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More than three decades along on a career that was still not half over, Washington Senators pitching coach Sid Hudson had seen his share of hurlers come and go. A mere month into the American League expansion entry’s existence, Hudson’s attention was captured by a 27-year-old Pennsylvania native who, he claimed, “has one of the […]

In an article that appeared in newspapers across the country on July 31, 1915, sportswriter Grantland Rice ranked 24-year-old Chicago Cubs first baseman Vic Saier as one of the top players in the National League. A left-handed hitter and right-handed thrower with that much sought-after combination of power and speed, Saier at the time was […]

Gary Allenson is a baseball lifer. He began his baseball career as a Little Leaguer and spent his entire life involved in the game. He played baseball at every level and has managed or coached at every professional level. Allenson was an excellent player at Arizona State University and competed in two College World Series […]

Could one imagine a better prospect than young left-hander Billy Hoeft? As an American Legion and Oshkosh (Wisconsin) High School pitcher, he reeled off a string of 34 consecutive victories in 1948 and 1949 before losing the last game of the season, 2-1, on an unearned run.1 The string included three no-hit games. His Legion […]

A live bat, good speed, and a solid work ethic should have afforded a substantial major-league career to the World War I-era outfielder who played under the name Jim Kelly. But Kelly was handicapped by a belated start in professional baseball and owed his relatively brief tenure as a big leaguer to forces far larger […]

Dave Schmidt was a catcher with the Boston Red Sox in 1981. He played for them in 15 games at the start of the season and acquitted himself well. But the Sox had two other solid catchers — Rich Gedman and Gary Allenson, who filled most of the team’s needs for the next several years. […]

Jimmy Piersall played 20 years of professional baseball, including parts of 17 in the major leagues. He is best known for his nervous breakdown and hospitalization during his rookie season of 1952, an ordeal that led to a best-selling autobiography and two movies. Few could have imagined in 1952 that Piersall would have 15 years […]

Best known as the player who Cleveland would not trade for the young Ty Cobb or as the man who won the American League batting title with the lowest average prior to 1968, Elmer Flick was more than just an answer to a trivia question. An underrated Hall of Famer whose on-the-field accomplishments are nearly […]

If laughter is the best medicine, then Lou Costello should have won a Nobel Prize. Costello’s legacy of laughter rests on a body of work encompassing burlesque, Broadway, radio, films and television. Its anchor is a baseball comedy sketch derived from a burlesque staple — straight man explaining to a friend that words known primarily […]

Hal Trosky played first base for the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in the 1930s and 1940s. His career reached its apex in 1936, when he led the American League in runs batted in with 162, yet he has largely been consigned to historical obscurity. This anonymity is not only due to the […]

He took a long time to find his place in the major leagues. After four brief callups, a successful emergency start in 1963 gave Gary Peters a job with the White Sox on his fifth and final trial. He still managed to put up a few big seasons and 124 wins, coming agonizingly close to […]

Gary Wagner threw a no-hitter in the first game he ever pitched — for his college team. Wagner was a right-handed pitcher who worked in 162 major-league games over six years in the majors for two teams, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. Four of his games were starts; primarily he worked as […]

On a blustery afternoon at Three Rivers Stadium, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Montreal Expos launched the 1979 season toward its down-to-the-wire destiny. Foreshadowing the tightly contested division race ahead – if not its ultimate outcome – Montreal’s Steve Rogers frustrated Pirates batters and baserunners and dueled Bert Blyleven to a draw, and the Expos spun […]

Edgardo Alfonzo did what few achieve in New York – be great while going relatively unnoticed. Alfonzo didn’t receive much attention, nor did he seek it out. On a team with power-hitting catcher Mike Piazza and outspoken manager Bobby Valentine, even Alfonzo’s breakout season of 1999 – which culminated an eight-year climb to his personal […]

“His beautiful swing never varies,” raved Chicago Cubs beat reporter Edgar Munzel about Billy Williams. “[It’s] a marvel of repetitive action. And it doesn’t matter who the pitcher [is].1 In the midst of a torrid streak in 1972, the most productive season of Williams’s Hall of Fame career, the Whistler, Alabama, native’s extra-inning walk-off home […]

Little did the 5,098 Giants faithful assembled on September 2, 1975, in Candlestick Park know that they would witness a rarity in major-league baseball, a first-at-bat inside-the-park home run.1  But when lanky 21-year-old shortstop Johnnie LeMaster stepped up to plate, that’s just what happened, and in a most improbable way. LeMaster was drafted by the […]

The Orioles entered the bottom of the ninth down 5-3 to the Detroit Tigers, but Ken Singleton’s one-out home run off reliever Dave Tobik put a buzz into the Memorial Stadium crowd of 35,456 who began to hope for another comeback win. In their last home game, on June 10, the Orioles scored three runs […]

Willie Tasby hit a grand slam. Vic Wertz hit a three-run homer. But it was the two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning that gave the Boston Red Sox their second and third runs – the third run being the one that won them the 13-2 game over the visiting Kansas City Athletics. […]

When Montreal Expos pitcher Dan Warthen wound and delivered the first pitch of the game to San Diego Padres rookie Gene Richards on the evening of May 21, 1977, it’s safe to assume few among the crowd of 16,892 expected to still be at Stade Olympique more than 5½ hours later. The two teams shared […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?” The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)   October 2020, Volume 6, Number 1 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley From the Co-Chairs Conundrums of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Profile: Mel Franks It Finally Happened: A Four-Base Over-the-Fence […]