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Pete Knisely’s story is a familiar one: a player who excelled in the minors, could knock a ball over fences and walls in left field,1 but failed to make an impact in the majors over four seasons from 1912 through 1915. Knisley was known as “Pickleburg Pete”2 or “Pickle Bird.”3 (The origins of these nicknames […]

By age 17, in the summer of 1885, William Moffat “Billy” Earle was already handling the swift slants of fellow Philadelphian Charles “Tod” Brynan with the local Somersets, among the strongest amateur clubs in the East. Earle and Brynan would eventually team as battery mates with no fewer than four professional clubs, but Brynan’s arm, […]

Debuting in the second game of a double-loss doubleheader on June 17, 1927, John Edward Freeman was a pinch-hitter for Slim Harriss with two out in the bottom of the ninth, officially in the game but seeing no actual action. On June 27, he took over in center field for Ira Flagstead and collected his […]

For the first half of the 1970 season, Cincinnati rookie pitcher Wayne Simpson had the National League by the tail. He won 13 of his first 14 decisions in the majors, making the All-Star team. “He was tough,” remembered Al Oliver, then an opponent with the Pittsburgh Pirates. “Outstanding. I’d have to rate him right […]

Unlike Leo Durocher, the man he replaced as Brooklyn Dodgers manager for the 1947 season, Burt Shotton was no gruff, umpire-baiting field general. He was instead a calm, serious baseball lifer who, like the more illustrious Connie Mack, wore his street clothes in the dugout during his tenure in Brooklyn. His quiet demeanor did not […]

Nino Espinosa was a right-handed pitcher with good control whose career ended prematurely because of a shoulder injury. After that, he became a scout in his native Dominican Republic until his tragic death from a heart attack at age 34. Arnulfo Acevedo Espinosa was born on August 15, 1953, in Villa Altagracia, about 30 miles […]

Bill Cissell went from a farming community in Perry County, Missouri, to becoming “baseball’s costliest player.” The right-handed multi-position infielder played nine seasons in the major leagues from 1928 to 1938. He was found in 1949 “painfully ill and penniless in a gloomy one-room Chicago apartment” living with his 13-year-old son Gary. He’d been there […]

From 1955 through 2003, Clearwater’s Jack Russell Stadium served as the spring-training home of the Philadelphia Phillies. (After he died in 1990, it became Jack Russell Memorial Stadium.) One would surmise that Russell, a right-hander who pitched in 557 games over the course of 15 seasons in the major leagues, must have been quite a […]

Baseball is a difficult game to play well for those with two good arms but Pete Gray did it with one. Gray played only one season in the major leagues, 1945, but that was enough to have a lasting positive influence on people with disabilities. His accomplishment enlightened those of us who are perfectly formed, […]

The Boston Red Sox display a large 2004 World Series banner covering the left-field wall at Fenway Park during their home opener on April 11, 2005. (Courtesy of Kurt Blumenau)   Opening Day ceremonies at Fenway Park were notably different in 2005. For the first time in 86 years, fans who were present were able […]

When Cincinnati Reds manager Dave Bristol got in the face of third-base umpire Bill Williams on May 9, 1969, at Montreal’s Jarry Park, he wasn’t just making a complaint about Williams’s umpiring.1 He was making an obscure bit of major-league history. Williams’s ejection of Bristol during a fifth-inning argument made Bristol the first person ever […]

A pair of rare events were accomplished by a pair of future Hall of Famers at the Hubert. H. Humphrey Metrodome on August 1, 1986. The Minnesota Twins were spending the weekend celebrating their 25th anniversary, beginning with this contest against the Oakland A’s. In a rout of the Athletics, the Twins’ Kirby Puckett and […]

It was like old times in New York City. Both of Gotham’s professional baseball teams were in late-season division races. A quirk in the schedule had both the Mets and Yankees as home teams on September 12. And both clubs were hosting their closest adversary in their respective divisional races. The Mets had a matinee […]

Most Phillies fans have Father’s Day 1964 etched in their hearts and minds. In the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets in Shea Stadium, Jim Bunning pitched the seventh perfect game in major-league history and the first in the National League since 1880. Acquired from the Detroit Tigers in the offseason, […]

It looked like the best-of-five National League Championship Series was going to be a short one. The Montreal Expos had outhit Los Angeles in Game One, but they couldn’t get the big hit when they needed it. The frustrating loss was their 10th in a row at Dodger Stadium and the 19th in their last […]

The New York Mets were in a bad mood. After bolting out of the gate and looking seemingly invincible with a 20-4 record to start the 1986 season, they had appeared all too human, posting just a 6-5 record on their recently concluded 11-game road trip. Manager Davey Johnson, in his third season as the […]

A sellout crowd packed Fenway Park and then waited 20 minutes for the rain to subside. Not a long wait to honor a man who had spent 23 years donning a Red Sox uniform. When he started in 1961, Carl Yastrzemski was just a kid charged with the unenviable task of replacing Ted Williams in […]

The 1968 Chicago White Sox opened the season with 10 straight losses; they then followed up the disastrous start by winning 11 of their next 17 games. An astute fan might not have been surprised by either set of events.1 The previous season’s team had finished in fourth place, three games behind the league-leading Boston […]