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The New York City hosting the 1977 All-Star Game had drastically changed in the 13 years since the Mets hosted the 1964 Midsummer Classic. In the summer of ’77, Big Apple residents lived in fear of the “Son of Sam” serial killer stalking the outer boroughs, and on July 13, the entire city was plunged […]

Tim Raines had put away his razor. He was riding an 11-game hit streak heading into the May 7 matchup with the Phillies, and he vowed to let the whiskers grow for as long as the streak continued.1 The 26-year-old Raines, already considered one of the best leadoff hitters of all time, was focused on […]

“After two near misses on the final weekends of ’79 and ’80, the Expos finally surmounted a psychological barrier by wresting the East title from the Phillies in the playoffs last October. Now, nothing stands between Montreal and greatness.” – Thomas Boswell, Washington Post1   The Montreal Expos were overwhelming favorites to win the National […]

Early in the 1987 season, a large chart was hung on the wall of the Expos’ clubhouse with a small box for each game on their schedule. Players could select a square, and whoever correctly guessed the game in which a much-anticipated milestone took place would win the money in the pool.1 The event that […]

On April 16, 1983, less than two years after tossing the third no-hitter in Montreal Expos history,1 26-year-old Charlie Lea was four outs away from throwing another one. But Houston Astros pinch-hitter Terry Puhl, held out of the starting lineup because of early-season batting struggles, fought off an inside pitch and pulled a broken-bat single […]

The first week of a new season is supposed to be a time for optimism. But even the most diehard fans of the 1994 Florida Marlins and San Diego Padres knew to temper their expectations. The Marlins were in their second year of existence and were not expected to seriously compete in any race except […]

On September 20, 1981, rookie Minnesota Twins third baseman Gary Gaetti unwrapped a pregame piece of Bazooka bubble gum and found an auspicious fortune on the wrapper: “Something magical will happen today.”1 And it did. In his first major-league at-bat against the Texas Rangers, Gaetti hit a two-run home run, making him the third player […]

Hard-hitting first baseman Nate Colbert was the San Diego Padres’ first legitimate star. He was the team’s offensive leader for its first five seasons and a three-time All-Star (1971-73).1 After the 1973 season, general manager Peter Bavasi went to Colbert to get his blessing before he acquired 35-year-old Willie McCovey in a trade with the […]

The 1988 National League Championship Series was a matchup of a pair of teams that had comfortably won their division. The NL East Division champion New York Mets finished with a record of 100-60, 15 games ahead of the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates. The NL West Division champion Los Angeles Dodgers finished with a record of […]

It was a sight many in Los Angeles were used to, one with an expected outcome. It was the ninth inning, and the Dodgers were in the lead. Manager Jim Tracy knew whom to call to end this game, as he had done many times before. Just like the decision, he was automatic. But today […]

Through the 2021 season, Brady Anderson is the only player in the history of Major League Baseball to amass at least 20 home runs and 50 stolen bases in one season, and at least 50 homers and 20 steals in another. Anderson usually batted leadoff over a 15-year career (1988-2002) spent almost entirely with the […]

The Chicago White Sox’ historic 2005 season can be told in many ways, but few shared it as personally as one of the teams radio voices, Ed Farmer. Born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Farmer – affectionately known as “Farmio” – grew up watching and rooting for the […]

Even before he was born into this world, Mickey Mantle was being prepared for life as a future big-league baseball player. His father, Elvin “Mutt” Mantle, a former semipro player and a lifelong baseball fanatic, proclaimed that if his first child turned out to be a boy, he would name him Mickey, in honor of […]

“Pinch hit hero mobbed by rabid Red Sox enthusiasts” was a sub-headline of the October 17, 1912, edition of the Boston Globe reporting on young Olaf Henriksen’s game-tying base hit in the eighth and deciding game of the 1912 World Series, against a dominant Christy Mathewson. It was a crucial blow off the great Mathewson, […]

In 1973, Jason Miller’s angst-enabled play That Championship Season won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. The drama, set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, focused on the 25th-anniversary reunion of the players and the coach of a high-school basketball team that won the state championship. Full of booze, brooding, bigotry, bitterness, betrayal, and bruised feelings, […]

There exists a long list of forgotten nineteenth-century baseball stars who played during the game’s formative stages and under relative anonymity besides being a name in a newspaper. While the game was fundamentally the same, it was evolving in an era that saw many rule changes and ballparks with vastly varying dimensions. There were no […]

“There are those who can, and there are those who will,” an old saying goes. James Paul David “Jim” Bunning was clearly one of the latter. He willed himself to become a great pitcher and then a successful politician through hard work and determination. Though he struggled for almost six seasons in the minor leagues, […]

Milt “Pinky” Shoffner was destined to be a ballplayer. He was born on November 13, 1905, in Sherman Texas, the only child of minor league pitcher Herman Daniel Shoffner and Jessie Lee ( Combs) Shoffner. Herman played throughout Texas and Oklahoma for nearly a decade during which Milt was born. Herm taught Milt the game […]

If anyone knew the definition of pain, it was right-hander Al Nipper, who toiled for parts of seven seasons in the big leagues (1983-1988, 1990), most notably for the Boston Red Sox. His list of injuries and maladies seems hard to fathom: nerve problems in his neck and elbow, chronic elbow inflammation, a blood disorder […]

There are many Moonlight Grahams. One is a quasi-relative of mine who signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians and made their roster but never got into a major-league game. Carter Hamilton was from a small town in Iowa. He was a pitching star at the University of Iowa and was signed to an Indians […]

Right-hander Joel Finch had an excellent minor-league career, building toward a major-league debut the year after the Red Sox were eliminated by the New York Yankees in the 1978 single-game playoff that closed Boston’s season that year. During the 15 games in which he worked in the majors — all for the Red Sox and […]

While he may not have had major-league success as a player himself, Greg Pavlick has certainly had a long baseball career. Pavlick has been involved in professional baseball since 1971 and helped nurture the careers of countless young players within the Mets and Yankees organizations. Gregory Michael Pavlick was born on March 10, 1950, in […]

Arguably the best second baseman in Los Angeles Dodgers history, Davey Lopes’s playing career is loaded with noteworthy achievements. Appearing in four straight All-Star Games, he once collected the most votes of all players. He won a Gold Glove, two stolen base titles, set a team record for homers by a second baseman, and an […]

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