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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 […]

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 […]

Dodgers center fielder Willie Davis won three Gold Gloves and hit in a franchise-record 31 straight games in 1969. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Throughout the month of August 1969, the Los Angeles Dodgers were battling for the National League West Division crown. All season the NL West had been a close race between five teams, everybody […]

Harvey Haddix attained no-hit fame the hard way. On May 26, 1959, the Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander, fighting a cold, pitched 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves before surrendering a 13th-inning hit to Joe Adcock and losing the game, 1-0.1 His little brother Fred had it easier, albeit against lesser competition. On May 17, 1957, […]

Henry Aaron hit at least 20 home runs in every season from 1955 through 1974. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Six times in his great career, Henry Aaron drove home six runs in a game.1 He accomplished that feat for the final time on August 21, 1971, against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Atlanta Braves slugger hit […]

“Versatility will keep me in the game a long time,” said Eddie Jurak in 1983.1 Indeed, Jurak was a true utility player. Primarily a shortstop, he appeared at every position as a professional save pitcher and catcher. Spring training 1984 summed up his job approach. He carried four different gloves with him, one suited for […]

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 […]

A goal of every major leaguer is to play on a team destined for the World Series.  While individuals are in the game for money and personal achievement, being part of a team going to the fall classic is a treasured experience. Nearly 50 years after Minnesota took the 1965 championship, Jerry Fosnow – who […]

Should the National League permanently adopt the designated hitter, Puerto Rican infielder Mario Ramirez’s big league career from 1980 through 1985 will serve as a time capsule of forgotten strategy. A lifetime .192 hitter in just 184 games, known primarily for his glove, he was nevertheless used as a pinch hitter on 39 occasions and […]

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 […]

Jeff Newman had a long career in professional baseball, spanning 36 years from 1970 to 2006. After six years in the Cleveland Indians’ minor-league system, he played nine years in the major leagues, mostly as a catcher for the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox. After his playing days, he was a coach for […]

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 […]

Darrell Brandon grew up rooting for Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. On July 5, 1966, the right-hander earned his first big league win, striking out Mantle twice as the Red Sox defeated the New Yorkers, 7-1, in Yankee Stadium. Brandon went on to win 12 more games for Boston, including five for the 1967 pennant […]

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 […]

A far-from-giant Giant, pitcher Mickey Welch formed a cornerstone of the celebrated National League franchise founded in New York. Generously listed in baseball reference works as 5-feet-8 and 160 pounds, the undersized right-hander pitched and won the Giants’ [then Gothams’] inaugural NL game in 1883. Two years later, he compiled 17 consecutive pitching victories on […]

With one pitch, Tracy Stallard guaranteed himself a place in baseball history, when, on October 1, 1961, he gave up the home run that allowed Roger Maris to pass Babe Ruth and lay claim to one of baseball’s most cherished records, the single-season home run standard. Ironically, Stallard’s 1-0 defeat represented one of the best […]

The lasting image of Joba Chamberlain is that of him swatting midges away from his face on an unseasonably warm night in Cleveland in Game Two of the 2007 American League Division Series. Chamberlain had an electric start to his career and was so tremendous as a New York Yankees rookie that the team instituted […]

The scene has been played out in every backyard, schoolyard, and makeshift ball diamond across the country. If not on a ball field, then the scene certainly unfolded in a child’s dreams. Hit a game-winning home run in the World Series. Better yet, make it Game Seven, bases loaded, full count, a packed stadium. Then […]

Longtime Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once wrote that Ralph Garr was as hard to get out as an impacted tooth.1 Getting “The Road Runner” out was an especially difficult task in his signature year, 1974, in which he won the National League batting title, hitting .353. This came after finishing second to Joe […]

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 […]