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In the mid-1960s, noted artist Norman Rockwell lived and painted in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts.1 The baseball-related events that took place there on Thursday, May 13, 1965, seem perfectly suited to his brush—wholesome, all-American, small-townish, and, to a twenty-first-century eye, vanishingly obsolete. Schools in the small city of North Adams let out at […]

The National League’s 1969 season was one of the most memorable in history because of the legendary collapse of the Chicago Cubs and the improbable rise of the New York Mets to claim the East Division title and go on to win their first-ever World Series. Both teams had reputations for being perennial losers, so […]

On April 2, 2017, the Giants and the Diamondbacks met on Opening Day at Chase Field in Phoenix. The 49,016 in attendance saw a glamorous pitching matchup of postseason stalwart Madison Bumgarner for the visitors and 2009 Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke for the home team. The game delivered more than the Mad Bum-Greinke matchup. There […]

For Jim Kaat, the last of his 31 career shutouts undoubtedly was the most amazing of them all. It came June 4, 1980, a 10-inning blanking of the New York Mets at Shea Stadium – just over a month after the St. Louis Cardinals purchased the 41-year-old left-hander from the New York Yankees. Kaat had […]

The early-season matchup of the Marlins and the Braves on Saturday night, April 5, 2003, seemed to be of two teams going in opposite directions. The Marlins were coming off a season in which they had finished 79-83, in fourth place in the National League East Division, 23 games behind the Braves, who had won […]

In a nod to the organization’s roots in historical research, as well as its commitment to bringing the game’s history alive, in 1984 the annual SABR convention included an abridged reenactment of the 1884 World Series. While the best-two-out-of-three contest between the Providence Grays and the New York Metropolitans is not recognized as the inaugural […]

The roof was open for the 25,661 baseball fans in attendance at Safeco Field on August 12, 2015.1 It had been rainy in the morning, but only clouds remained when the getaway day game began in the early afternoon. Both the Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles were in the middle of the American League pack, […]

When does a pitcher throw a complete-game shutout without giving up even one base hit, leaving the game with a win, but somehow that’s not a no-hitter? It sort of defies logic. You pitched. You were the only pitcher for your team. You won the game. It’s in the record books as a complete-game win. […]

There were plenty of storylines entering this intrastate battle on October 5, 2001. The season was on the line for the San Francisco Giants: a loss meant elimination from playoff contention. For the major leagues, this game was part of a larger picture. Initially scheduled for September 14, it was rescheduled after the September 11 […]

The Saturday afternoon affair at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull seemed insignificant to most baseball fans. Despite being 24 games above .500 (89-65), the second-place Chicago White Sox had been mathematically eliminated and were 11½ games behind the runaway American League-leading New York Yankees. The homestanding Detroit Tigers were 75-79 and clinging to fifth […]

George Brett entered the 1992 season as an accomplished veteran leading a rebuilding team. The 1991 Royals finished with an 82-80 record, 13 games behind the AL-West-leading Minnesota Twins and only one game removed from the basement. Kansas City hadn’t reached the postseason since winning the 1985 World Series, although the Royals won 92 games […]

Were the Boston Red Sox the last major-league team to sign a black player? Or were they one of the first? Did the Red Sox actually have a black ballplayer long before Pumpsie Green and 22 years before Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers? Havana’s Ramon “Mike” Herrera totaled 276 at-bats in 1925 and 1926 […]

In a major-league playing career that lasted only seven seasons, Bill Lange made an indelible impression on those who saw him in action. A star outfielder on the also-ran Chicago Colts of the 1890s, Lange could do it all: run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit for power by the standards of his time. […]

Jim Brewer called himself a screwball, and he threw one. It saved his career. After three years of trying, the left-hander mastered the delivery with help from a Hall of Famer. Beginning when he was 30 years old, he fashioned a six-year run as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ late-inning fireman. Brewer became most famous for […]

On October 28, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals won their 11th World Series championship. Among those celebrating with the team was 88-year-old Red Schoendienst, who had first tasted World Series victory as a young second baseman for the Cardinals in 1946. Sixty-five years after he savored his first World Series win, Schoendienst was still an […]

Baseball fans in the 1960s and ’70s could bet their Cracker Jack that second baseman Félix Bernardo Millán would put the ball in play when he stepped up to bat for the Atlanta Braves or New York Mets. In 6,325 plate appearances, the 172-pound right-handed batter whiffed only 242 times, establishing himself as the National […]

In Philadelphia early in 1938, manager Joe Cronin of the Boston Red Sox threw four rookie pitchers into an April 24 game against the Philadelphia Athletics. Emerson Dickman started, and was relieved by Charlie Wagner, Dick Midkiff, and Byron William Humphrey. Dickman took the loss. The 6-foot, right-handed Humphrey closed the game, taking over after […]

“Crooked Arm” Cremins faced 24 batters in the major leagues and four of them scored. The lefty pitcher from just outside New York had already met Albert Einstein when he was taken under the wing of Hall of Fame pitcher Iron Man Joe McGinnity. He faced Babe Ruth, had a long career connected with boxing, […]

The story is almost apocryphal, existing somewhere on that boundary between real and remembered. As it is most often told, a 10- (or perhaps 11-) year-old Art Pennington was on an afternoon fishing trip with his mother. As they began the trip home, one of the Essex’s balloon tires went flat. Art hopped out of […]

Early Black baseball figure Hurley McNair played professionally from 1910 through 1937. Yet despite being a key cog of the dominant Kansas City Monarchs lineups of the 1920s, the outfielder remains relatively unknown. Statistics can build a legacy. But when stats are hard to come by, legacies are built by stories. Nothing crafts a compelling […]

Between 1980 and 1990, Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies won more Gold Gloves – six – than any other National League third basemen. But do you know who won the second-most? The answer may surprise you. If you had guessed Tim Wallach, you would have been correct. Wallach, who spent 17 years in the […]

On September 27, 1920, suspicions about the integrity of the previous year’s World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds were given substance by a self-admitted fix insider named Billy Maharg. In an interview first published in the Philadelphia North American and syndicated nationwide immediately thereafter, Maharg maintained that a number of Chicago […]

“President Harding’s interest in Baseball and his many kind acts toward individual players was [sic] deeply appreciated by all of us.”1 None other than Babe Ruth expressed this sentiment in his handwritten condolences to the widow of Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States. Harding died while in office on August 2, […]

Righty reliever Kenny Greer’s 10-year career in pro ball featured two stints in the majors, in 1993 and 1995. In his big-league debut, he pitched a perfect 17th inning and got the win as the New York Mets scored the game’s lone run in the bottom half. His only other big-league decisions were both losses, […]