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A boisterous crowd of 33,137 filled Fenway Park1 on Friday evening, June 28, 2002, ready to see their homestanding Red Sox take on the Atlanta Braves, invading from the National League. The teams had nearly identical records at this point in the season, both 18 games over .500 and atop their respective divisions.2 But this […]

On the back cover of his album The Nylon Curtain, released in September 1982, singer-songwriter Billy Joel is pictured enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette while reading the newspaper. The paper in front of him is easily identifiable as the New York Times, and a baseball-related headline is visible: “Expos Top Punchless Mets.”1 […]

Kevin McReynolds and Rich “Goose” Gossage were teammates for three years with the San Diego Padres and were major contributors to a Padres team that played in the 1984 World Series. After McReynolds was traded to the New York Mets during the 1986-87 offseason, Gossage had some unkind words for his former teammate. The outspoken […]

On August 4, 1945, Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Bill Salkeld “joined an exclusive club as just the seventh catcher to hit for the cycle.”1 He also set a few records. Pittsburgh was hosting the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a four-game series matching the top two National League teams from the 1944 season. […]

Paul Doyle toiled in the minor-leagues for a decade before making his major league debut for the Atlanta Braves on May 28, 1969. He helped Atlanta win the 1969 National League West Division. Doyle’s stellar relief pitching for the 1969-70 Ponce Lions was a factor in that team winning the Puerto Rico Winter League title. […]

In the 1970s Gary Holle was a dual-sport phenom (baseball and basketball) from upstate New York who had a six-year minor-league baseball career and a two-week stay with the Texas Rangers in 1979. Born in Watervliet, New York, on August 11, 1954, to Charles and Jean Holle, Gary carved out a successful business career after […]

Steve Garvey was the epitome of the Southern California cultural icon in baseball spikes. Photogenic, fan-friendly, and media accessible, he projected the image of an All-American success story and devoted family man. As a Los Angeles Dodger in 1974, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award after starting the All-Star Game at first […]

Four decades after being banned from Organized Baseball for life, Chicago White Sox great Eddie Cicotte said, “Nobody can hurt me anymore. … I’ve tried to be a good father, a good grandfather and a good husband.”1 He could easily have added a good uncle. In 1953, when his great-nephew Al Cicotte was making an […]

When wild-eyed rookie right-handed pitcher Bruce Kison was thrust into relief with two outs in the first inning of Game Four of the 1971 World Series against the overwhelmingly favored Baltimore Orioles, the Pirates were in a three-run hole and in danger of losing their third game of the Series with just one victory. But […]

Here’s Bill McCurdy’s recap of the Larry Dierker Chapter meeting of December 10, 2012, in Houston, Texas: On a night when most Houston sports fans were out there falling off a cliff with the football team we know locally as the Houston Texans, 19 of us completely, or mainly, baseball souls were downtown at the […]