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Left-handed pitcher Spike Merena had a rather brief baseball career – four games in the big leagues and 77 games in all. His major-league career began with the Boston Red Sox on September 16, 1934, and ended exactly two weeks later, on the last day of the month. John Joseph Merena had grown up in […]

Dwight Lowry spent the bulk of his four-year major-league career as a backup catcher for the Detroit Tigers between 1984 and 1987, including an extended stay with the 1984 Tigers during their championship run. Aside from his early tragic death after a heart attack, he is best known as one of the relatively few American […]

The first player born in the western Canadian province of Manitoba to reach the major leagues, Russ Ford burst into the spotlight in 1910, winning 26 games for the New York Highlanders with a baffling new pitch never before seen in professional baseball. Using a piece of emery board hidden in his glove, Ford roughed […]

The Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association assembled in Philadelphia in early April of 1884. They welcomed four rookies, including pitcher Al Atkinson. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the right-hander was “from an Illinois village and has his reputation to make as little is known of him.”1 He was quick to make an impression two […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Brad Pennington was a hard-throwing left-hander who drew comparisons to fellow southpaw Norm Charlton. One of the infamous “Nasty Boys,” along with fellow Cincinnati Reds relievers Randy Myers and Rob Dibble, Charlton threw the ball hard but didn’t always know where it would end up. The 6-foot-5, 205-pound Pennington didn’t always know either, but he […]

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 […]

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 […]

A crowd of 45,774 attended the 57th All-Star Game, held at the Astrodome in Houston on July 15, 1986. The American League’s Roger Clemens (Boston Red Sox), a hometown boy, faced off against the National League’s Dwight Gooden (New York Mets). They would see each other again in Game Two of the 1986 World Series. […]

As the 1972 season entered its last week, Pittsburgh’s 38-year-old right fielder, Roberto Clemente, was tired. Coming off an MVP performance the year before in the Pirates’ World Series victory over Baltimore, Clemente had labored through arguably the most difficult of his 18 seasons with the Bucs. He had been bothered by a serious intestinal […]

Through the 2021 season, there were 334 cycles hit in major-league baseball games.1 The first one was hit by Curry Foley of the Buffalo Bisons on May 25, 1882. The second was hit by Lon Knight, the right fielder and manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, on July 30, 1883. Knight, who was a native of […]

The year 1962 represented a solid start for Red Sox catcher Bob Tillman. He began his nine-year major-league career with a home run in his first at-bat. The following month, on June 26, Tillman caught a no-hitter thrown by Earl Wilson – a game in which Wilson himself provided the winning run with a third-inning […]

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 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 […]

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 […]