Search Results

The baseball season is long enough that on any given day, a team like the 1962 New York Mets can channel the power of the 1927 Yankees. And when the lousy team lays it on the good one, the sweetest revenge is a shutout win the next night, with a triple play thrown in for […]

After 2,826 games, 11,564 plate appearances, and nearly 22 years in the major leagues, Al Kaline was heading to his hometown of Baltimore near the end of the 1974 season just one hit shy of a milestone which, at that point, had only been achieved by 11 major leaguers before him. Kaline and his Tigers […]

The postgame talk after the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Atlanta Braves, 11-2, on August 28, 1980, focused on Cardinals outfielder Dane Iorg—and with good reason. A day after going 4-for-5 against the Houston Astros, the veteran left-handed batter collected a career-high seven RBIs with two doubles and a single. But the following day, all […]

The Boston Red Sox’ Ernie Shore achieved what could be characterized as pitching perfection on June 23, 1917, at Fenway Park, sending every Washington Senators batter he faced back to the dugout for a 4-0 victory. But Shore’s history-making effort didn’t permanently land alongside major-league baseball’s previous official perfect games thrown by Lee Richmond and […]

Time and again during their run to the world championship in 1986, the New York Mets clawed back in desperate situations. They were all but eliminated in Game Six of the World Series, when the Boston Red Sox were one strike away from winning it all for the first time since 1918. Earlier, in Game […]

The rebuilding and fortunes of some major-league baseball teams tend to be cyclical. Especially those that do not have the ownership with the deep pockets who could buy the top-tier free agents every season. The Minnesota Twins were one of the former, not the latter. But the Twins were putting together a solid club that […]

Charles Lindbergh’s nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in May of 1927 brought him overnight worldwide acclaim. No more than a thousand well-wishers saw the former stunt pilot take off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, but as many as 150,000 were on hand when his Spirit of St. Louis touched down in […]

The list of National League batting champions from the 1930s and early ’40s contains many familiar names: Hall of Famers like Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, and Stan Musial and stars such as Pete Reiser and Dixie Walker. Amid this listing is an obscure name, Debs Garms. Little known, he is now recalled as the answer […]

Unique in every respect, left-handed submarine pitcher Michael Stanley Myers brought a presence to the mound that exhibited the definition of left-handed specialist. In a 13-year career with nine major-league teams, Myers made his presence known as a one-trick pony with a few more tricks up his sleeve. Myers, the premier LOOGY of the late […]

On August 29, 1977, Gene Richards was nearing the end of what was one of the finest rookie seasons in baseball history. His 56 stolen bases during that season were an all-time rookie record. However, on this particular evening, he stood silent at first base at San Diego Stadium, next to a man who had […]

If the designation “starting pitcher” was ever applicable, it is a description that fits the career of right-hander Gar Finnvold. He pitched in 113 professional baseball games and every single one of them – both in the minor leagues and in the majors – was as a starter. The tall 6-foot-5, 195-pound righty hails from […]

Nearly a quarter-century before Thurman Munson perished in a midseason plane crash in 1979, another active major league catcher suffered a similar fate. While Munson was a former MVP with two World Series rings at the time of his tragic demise, Orioles backstop Tom Gastall was a second-year bonus baby whose career was just getting […]

Eighteen-year-old Cincinnati Reds pitcher Gary Nolan, in his first major-league start, defeated the Houston Astros 7-3 at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field on April 15, 1967. In the first inning he faced four batters, and struck out Sonny Jackson, Jim Landis, and Jimmy Wynn en route to a 7-3 victory. Later in the season, on June 7, […]

Elston Howard was born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Emmaline Webb and Travis Howard. A schoolteacher in Sikeston, Missouri, Emmaline fled to St. Louis when Howard, her principal, refused to marry her. She worked to become a dietician, and when Elston was 5 years old, she married Wayman “Big Poppy” […]

His baseball ability was once described as good mouth, no hit. Not known for his bat but a solid glove man, Jimmy Smith built an 8-year major league career with his wit and his mouth. Referred to as “Serpent Tongue,” Smith rode a great ability as a bench jockey to remain on rosters while compiling […]

Ray Herbert entered professional baseball at the age of 19 with the sinking fastball that major-league franchises dream of, but lacked the knowledge and skill to convert his great “stuff” into immediate success. For 11 years he toiled with mostly second-division teams, both in the majors and minors, rarely winning more than he lost, surrounded […]

In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, two men lead such intertwined lives in London and revolution-torn Paris that it can simultaneously be the best and the worst of times. Bill Sweeney’s major league career was bookended by dramatic moves between two cities, but it was his unhappy fate to discover that, like Dickens’ […]

Tim Dillard made 73 relief appearances in parts of four seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers between 2008 and 2012. During his 17-year minor league career, he developed a strong media presence, posting jokes, videos, and random ramblings on Twitter (now known as ‘X’) and Instagram. Nearly 100,000 online followers have enjoyed his takes on movies […]

A journeyman for most of his eight seasons in the minor leagues, left-handed pitcher Alpha “Al” Brazle overcame career-threatening arm injuries by reinventing himself as a slick side-arm sinkerball pitcher. After an unexpectedly strong first half with the Sacramento Solons in the Pacific Coast League in 1943, Brazle debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in […]

From 1902 through 1911, Walter Schlichter owned the Philadelphia Giants, the finest African American team of the era. Schlichter was white, the Philadelphia Item’s sporting editor, and had previously managed boxers, not ballplayers. Yet with Sol White he formed a persevering, successful partnership. Competition, alignment with more powerful forces, an ill-advised secondary baseball venture, and finally a break […]