1.29 ERA […]

Equally at home rounding the bases or rounding up cattle, Dave Philley played major-league baseball with the same no-nonsense efficiency he successfully utilized in operating his 557-acre ranch and managing his other business enterprises. David Earl Philley was born on May 16, 1920, in Garret’s Bluff, a suburb of Paris, Texas, in the northeastern part […]

Seventy percent of the world is covered by water, the rest is covered by Devon White. Considered one of the best defensive outfielders to play the game, White was a human highlight reel who worked tirelessly to hone his craft. He was a raw athlete when he was drafted as a third baseman in the […]

Few if any baseball men have worked harder for longer than Mel Didier. He pitched just two years in Class D, but he spent more than 60 years in professional baseball as a scout and executive. As former Los Angeles Dodgers GM Fred Claire said, “I don’t know of anyone who has been in more […]

Few players have managed to overcome greater challenges to succeed in professional baseball than Gary Ryerson. In 1952 an outbreak of poliomyelitis, more commonly called polio, swept the United States. The infectious virus attacked mostly the legs and caused muscles to become weak, poorly controlled, and ultimately paralyzed. The epidemic struck 57,628 Americans.1 Of those […]

In 1956, the fall of my freshman year at Ohio State, I went out for the frosh basketball team. (Freshmen then were still not eligible for varsity sports at major colleges.) I had no great expectations considering my modest portfolio of high school hoops exploits. My primary motivation was to meet the head freshman coach, […]

Editor’s note: Have you ever wondered where the statistics that appear on Baseball-Reference.com or Retrosheet.org come from? For those of us who access those indispensable websites every day, it’s hard to imagine a time when historically accurate baseball stats weren’t readily available. But those stats weren’t handed down through the years in pristine, pre-formatted fashion […]

Sixteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Monday, December 19, 2016. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. He began by recounting some of the subjects discussed at the recent chapter board meeting, including the need to replace the stolen […]