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Dennis Bennett, a member of the Phillies’ pitching rotation in 1964 and a fun-loving character on baseball’s stage for much of the 1960s, was blessed with a great left arm and a thirst for the good life. He also overcame several reckless brushes with danger, including a tragic accident, to forge a seven-year big-league career, […]
John Harley McNeal is listed in most current reference works as having played under the name Harry McNeal. But in game write-ups and items in sporting papers that mentioned him during his career, he was universally referred to as Harley McNeal. His surviving family members also remember that he was called Harley, Harlow or John […]
If the Detroit Tigers had only won their final game of the 1967 season, Lee Stange would have started the most important game in nearly 20 years for the Boston Red Sox. After the Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins on the last day of the magical season, manager Dick Williams told Stange to take […]
“Dukes can be the proverbial five-tool player. His swing is … I daresay, kind of like Albert Pujols.” – Joe Maddon, who managed Dukes in 2007 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays1 “He will snap in a minute.” – Richie Hebner, who coached Dukes in 2006 with the Durham Bulls2 Hillsborough County in Florida’s […]
Many recognize Pop Dillon as merely a cousin of Hall of Famer Clark Griffith who happened to have a brief major league career. If he’s written about today, it’s usually in that context or in relation to his passing on a young fastballer named Walter Johnson. Dillon was in fact among the top names in […]
When you examine the life of Abner Doubleday you eventually have to come to the point expressed by classic detective Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Okay, so here are two facts about General Abner Doubleday’s life. First, his military career was lengthy and he “was the highest ranking officer in the […]
Had Grover Cleveland Alexander been a writer, the French would have called him a poete maudit, a cursed poet. Alexander had within him the greatness and the frailty that make for tragedy. Except for Ty Cobb among his contemporaries, no other player had to cope with so many personal demons. With Cobb and Christy Mathewson, […]
With one extraordinary season Roger Maris secured his place in baseball history. And yet his establishment of the major league home run record in 1961 proved to be more of a personal curse than a professional triumph. It also overshadowed, indeed overwhelmed, the totality of a career characterized at least as much by his consistent […]
Whenever the subject of best baseball names comes up, Scipio Spinks is sure to be on the short list. A classic wild flamethrower, Spinks was breaking through to success in 1972. If he hadn’t torn up his knee in a collision with Johnny Bench, he would have more to show than a career record of […]
When it comes to players who pitched for both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, Vito Valentinetti’s name is seldom mentioned. Yet he took the mound for the Mets from 1962-1982 and for the Yankees from 1967-1986. He was paid $20 a day, working roughly 15 minutes. The retired major-leaguer – 108 […]
In mid-May 1912, management of the Detroit Tigers confronted a strike by Tigers players angered by the indefinite suspension of star Ty Cobb by American League President Ban Johnson. To avoid forfeiting a May 18 game in Philadelphia and incurring a possible $5,000 fine, a group of mostly Philadelphia college and sandlot players was hastily […]
The case of 1920s Negro League pitcher Dave Brown provides a classic example of the oft-quoted line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” a maxim that stems from a John Ford-directed film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In that movie, reporter Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young) discovers that his subject, Senator Ransom Stoddard […]
Arguably the first great first baseman of the twentieth century, George Sisler was the greatest player in St. Louis Browns history. An excellent baserunner and superb fielder who was once tried out at second and third base even though he threw left-handed, Sisler’s primary asset was his left-handed swing, which he used to notch a […]
If Calvin Schiraldi had never been called upon to pitch in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series, we might think of his career in baseball as a story of encountering and overcoming adversity — a series of comebacks. But Red Sox manager John McNamara did call Schiraldi in from the bullpen in the […]
The 25,882 fans who ventured to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on the evening of August 24, 1983, saw an exciting, extra-inning win by the home team in the midst of a tight pennant race. As a bonus, they also witnessed baseball’s version of The Twilight Zone. The Orioles came into that Wednesday night game against […]
The fans filing into Fenway Park for the April 24, 1992, night game between the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers must have been asking themselves: Would Frank “Sweet Music” Viola ever get in tune? The former American League Cy Young Award winner, 1987 World Series Most Valuable Player, and two-time 20-game winner had signed […]
The Toronto Blue Jays arrived in Milwaukee for a four-game weekend series at County Stadium on a high note. A so-so 3-3 homestand for the Blue Jays had still allowed them to pull clear of the slumping Brewers to claim second place in the American League East, where they trailed the leading Boston Red Sox […]
“Are you serious, the Mets? A team that wound up 16 games under 500 in 1968?” wrote Montreal Gazette sportswriter Ted Blackman after the New York Mets continued their improbable drive for the 1969 National League East Division title with a 4-0 blanking of the first-year expansion Montreal Expos on September 11 at Shea Stadium. […]
A teenage Willie Mays with the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays’ father did not allow him to join the Black Barons full-time in 1948 until school was over at the end of May. (Courtesy of Memphis Public Library) On Saturday, September 11, 1948, Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, hosted Game One of the Negro American […]
David Cone took advantage of an injury to Rick Aguilera to get into the Mets’ starting rotation in 1988. He pitched a shutout in his first start and finished May with a 7-0 record. That left little doubt that New York’s high hopes for the 25-year-old right-hander were warranted. Joseph Durso of the New York […]
The longest homerless stretch of Joe Mauer’s Hall of Fame career began in August 2014 and carried into 2015, spanning 324 plate appearances and lasting until Mauer’s Minnesota Twins visited the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 20. With the score tied in the top of the 13th inning, Mauer hit Antonio Bastardo’s pitch over PNC Park’s […]
Dick Fowler (left) and Phil Marchildon (right) at Philadelphia Athletics spring training in the late 1940s. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) It was no coincidence that the Philadelphia Athletics’ two best pitchers in the 1940s were from the province of Ontario.1 There was a simple reason for it: Connie Mack’s Athletics had […]
Minnesota Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew was in an unusual home-run slump and appeared to leverage a late-season exhibition game and related home-run derby to get back on track. In dramatic fashion on the next day against the Baltimore Orioles, he slammed his 500th and 501st home runs to join an elite group of nine players […]
Index for Bill James’s Baseball Analyst Nos. 1-40, 1982-1989 Read Rob Neyer’s introduction of the Baseball Analyst archives “Baseball Analyst,” a Bill James creation that he self-published from 1982 to 1989, was one of the first publications to feature articles devoted to sabermetrics — a phrase he coined in part to honor SABR. “Baseball Analyst” […]