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The 1986 season was winding down, and as far as the Cleveland Indians were concerned, it had been a successful campaign. With only six games left, Cleveland was 80-76 and needed only one win to ensure at least a .500 record. This was no small accomplishment for the Indians, who had finished above the break-even […]

In the spring of 1975, the Texas Rangers finally did with David Clyde what they should have done from the start: They sent the young pitcher to the minor leagues for seasoning. The Rangers, hungry for a box-office draw, had rushed the hard-throwing Houston-bred lefty to the big leagues just two weeks out of high […]

The 1959 New York Yankees (79-75) posted the franchise’s lowest win total since 1925, finishing a distant third behind the first-place Chicago White Sox (94-60) and the second-place Cleveland Indians (89-65). It was a significant dip in the Yankees’ fortunes after 10 American League pennants and 8 World Series titles in the previous 12 seasons. […]

The career of the greatest pitcher in St. Louis Cardinals history was winding down in the summer of 1975. Bob Gibson had twice won the National League Cy Young Award and once was Most Valuable Player. Three times he pitched complete games in the Game Seven of the World Series, winning two of them.1 Gibson […]

The New York Mets entered the 1985 season looking to build on their success (second-place finish in the NL East) under manager Davey Johnson the year before. Indeed, the Mets became embroiled in a battle for the division title for most of the season, and ultimately it came down to a two-team race between the […]

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s barnstorming tour of 1950 was not for the faint of heart. The Springfield Sallies and Chicago Colleens were scheduled to play 95 games in just 94 days, traveling by bus throughout the Eastern United States, with a brief foray into Québec.1 The road-weary players had kicked off their trek […]

“Buck Newsom pitched a no-hit gameBut gets no credit for the same,As in the tenth he lost it.For in that inning Lady LuckHauled off and took a poke at Puck,And off the records crossed it.”1 Louis Newsom, nicknamed “Buck” when he arrived in the majors before adopting “Bobo” during his post-Browns tenure with the Washington […]

Two days and 3,000 miles away from its improbable 11th-inning victory in Game Five of the American League Championship Series, the Boston Red Sox continued their march toward the AL pennant with another elimination-game victory. Back home in Fenway Park, the Red Sox batted around in the third inning, scoring five times off Angels starter […]

From Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale to Sam McDowell, Bob Veale, and Jim Bunning, baseball in the 1960s witnessed some of the hardest-throwing and most intimidating pitchers in the sport’s history. Included in that fraternity of strikeout artists was Jim Maloney, who broke in with the Cincinnati Reds as a 20-year-old rookie in 1960. Four […]

One of the California Angels’ shortcomings in 1992 was a lack of production from their cleanup hitters. As the season trudged into August and the Angels sat 12 games below .500, interim manager John Wathan thought of a new way to try to get some production from the fourth slot in the lineup—bring up the […]

As future Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson approached Ty Cobb’s career runs-scored record of 2,244,1 he said that when the moment arrived, he “promised he would slide into home plate to officially mark his reign as baseball’s career runs leader.”2 In the 159th game of the 2001 season, before a home crowd of 21,606, Henderson, […]

After a regular season in which the Negro American League’s Cleveland Buckeyes and Negro National League’s New York Cubans dominated their respective competition, they met in a Negro League World Series that proved to be the next to last postseason series in league history. When former Negro League star Jackie Robinson made his groundbreaking major-league […]

A tall right-hander, Jay Hughes was the best of the turn-of-the-century pitchers whose major-league careers were disjointed or abbreviated by a preference for playing in their native California. A lifelong Sacramento resident, Hughes was arguably the dominant hurler in the 1899 National League, leading the circuit in victories (28) and winning percentage (.824) while hurling […]

A lot of people had a hand in making the Detroit Tigers the World Series champions in 1984, but by far the biggest hand belonged to Bill Lajoie, extraordinary scout and general manager. Lajoie always found the best part of his job to be finding talent. He considered himself a scout at heart, first and […]

Kirby Higbe, a good old boy from South Carolina was a hell-raiser all his life. He was a hard thrower who developed his fastball in childhood by tossing rocks and later saw it compared to Bob Feller’s. Higbe had a taste for alcohol and a lust for living that landed him in trouble a few […]

Paul Snyder was the indispensable man behind the scenes of the Atlanta Braves’ success. If anyone has said a bad word about him, it has not been recorded in the hothouse world of baseball. A baseball lifer since he started his career as a Braves minor-league outfielder-first baseman in 1958, Snyder is a rarity in […]

Sad but no great surprise, any number of baseball careers have been short-circuited by hunting accidents. Unintentional firearm discharges, accidental shootings, falls from elevated hunting blinds, and other misadventures are risks inherent in shooting activities, and ballplayers, like other hunters, undertake them willingly, knowing full-well the effect an errant shotgun pellet or a tree tumble […]

Dave Magadan was an artist with the bat. He lacked power. He lacked speed. He wasn’t known for his glove at either first or third base. But his deft spray hitting and patience at the plate — .390 lifetime on-base percentage — kept him in the majors from September 1986 through 2001. This skill also […]

Bob Osborn was a right-handed pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates in parts of six seasons from 1925 until 1931.  A spot starter and reliever in 1926 and 1927 for the Cubs, Osborn spent all of 1928 and most of 1929 in the minor leagues before Chicago made him a late-season call-up […]