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Rocky Ellis is one of the many Negro League players whose statistics tell only a fraction of the full story. Sandwiched between official league contests were the numerous battles against teams of varying skill. These games made up the meat of a player’s diet but usually are not taken into consideration when the breadth of […]
From the mid-1960s to 1980s, Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau brought Cubs games to life for legions of fans. Vince Lloyd Skaff was born June 1, 1917 in Beresford, South Dakota. His parents, Michael T. and Lula (Salem) Skaff, were Lebanese immigrants who owned a family bakery. He had three brothers (Francis, Alfred and John) […]
He won 31 games as a 20-year-old minor-leaguer and became one of the top young pitching prospects in the country. One publication described Kid Camp as follows: “He is a wonder. Quick and agile as a cat with muscles of iron, he is a representative of the highest type of ball players.”1 Another predicted that […]
“Running! turning! leaping! like little Al Gionfriddo — a baseball player, Doctor, who once did a very great thing.” The great thing novelist Philip Roth described took place on October 5, 1947. It was Game Six of the World Series. Outfielder Al Gionfriddo, a little-used reserve, made a racing, twisting catch in deep left-center at […]
Many baseball players from the New Orleans area signed professional contracts in the 1930s and 1940s. Ray Yochim rode the wave, along with other signees from his high school that included future major-leaguers Lou Klein, Mel Parnell, George Strickland, and Jack Kramer. Yochim missed three formative years of his professional development as a pitcher owing […]
July 15, 1933, should have been the greatest day in Jim McCloskey’s sporting life – or, perhaps, the first in a string of great days. The 23-year-old lefty was in Buffalo, New York, where he’d grown up, pitching for the visiting Jersey City Skeeters of the International League. July 15 was Jim McCloskey Day at […]
Frank Cashen was one of the most successful front-office executives of his time, taking part in the winning of five pennants and three World Series, and one of the more educated and erudite. “Frank is very bright man, a man for all seasons,” remembered a former New York Mets vice president. “You hear about people […]
Mike Smithson, a 6-foot-8, 215-pound righty, pitched in eight seasons as a big leaguer from 1982 through 1989. He won 15 games for the Minnesota Twins and led the AL in games started in both 1984 and 1985, and finished his career with the Boston Red Sox, who had originally selected him in the fifth […]
Righty Elías Sosa was a useful reliever for eight different big-league teams. He appeared in 601 games at the top level from 1972 through 1983. He posted 83 saves, with a high of 18 in both 1973 and 1979. Though Sosa was never a big strikeout pitcher, “he’s got a good fastball and excellent slider,” […]
Louis Frank Klein, Jr. was an international baseball lifer who had a travelogue of experiences. Perhaps best known as one of 22 major league players who jumped to the outlaw Mexican League and for his tenure as a rotating manager in the Chicago Cubs’ College of Coaches, Klein had a varied and colorful career. The […]
Chuck LaMar once commented, “I’m a baseball guy and my heart lies with the people out in the field. … I was one of those and I started out in professional baseball as an area scout and I drove 50,000 miles a year away from the wife and those kiddos as much as anybody so […]
With one day left in the American League schedule, Detroit’s Heinie Manush was battling New York’s Babe Ruth for the league batting crown. Both batters were hitting .372; Manush was 182-for-489 (.37219), while Ruth was 184-for-494 (.37247). The outcome would be decided on this Sunday afternoon. Just below them was Detroit’s Bob Fothergill, at .360. […]
The phrase “first-place Montreal Expos” still had a novel ring when the Expos met the Philadelphia Phillies on the night of May 15, 1974. That season was Montreal’s sixth in the National League, and the first in which the Expos held first place at any point after the end of April. Gene Mauch’s Expos entered […]
The New York Mets and Kansas City Royals squared off for the fourth game of the 2015 World Series on October 31. Noah Syndergaard had fired up the Mets with his solid performance in Game Three. It was now Steve Matz’s turn to take the mound. This was a dream come true for the left-hander. […]
Frank Robinson’s solo home run in the first inning was all the offense Baltimore needed, but the Orioles scored a total of 17 runs on as many hits in the first five frames to secure a blowout victory over the Chicago White Sox on July 27, 1969. According to the Baltimore Sun, “The merry-go-round was […]
It took the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets nine innings, 37 players, 366 pitches, eight pinch-hitters, 13 walks, six stolen bases, two blown saves, and exactly four hours of a Thursday afternoon to play one of the most exciting games of the 2007 season. The Phillies prevailed, 11-10, on August 30 to complete a […]
Lyall Smith, sports editor of the Detroit Free Press, made a surprisingly detailed prediction early in 1954 spring training. In one of his columns, Smith “guessed” that 36-year-old outfielder Pat Mullin, the senior member of the Detroit Tigers in both age and service time, would be cut from the team and become a player-coach with […]
In the time it took the Mets and Expos to finish their game on July 9, 1977, they could have watched Luke Skywalker’s journey from farmboy to war hero in the summer blockbuster Star Wars twice.1 Ending after 4 hours and 17 minutes on a two-run homer by Lenny Randle, the Expos-Mets marathon was a […]
Four days after the Cleveland Indians’ disappointing 1961 season ended, general manager Gabe Paul obtained right-handed pitcher Dick Donovan from the Washington Senators, trading starting center fielder Jimmy Piersall for Donovan, catcher-outfielder Gene Green, and infielder Jim Mahoney. Donovan was expected to give the Indians’ young pitching staff some veteran leadership.1 Piersall, who turned 32 […]
In 1995 the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies were both in their third season, albeit a strike-shortened one. But for newly minted expansion teams, the clubs were pretty solid. That season, the Rockies, managed by Don Baylor, spent 117 days in first place, finished second in the National League West Division with a 77-67 record, […]
With the passage of time, most memories fade into oblivion but some events will never leave one’s consciousness. The decade of the 1960s was defined by such moments – from exhilaration to tragedy, and from events in the athletic arena to events on the world stage. These moments marked, for a generation of Americans, a […]
“You Called That A What …?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Spring 2016, Volume 1, Number 1 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley Howdy Conundrum of the Month (or Quarter or Whatever) Committee Meeting at SABR Convention (a Scene You Should Make) What’s Shakin’? Conundrum Answer Everyone’s an […]
Wahconah Park: an outdated barn or a precious relic? A swamp or a hallowed slab? A money pit or a landmark? After well over a century, the dichotomy persists. Baseball players were facing off there before Babe Ruth was born, before “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was written, before architects sketched the […]