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Being born in Germany and playing major-league baseball is not as rare a thing as one might imagine. There have been 42 major leaguers born in Germany, 21 of them pitchers. One of the pitchers was Tony Welzer, born somewhere in Germany on April 5, 1899. Given the changing borders over the years, one might […]

Bob Cerv survived kamikaze attacks in World War II and put all 10 of his children through college. In between, he was a three-time New York Yankee. The Yankees signed him, traded him, brought him back, let him go, and brought him back again. His claim to Yankee fame came in 1961, when he shared […]

It could be difficult to tell parents they misspelled their son’s name, but one guesses that was the case with Robert Emmett O’Neill, named for perhaps the single most prominent figure in the history of the fight for Irish independence — Robert Emmet, who was hanged (and then drawn and quartered) by the British in […]

A towering Southern farm boy with the mind of an engineer, pitcher Ernie Shore is forever linked with Babe Ruth. Teammates on three clubs and in two World Series, they together tossed what many fans and some historians long considered a perfect game—albeit an odd one in which the Babe faced the first batter and […]

By the time Mike Schmidt retired early in the 1989 season, he was regarded as perhaps the greatest all-around third baseman in baseball history. No major-leaguer hit more homers during the 1980s, but he was not a one-dimensional threat: he curbed his tendency to strike out and stole bases when needed. In the field, he […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

Reaching the major leagues is the pinnacle of a baseball player’s rise through the professional ranks. A player whose uniform says “Philadelphia” rather than “Scranton” knows without being told that he is competing against the greatest players the game has to offer. For some, a long and fruitful career is in the offing. But for […]

Harry Raymond was a light-hitting third baseman who played mostly for the Louisville Colonels of the American Association in the late 1880s and early 1890s. While his statistical performance as a hitter was hardly exceptional, with a career batting average of only .235, Raymond was at the center of several remarkable events. He was part […]

In sports, college or professional, individual or team, nothing captures a fan’s interest quite like a streak. This is especially true with baseball. Whether it is a team’s winning or losing streak or a player’s performance within the chalked lines, the fanfare and pressure may build each day. The fervent fan or even the uninformed […]

Twelve seasons in the major leagues. That’s quite a run at that level of baseball. Let’s face it, how many people get to live their dream of being a major-league baseball player? Looking back throughout the history of major-league baseball, Fred Kendall will be looked at as an average catcher who had a less than […]

In the 1920s, Harry Kincannon left the coalfields of southern West Virginia and headed north to Pittsburgh, where he developed into a right-handed curveball specialist in the city’s sandlot leagues. He began his professional career in 1929 with the Pittsburgh Crawford Giants. Kincannon remained with the Crawfords organization through 1936, but did not make an […]

Luman Harris said, “I wish baseball went on 12 months a year.”1 He spent 35 years in the game as a pitcher, coach, and manager, and enjoyed most of it, despite more losing seasons than winners. Chalmer Luman Harris was born in New Castle, Alabama, on January 17, 1915, the third of six children of […]

Often mentioned as one of four knuckleball pitchers on the Washington Senators staff of the mid-1940s, Johnny Niggeling gained the reputation as a baseball nomad long before securing a position with the Cincinnati Reds in 1939. His epic journey spanned nearly two decades, playing in ten different leagues, punctuated with two brief chances in the […]

Alfredo Claudino Griffin was a professional baseball player for 20 years, 18 of which were in the major leagues. He was a fan favorite for his outgoing personality and sure-handed glove in the middle infield. And he’s the answer to two great trivia questions: (1) Who was on deck when Joe Carter hit the ninth-inning […]

The frail young boy was undersized for his age and sickly. His doctor recommended outdoor exercise. Although he certainly did not look like an athlete, the lad took up baseball, despite the objections of his overprotective mother. Though smaller than his teammates (as an adult he stood 5-feet-7 and weighed 140 pounds), he developed a […]

One of the more obscure players in Red Sox history, Eusebio Gonzalez was the first foreign-born Latino to play for the Bosox. Eusebio Miguel Gonzalez Lopez was born in Havana, Cuba on July 13, 1892. Batting right and throwing right, he was an infielder listed as 5’10” with a playing weight of 165 pounds. Gonzalez […]

The New York Mets acquired Gary Sheffield after he was cut by the Detroit Tigers at the end of spring training in 2009. They hoped that his experience and hitting prowess would provide some help to the Mets bench. “He has been a great addition to the chemistry of the team,” said Mets manager Jerry […]

Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper Jr. had a wonderful day on Wednesday, May 22, 1963. He was feted to a ticker-tape parade in New York City and an audience with President and First Lady John and Jacqueline Kennedy.1 A week earlier, Cooper had commanded the Faith 7 spacecraft and orbited Earth 22 times in the last […]

Gene Baker was not, as is sometimes reported, the first Black manager in minor-league baseball. But it was still a significant step forward when the 36-year-old took the reins of the Batavia (New York) Pirates of the Class D New York-Penn League on the night of June 19, 1961. There’s no firm record of a […]

The Colorado Rockies had played the first six games of their 2002 season on the road, earning only two wins. On April 8, a sellout crowd of 50,392 came through the turnstiles at Coors Field, full of excitement in celebration of the Rockies’ home opener against the Houston Astros. Left-hander Denny Neagle was making his […]

The 1959 White Sox were noteworthy for getting maximum results out of minimal offensive production. That was never truer than on April 22 against the Kansas City Athletics. With the season in its infancy, the White Sox entered the game at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium tied for third place in the American League standings with […]

Rod Carew debuted with the Minnesota Twins in 1967, was the American League Rookie of the Year, and had 12 productive years with the team. His best season was 1977, when he did it all, finishing with a batting average of .377 and earning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. All was not well in […]

This article was published in The 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox: Grinders and Gamers (SABR, 2025), edited by Eric Conrad, Mark Morowczynski, Bill Nowlin, and Don Zminda.   During their 11-1 run through the postseason that followed a wire-to-wire regular season for their first World Series title in 88 years, the 2005 White Sox […]