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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 […]

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 […]

With an eye toward returning to the top of the baseball world, the 1983 Philadelphia Phillies united three key players from the 1976 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds to boost their roster. Joe Morgan, 39 years old, was acquired from the San Francisco Giants to play second base and 40-year-old Tony Pérez, who had spent […]

The August 28-30 four-game showdown between the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians had been much anticipated for weeks. The peculiarities of the scheduling had kept the two American League contenders apart since July 10.1 On that date, the Indians finished play with a two-game lead over the second-place Go-Go Sox. The White Sox arrived […]

“I guess it shows they play ball in that other league too.” — National league manager Fred Hutchinson 1   Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted the best of baseball on July 30, 1962, in front of a crowd of 38,359. The All-Star Games had started back in 1933 when the players congregated on Chicago’s South Side […]

The Red Sox had one win in the books, with their extra-inning Game Four win over the Yankees. They weren’t going to be swept in four games. They had fresh energy and a new lease on life, if only for one more day. And they had Pedro Martínez ready to start. And many of them […]

On October 1, 1961, ending a quest that had enthralled both the baseball world and the American public, New York Yankees outfielder Roger Maris capped one of the most spectacular seasons in baseball history when, with one swing of the bat, he became the major-league single-season home-run leader. The New York Yankees had begun the […]

The 39,170 spectators who packed Wrigley Field on September 12, 1998, weren’t so much interested in the visiting Milwaukee Brewers (70-78 and 25 games behind the Central Division-leading Houston Astros. Their focus was on the Cubs, who with an 82-66 record were tied with the New York Mets in the National League wild-card race and […]

A milestone for any starting pitcher is winning 20 games in a season. Frank Lary did it twice for the Detroit Tigers. The right-hander joined the 20-win club for the first time on September 23, 1956, when the fifth-place Tigers breezed past the second-place Cleveland Indians, 11-1. Lary was an Alabama farm boy who followed […]

After a sluggish five-game start in 1984, everything clicked into place for the Los Angeles Dodgers throughout the rest of April. Rick Honeycutt put an exclamation point on the early-season surge, firing a rain-shortened one-hitter against the San Diego Padres on April 27. In the second meeting of a four-game series at Jack Murphy Stadium, […]

The Detroit Tigers were baseball’s biggest surprise of 2006. On a streak of 12 consecutive losing seasons, and three years removed from the most losses in American League history, Detroit surged to the head of the AL Central behind a new manager and an emerging rookie ace. Jim Leyland, in a major-league dugout for the […]

Arvell “Bill” Riggins, a shortstop-third baseman who played from 1920 to 1935, was an under-appreciated player whose professional career began at the same time as the first Negro National League.1 Riggins hit for a solid .292 average over the course of his career in Black baseball’s major leagues but has remained less well known than […]

Norm Cash would have loved it. The story drew upon metaphors including baseball, the Old West, and the camaraderie of friends. Its title, City Slickers, was evocative of the relationship between the burly cowboy and the legions of brewers, auto manufacturers, and teamsters who became his fans. The director, Billy Crystal, who also played the […]

Jacobs Field in Cleveland was the site for Major League Baseball’s 68th All-Star Game on July 8, 1997. A sold-out crowd of 44,916 turned out for the midsummer classic as it returned to the shores of Lake Erie for the first time since 1981. The host Indians ended the first half of the season on […]

Hershell Freeman was a right-handed pitcher who started his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1952, but had his best years with the Cincinnati Reds, in particular 1956, when he led the majors in closing games and posted a record remarkable for a relief pitcher: 14-5. He was later named a member of the […]

Son of a great baseball man, scout and executive Mel Didier, Bob Didier has been in the game for more than five decades, almost as long as his father. He was a professional catcher from 1967 through 1976, including one full season and parts of five others in the majors. He has since served as […]

Mookie Wilson stood at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning, arcing his bat, focusing intently on Red Sox pitcher Bob Stanley. He realized that he represented the potential winning run in the most important game of his life and he was determined not to make the final out. Wilson had come a […]

John Francis Ryan, an outfielder from West Mineral, Kansas, appeared in two games for the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on June 18 and 19, 1929. He should not be confused with Jack “Gulfport” Ryan – whose given name was “Jack Ryan” and who had just left the Red Sox employ less than two years […]

What does Phil Garner have in common with Sir Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong? The answer is that all three performed feats never before achieved by humankind. Sir Edmund was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. And Phil Garner […]

While only one major-league pitcher has lost 20 games in a single season during the twenty-first century, the now dubiously recognized feat did not carry the same stigma a century ago. In fact, during the 1901-1910 decade, 12 different pitchers for Boston’s National League entry produced 18 seasons of 20 or more losses. Among them […]

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 […]

If Ginger Beaumont is remembered today, it’s usually for being the first batter in modern World Series history. In the early days of the Deadball Era, however, he was considered baseball’s finest leadoff man, a lifetime .311 hitter who was good enough to be named by both Bill Klem and Honus Wagner as the center […]

“The inevitable has become reality.” With those words, on WOR Channel 9’s telecast, Steve Zabriskie announced that the Mets had clinched the 1986 National League Eastern Division title. Nearly 40 years later, those words still echoed as part of a video and audio montage of Mets highlights included in television ads for 2016 Mets season […]

“Terrapin Park, Federal League, Baltimore Md,” postcard published by The Chessler Company. (Courtesy of David B. Stinson.)   Terrapin Park, also known as Oriole Park (V), was the home of the Federal League Baltimore Terrapins in 1914 and 1915, the International League Orioles from 1916 to 1944, and parttime home field to the Negro National […]