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Although most current reference works assign Oliver Hazard Perry Caylor the nickname of Ollie and omit Hazard as one of his middle names, Caylor made it known that his full name included Hazard and he loathed the nickname Ollie, preferring to sign his correspondence either Opie or O.P. Caylor, depending on his spirits at the […]

Homer Summa logged over 3,300 plate appearances and posted a .302 batting average in the major leagues. The Baseball-Reference list of highest career batting averages for players with 3,000 plate appearances has him at 191st. He is a mere .0001 behind Willie Mays.1 That is select company. As one of only 16 players who have […]

Dan Morgan was inducted into the University of Minnesota “M Club” Hall of Fame for athletic achievement on September 20, 2012. It had been over 35 years since his last baseball game for the Golden Gophers, yet he “is remembered as one of the Gophers‘ all-time great pitchers.”1 He was the only right-handed pitcher in […]

As fast as he was on the bases and in the outfield, at times it seemed Ken Henderson couldn’t outrun an expectation first pinned on him at age 17. While it came with a big name, Henderson said the expectation was never one he sought. Instead, he often considered it unfair and unrealistic. But it […]

Back when being a character could keep you locked in the minor leagues and being a reliever was considered a career demotion, Tug McGraw excelled in both roles like few before or since. As a rookie starter for Casey Stengel, McGraw ended the Mets’ long losing streak against Sandy Koufax; converted to a reliever by […]

Carl Everett made an impact on and off the baseball field, and not always for positive reasons. Everett, born in Tampa, Florida, was an incredible athlete at Hillsborough High School, where he played three sports, baseball, football, and track. Everett’s athletic ability was impressive enough for him to be drafted by the New York Yankees […]

Tim Teufel, who played mostly at second base but filled in at all three other infield positions, had good line-drive power, with 86 home runs in the majors. After breaking in with the Minnesota Twins in September 1983, he went on to play 10 full seasons. He spent a little over half that time with […]

“My dad was dashing,” said Pat Riley, the NBA Hall of Fame coach. “One thing he always did, was he had those wonderful Clark Gable-type suits on, and bright red ties and starched shirts.” He had a lot of style to him.”1 Lee Riley was a slugging outfielder, a “hard guy”2 who toughed out 22 […]

In a 2004 column written for ESPN previewing the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, Bill Simmons broke down the bullpen matchup as follows: “In extra-inning games, I’d take (Derek) Lowe and Leskanic over any of the … Yankee guys. And you know there’s going to be […]

Despite missing two of his prime seasons while serving his country during World War II, Marlin Carter played professional baseball for nearly a quarter-century in major and minor Negro Leagues. Nicknamed “Pee Wee,” the 5-foot-7, 160-pounder threw right-handed and batted lefty. Primarily a third baseman, he also saw action at second base and shortstop, and […]

As a young and hopeful Art Kusnyer (pronounced KUSH-ner) started his professional baseball career in 1966, he made a contingency plan: “If I didn’t make it in baseball, I wanted to be a highway patrolman,” he told the author.1 He never got to work for the highway patrol. Instead, the solidly built 6-foot-2, 197-pound Kusnyer, […]

On the Chicago Cubs’ Opening Day in 1930, 7-year-old Bobby Wolf and future President Ronald Reagan had something in common. Neither had ever seen a major-league baseball game. That afternoon young Bobby listened to Pat Flanagan on Chicago radio station WBBM describing the action as the Cubs edged the Cardinals in St. Louis, 9-8. Hack […]

Situated between UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the much larger Allegheny Cemetery is a patch of land that feels out of sync with the rest of modernity. With large stone walls at its entrance and brick roads, St. Mary Catholic Cemetery harks back to the late 19th or early 20th century. Along one of […]

Countless Illinois high-school basketball players knew Bob Freels as “Mr. Steps,” the hawkeyed referee who made sure no traveling penalty went uncalled.1 Freels apparently became so fond of the nickname that he carries it for eternity: It’s etched into his gravestone in his hometown of Mascoutah, Illinois, in the southern part of the state, about […]

In the world of digital photography, a pixel is the smallest element of a picture represented on the screen. A high-resolution 8-by-10-inch photograph comprised of 7.2 million pixels (2,400 by 3,000 pixels).1 Up close, a single pixel — or even one square inch of pixels — of the most captivating image is unrecognizable and unremarkable. […]

As a September call-up in 1970, right-handed pitcher John Harold “Hal” Haydel joined the American League’s West Division’s first-place team, the Minnesota Twins. On September 7, the day after the 26-year-old Louisiana native reached the big leagues after nine minor-league seasons with five organizations,1 the Twins hosted the Milwaukee Brewers for a Labor Day doubleheader […]

Some days home-run power makes the difference in a baseball game. Other days speed wins games. Every so often, a team lucks into both at once, and the outcome is (usually) a dominant win. The Rochester Red Wings of the Triple-A International League benefited from bursts of both power and speed on July 1, 1982. […]

Baseball is a game of inches, but it is also a game of numbers. On April 8, 1974, Number 44 hit Number 715. Every baseball fan in America knew what that meant: Hank Aaron had just surpassed Babe Ruth to claim the career home-run record. The Atlanta Constitution showcased Aaron’s feat on its front page, […]

A Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Comiskey Park pitted the hometown Chicago White Sox against the visiting Boston Red Sox. A crowd of 37,281 was on hand to watch the White Sox attempt a four-game sweep of last-place Boston. Just one week earlier (June 19), “the White Sox were encased in gloom”1 after a four-game losing […]

For the first of its eventual 110 wins, the 1927 Yankees team braved overflowing crowds, raised its 1926 pennant, and saw the Bambino whiff twice before being removed for a pinch-hitter in an 8-3 Opening Day victory against the favored Philadelphia Athletics. “The weather was lovely, the peanuts and hot dogs were unusually tasty,” wrote […]

For the Boston Red Sox team, it was a nice way to even up a new season. For Carroll Hardy, it was a great way to start a new season. By virtue of being shut out, 4-0, at Fenway Park on Opening Day 1962, the Red Sox were tied for last place in the American […]

“This is a cursed team,” starting shortstop Gary DiSarcina said of the 1992 California Angels. His fatalism, in retrospect, is easy to understand. The team’s travails included the death from cancer of coach Deron Johnson, a life-threatening spring-training injury to pitcher Matt Keough,1 a May accident involving a team bus that seriously injured manager Buck […]

John Caruso’s short-lived professional career was not packed with highlights, but he knew how to pick his spots. The third baseman played a single season in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ organization in 1971, as a member of the Niagara Falls (New York) Pirates of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. In 54 games and 142 […]

Home runs came frequently in Mike Piazza’s career, resulting in 399 homers as a catcher, a major-league record, and 427 homers overall. Triples were much rarer; in 16 big-league seasons, the lumbering Piazza had three separate droughts of at least 487 games without a three-base hit and wound up with a total of eight triples. […]