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A marquee matchup was scheduled on June 10, 1981, with the Houston Astros in town to face the Eastern Division-leading Philadelphia Phillies. The two teams, which met in the NL Championship Series in 1980, were playing at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on that Wednesday night. Several headlines dominated the festivities. First, barring a last-minute settlement, […]

The Rocket City Trash Pandas,1 the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, began their 2023 season with a series against the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Cincinnati Reds’ affiliate in the Southern League. After the Trash Pandas finished 2022 with the best record (81-57) in the league, 5,264 fans showed up at Toyota Field in Madison, […]

No one at Montreal’s Jarry Park on Saturday, April 19, 1975, could ignore the howl of tropical-storm-force winds.1 Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark listened to the wind and let it dictate last-minute changes to his starting lineup. The results made him look like a genius as his team downed the Expos, 3-0. Most accounts of […]

The 1994 season was one of the darkest in baseball history. A players strike in August led to the first season in 90 years without a World Series, and fans were not happy. Average game attendance dropped by 6,000 fans from 1994 to 1995.1 Yet, in the two years between 1996 and 1998, total attendance […]

Greg Minton did everything for the San Francisco Giants during the 1982 season, including stealing the team bus. More about that later. The right-handed relief ace achieved a milestone when he recorded his 30th save of the season in the Giants’ come-from-behind 5-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 25 at Dodger Stadium. […]

“I can’t say enough about it, or savor it enough,” said inspirational team leader Gary Carter after his New York Mets clinched the NL East crown by defeating the Chicago Cubs.1 While hard-throwing Dwight Gooden buoyed the team with a sparkling six-hitter, September call-up Dave Magadan, making his first big-league start, supplied the offensive fireworks […]

Heading into the seventh inning down 4-1 is far from game over, but for the Los Angeles Dodgers playing at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on Saturday afternoon, May 5, 2001, it would take just three more innings to go down in history as the LA franchise’s largest loss, with a final score of 20-1. “It just […]

For nearly two months in the summer of 1981, major-league stadiums were empty. On June 12, after a year of negotiations failed to produce an agreement on the structure of baseball’s free-agent compensation system, the players voted to strike. With the work stoppage still in progress on July 14, the All-Star Game was postponed. Instead, […]

For Game Five of the 1981 mini-series playoff between the Montreal Expos and the Philadelphia Phillies, Expos manager Jim Fanning unleashed his best pitching weapon, Steve Rogers. He also unleashed his secret offensive weapon — Steve Rogers? The 1981 major-league season was interrupted by a 50-day midseason players’ strike that divided the campaign into two […]

Bob Ojeda had no love lost for the Boston Red Sox, and the feeling was mutual. The free-thinking and independent southpaw had not always fit in when Fenway was his home park, and his hard-line pro-union stance leading up to the previous year’s two-day strike had not endeared him to all of the team’s veterans. […]

The Setting The baseball world has been captivated this summer by a home run chase, pitting New York hero Mickey Mantle and last year’s MVP Roger Maris against each other, as well as against a legendary ghost, Mr. George Herman (Babe) Ruth. But, as Arthur Daley pointed out in this morning’s New York Times, “Winning […]

Bill Moore’s major-league career was brief and unfortunate. Pitching in relief for the Detroit Tigers on April 15, 1925, Moore began the sixth inning by walking the only three Chicago White Sox batters he faced. He was removed from the game and never appeared in the majors again. Reliever Lil Stoner allowed two of the […]

Exciting, well-played baseball action was in limited supply for fans of the expansion Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres in 1969. The two newcomers to the National League posted identical 52-110 records in their first seasons, finishing a combined 89 games out of first place. Late in the season, though, teams of Expos and Padres […]

Garry Lewis Templeton was born on March 24, 1956, in Lockney, Texas, a small town in the state’s northern Panhandle. Templeton’s father, Spiavia, played in the Negro leagues, but Garry was not aware of his father’s history until he was 12 or 13. Spiavia was a backup infielder who played with Satchel Paige (who once […]

John Kyle Mitchell’s big-league pitching debut took place exactly where he had hoped it would, in Fenway Park. It was an exhibition game played there between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets on September 4, 1986, to support Boston’s Jimmy Fund and New York amateur baseball.1 But he was not with the Red […]

In an era when baseball players were supposed to be upper-class gentlemen and amateurs, Doug Allison didn’t fit the mold. He came from working-class origins and he was one of the first players to turn professional. Allison introduced two innovations that now are universally followed by all modern catchers. Douglass1 L. Allison was born in […]

The first player from “The Big Island” of Hawaii to make it to the major leagues was pitcher Onan Masaoka. The lefty’s 1999 Bowman baseball card aptly described his ability and his nemesis, command: “Pure power southpaw . . . Lively low-to-mid 90s heater . . . Gets outs with breaking stuff, too, when mechanics […]

On September 16, 1976, Larry Landreth made his major-league debut with the Montreal Expos. In doing so, he became the first homegrown Canadian to play for a big-league team based in Canada.1 The 21-year-old hurler had quickly advanced through the Expos’ farm system, compiling a 44-32 record and a 3.10 ERA in his first four […]

For a pitcher with 474? innings of major-league experience behind him to leave on the note he did – his disastrous one partial inning for the 1908 Red Sox – must have been personally aggravating. But even with that disappointing finale, Jake Thielman won 30 big-league games with an earned-run average of 3.16. Thielman spent […]

Daryl Alan Patterson was born on November 21, 1943, in Coalinga, California. He graduated from Coalinga High School in 1962 and entered the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, that fall. At 6-foot-4, he entered college intending to play basketball as a point guard, but switched to baseball after pitching for an amateur team […]

Danny Frisella’s 11-year career in professional baseball is often overshadowed by his unusual death, but the right-handed pitcher spent at least part of 10 different seasons in the majors. The big, beefy hurler with the nickname of “Bear” saw his greatest success in his stint as the top right-handed reliever with the Mets from 1970 […]