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Roberto Clemente stepped into the batter’s box in the fifth inning at Forbes Field. More than 13,000 hometown fans watched on September 2, 1966, as the Pittsburgh Pirates superstar took a few practice swings. Ferguson Jenkins, the Chicago Cubs’ 23-year-old right-hander, stood on the mound. Clemente slammed Jenkins’ first pitch into the right-field upper deck […]

“This has a special place right up there with the fifth one because it comes so late in my career,” said Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers after tossing his sixth career no-hitter.1 At 43 years of age, Ryan became the oldest pitcher to hurl a no-hitter and the first to fire one with three […]

Baseball was the game for the generation of young men growing up in the post-World War II United States. They played whenever and wherever they could and closely followed “their” major league team, one usually determined by geographic proximity and radio signal strength. Those with skills that stood out pictured themselves in a major league […]

Momentum seemed to be on the side of the Red Sox. They had been down three games to none in the 2004 ALCS, but were coming off two extra-inning wins. Both were hard-fought, close games, but Boston won them both and was flush with exhilaration. The two teams traveled from Boston back to New York […]

“A colleague and I were discussing whether there has been a modern-era athlete who meant more to his city than Gwynn. Some might say John Elway in Denver, or Cal Ripken in Baltimore, or Michael Jordan in Chicago. But were any of those legends their city’s sole source of greatness? No. … Were any of […]

In September 1922, out of pennant contention, the Cleveland Indians mounted a youth drive of remarkable proportions. The team brought in 19 players, so many that it had trouble finding uniforms for them all, and manager Tris Speaker gave them game action as he could.1 The youngsters didn’t bring back memories of the 1920 Indians, […]

Olive Little wasn’t particularly interested in joining the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) for its inaugural 1943 season – at least initially.1 She had a good teaching job in Poplar Point, Manitoba, and had been recently married. “Then they offered me twice as much in a week as I had been making in a […]

The 1931 baseball season was nearly two weeks old and the eight clubs in the American League were still clustered together in the league standings. Cleveland jumped out first as April drew to a close, leading the New York Yankees and the Washington Senators by 1½ games. Boston was holding down last place, but the […]

Jerry Grote had been out of baseball for two years when a former teammate invited the retired backstop to return for the 1981 season. But it wasn’t automatic—the San Antonio native needed to try out for the Kansas City Royals in spring training.  Billy Connors, a former batterymate on the 1967 and ’68 New York […]

The Pawtucket Red Sox were supposed to have one final season in 2020 – one last go-round to honor the deep-rooted connection between the Boston Red Sox and the city in northern Rhode Island before their half-century of affiliation ended. Pawtucket had hosted Boston’s Triple-A affiliate since 1973 and was home to its Double-A team […]

From 1980 to 1982, Greg Minton of the San Francisco Giants reigned as one of the premier relief pitchers in baseball. His 70 saves over that span ranked fifth behind Bruce Sutter (89), Dan Quisenberry (86), Rich “Goose” Gossage (83), and Rollie Fingers (80).1 Minton was at his best in 1982, going 10-4 with a […]

Late in the Minnesota Twins’ inaugural season of 1961, the team noted that its final Saturday game, on September 30, would be played on the same day as a home game for the Minnesota Gophers football team at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. The Twins changed their game time from the usual 1:30 in the afternoon […]

Cubs announcer Harry Caray began his WGN-TV broadcast on May 27, 1984, by proclaiming it to be “a beautiful day for baseball at Wrigley Field in Chicago as the Chicago Cubs take on the troublesome Cincinnati Reds.”1 Troublesome, indeed. The Reds won the first two games of the three-game weekend series. The losses put a […]

In the American League’s first-ever season-ending tiebreaker, the Cleveland Indians’ rookie sensation, Gene Bearden, faced the Boston Red Sox on October 4, 1948 at Fenway Park. At stake was who would face the Boston Braves in the World Series. Bearden’s last two starts had been shutout victories, giving him a 19-7 won-lost record for the […]

Most baseball fans are aware of “The Shot Heard ’Round the World,”  Bobby Thomson’s dramatic ninth-inning home run off Ralph Branca that won the 1951 pennant for the New York Giants. Fewer may be cognizant of Whitey Lockman’s role in setting the stage for that climatic event. Had Lockman not made a crucial hit before […]

The Cincinnati Reds of the 1930s were the National League’s weakest team, logging five last place finishes from 1931 to 1937. That futility ended when Bill McKechnie took over as the Reds’ manager in 1938. McKechnie led Cincinnati to back-to-back pennants in 1939 and 1940 and a world championship in 1940. Although several key players […]

  Montréal Expos’ owner Charles R. Bronfman, wearing his familiar uniform number 83 at spring training, West Palm Beach, Florida, March 1969. (McCord Museum, Montréal)   For 22 years, the name Charles Bronfman was synonymous with major-league baseball in Montréal. As the son of immigrants who made their fortune in the whiskey trade, Charles made […]

Tim Murchison was a 23-year old left-hander who went north in the spring of 1920 with the eventual World Champion Cleveland Indians. He had excelled at Guilford College and logged about 600 innings in the minors. The St. Louis Cardinals had given him a brief look in 1917. But he worked only five innings for […]

Played out before the empty seats of Washington’s Griffith and D.C. Stadiums in the early 1960s, the “breath-takingly impressive”1 launch of Ken Retzer’s career was nearly “invisible to the [national sports]writers … [to the point that he was] mistakenly identified as Dick Retzer” in a Sporting News article about the rich crop class of rookie […]

Tom Ferrick was a baseball lifer. The right-hander won Game Three of the 1950 World Series, pitching in relief for the Yankees, a high point of a playing career in the majors that spanned 12 years. He served three years in the Navy in World War II and pitched for five teams from 1941 to […]

In the days before players routinely wore gloves, the ability of a catcher to handle a fast pitcher or one with big curves was valued far more than his hitting. Bart Cantz was such a man. During three seasons in the majors (1888-90), Cantz finished with a batting average of just .157 with five extra-base […]

After a highly successful playing career as both a slick-fielding infielder and a slugger, Davey Johnson went on to an even more decorated career as a manager. His winning percentage of .562 is 10th all-time among managers with 1,000 victories, and is surpassed by only Earl Weaver among pilots who began their career after 1960. […]

Bob Welch may be most famous for his epic strikeout of Reggie Jackson to end Game Two of the 1978 World Series. He did that as a 21-year-old rookie for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But the tall, lean right-hander enjoyed many other highlights over a 17-year career. He won 211 games, including 27 in 1990, when he […]

In 1955 the Kansas City Athletics coaching staff “observed [rookie right-hander Art] Ditmar during spring training and prophesied that he was destined for distinction on the mound.”1 This bright assessment was echoed three years later by New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel, who said, “I believe … Ditmar could grow into one of the big […]