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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. […]

To fully appreciate the events of Thursday evening, May 12, 1966, one should look back to May 11, 1954. The St. Louis Cardinals had started their 34th season in Sportsman’s Park, rookie Henry Aaron had hit his first two career home runs with the Braves (still in Milwaukee), and Gary Geiger pitched the final game […]

It was cloudy, misty, and a cold 43 degrees in Pittsburgh on this April Sunday.1 The Cubs and Pirates were concluding their four-game series, with the Pirates having taken two of the previous three games. The Pirates were the defending NL East champions, with the Cubs one of the favorites to win the division in […]

A confrontation for the ages: Bruce Sutter vs. Mike Schmidt. Two future Hall of Famers with first place on the line. Let’s set the stage: It’s September 14, 1982, and the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the National League East Division four of the last six seasons, are in their familiar position atop the standings with […]

Even the most “ageless” ballplayers, the ones who hold their places in the game the longest, eventually fade away. Pitcher Luis Tiant’s time came in the late summer of 1982, when he made six final appearances and earned two last wins with the California Angels to wrap up a 19-season big-league career. The Cuban-born fan […]

On the Saturday before graduating from high school in June 1961, 18-year-old Lew Krausse Jr. watched from a box seat at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC, as hurler Norm Bass tossed the Kansas City A’s first shutout of the season.1 Sitting with Krausse was his father, former major-league pitcher Lew Krausse Sr., and their host, […]

A month into the 2025 season, Eugenio Suárez of the Arizona Diamondbacks was in a slump. In his first three games he had four home runs and seven RBIs, and he was batting .400—but it had been downhill ever since. Through 26 games, he was batting a paltry buck sixty-seven, and in his previous 19 […]

It takes two to tango and two to mambo But you can do it all with just one Bombo Bombo Rivera will carry us to victory!— “The Ballad of Bombo Rivera”1   Expos outfielder Bombo Rivera sported a career batting average of .224 with no home runs and four RBIs when the game began. Yet […]

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 […]

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 […]

After a standout season in Class B ball, outfielder Jules Kustus got the attention of various major league clubs and landed an extended tryout with the 1909 Brooklyn Superbas. Regrettably, he flunked the audition, batting an anemic .145 in 53 games. Remanded to the minors, Kustus played well in spots but found efforts to secure […]

Gordon Stanley “Mickey” Cochrane was one of baseball’s greatest catchers. He compiled a .320 lifetime batting average over 13 seasons from 1925 to 1937, handled outstanding pitchers Lefty Grove and Schoolboy Rowe during their record-tying 16-game winning streaks, and in 1947 was the first catcher elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America to the […]

Known as one of the feistiest players in baseball history, Edd Roush channeled that energy into a Hall of Fame career. An old-timer was quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1919 saying that Roush was more like the fiery old Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s than any other player in the National League. The […]

After a difficult childhood, a traumatic year in Vietnam, and replacing a legend in San Francisco, Garry Maddox came to Philadelphia in 1975. The “Secretary of Defense” proceeded to win eight consecutive Gold Gloves in center field. As a Phillie, he experienced great depths (an inexplicable error that ended Philadelphia’s 1978 pennant aspirations) and scaled […]

Joe Schultz, a catcher in his playing days, spent over 40 years in professional baseball. His career included five full seasons and parts of four others as a fringe reserve in the majors. That paved the way for 13 years as a minor-league manager and another 14 as a big-league coach. He was there for […]

One of the rarest things in baseball is a shut-down righty-lefty bullpen. Players, managers, and – let’s face it – agents, like relief roles defined. Today you have eighth-inning guys and ninth-inning guys. And if you’re lucky, you have hurlers who can form a human bridge from the starters to those players. Having two closers—one […]

In the one (and only) year that Bill Wakefield pitched in the major leagues, 1964, he set a Mets team record for game appearances that would stand up for 13 more years, and packed into a single season a full-length career’s worth of excitement and highlights, ending with a nail-biting season-ending game that decided the […]

Marvin Eugene Throneberry was born to be a Met. His very initials — MET — said so. As a member of the original 1962 New York Mets, Marv Throneberry’s colorful exploits (both good and bad) earned him the nickname “Marvelous Marv.” While remembered as much for his gaffes as his clutch performances, Throneberry carved out […]

“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]