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Roger Maris connects for his 60th home run of the season in the third inning on September 26, 1961, as Baltimore Orioles catcher Gus Triandos looks on. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Sometimes it’s the statistics few know that tell the story. Or at least part of the story. If nothing else, they […]

The 1961 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees moved to Cincinnati’s Crosley Field for a pivotal third game with the Series tied at a game apiece. The Reds, under temperamental manager Fred Hutchinson, had won the National League pennant by four games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 They were in […]

Baseball can be a cruel game. Just ask the members of the Batavia Trojans of the Class A New York-Penn League, who lost both a close-fought game and a chance at a sensational triple play on a single wayward throw on the night of August 7, 1974. The Trojans, a New York Mets farm team, […]

Two teams with losing records and subpar pitching staffs slugged it out in a back-and-forth contest that featured 13 runs, 9 pitchers, 4 errors, and half a dozen ties and lead changes before the first-year Royals finally prevailed 8-5 over the White Sox. Royals rookie Don O’Riley won his only major-league victory in front of […]

It was an epic pitchers’ duel between the Philadelphia Athletics’ Jack Coombs and the Chicago White Sox’ Big Ed Walsh. “Sixteen scoreless innings of desperate pastiming with dusk the winner,”1 declared the Philadelphia Inquirer, while the Chicago Tribune opined, “[N]either side had the shadow of a right to win against such pitching.”2 Windy City sportswriter […]

Few teams in baseball history have had the luxury of all but clinching their division as early as April. The 1986 New York Mets knew this better than most, having fought to 98 wins in 1985 only to miss the playoffs at the hands of their bitter National League East rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, […]

Norm Bass got a surprise when he arrived at Municipal Stadium in Kansas City before an early-season game in 1961. Ray Herbert had been scheduled to start for Kansas City that night against the Minnesota Twins, but Athletics manager Joe Gordon told Bass he would be on the mound. Gordon wanted to spring the starting […]

After a breakout 1961 season during which he won 18 games and struck out a National League modern-day record 269 batters,1 Sandy Koufax was even better during the first months of the 1962 campaign. Prior to a Dodgers’ mid-June three-game series in Milwaukee, the 26-year-old had compiled an 8-2 record (3.02 ERA), with 131 strikeouts […]

On Tuesday, June 15, 1965, majestic Tiger Stadium held 9,624 spectators who witnessed one of the most historic pitching accomplishments in Detroit Tigers history. The pitching matchup pitted Dave Wickersham (1-4) of the Tigers against Earl Wilson (4-4) of the Boston Red Sox. Wickersham, a 19-game winner in 1964, took the hill to start the […]

Legendary San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman recorded 601 saves over the course of an illustrious 18-year major-league career, a mark that as of 2020 stood as the second-most saves by a major-league pitcher, behind only Mariano Rivera. The California native saved 40 or more games nine times, with two separate four-year stints of doing […]

SABR Bibliography Committee Research Guide No. 1: Baseball Figures in Current Biography Editor’s note: This guide was first published by the SABR Bibliography Committee in 1986. To download the original in PDF form, click here. By Joseph Lawler June 1986 Current Biography is a reference service of the H. W. Wilson Company of New York, publishers […]

Though “never very strong in stick work,” his Deadball Era contemporaries believed that Billy Sullivan’s “brilliant performances behind the bat … more than offset his weak hitting.” Although his paltry .213 lifetime batting average is the second worst all-time (next to Bill Bergen) among players with at least 3,000 at bats, Sullivan developed a reputation […]

Among a lifetime of lively anecdotes, perhaps none better evokes the colorful and adventurous life of Ed Burns than that told by another renowned sportswriter from the profession’s glory days, Red Smith. Writing four days after Burns’s untimely death, on January 27, 1955, at the age of 64, Smith suggested that his colleague “probably was […]

He was a high-school phenom who found himself pitching in the major leagues while barely out of his teens. Connie Mack had heard about him when he was just 16 years old.1 But for every Bob Feller there are countless Lafayette Henions. Unlike Feller’s long and successful career, Henion’s experience in the major leagues consisted […]

How much is a ballplayer’s time worth? In 1912 Tex Wisterzil was released by the Indianapolis Indians of the American Association but incoming manager Charley O’Leary asked him to stay in town in hopes of retaining him. Wisterzil waited around for three days until it was decided that he was going to Wichita in the […]

Mike Paxton, a right-hander for the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians, pitched for parts of four seasons in the major leagues and never had a losing record. Like most pitchers in the 1970s, he began his career as a starter. Once in the majors, he split time as a starter (63) and reliever (36). […]

It was one of the most famous trades in baseball history. On December 11, 1959, the Kansas City Athletics sent Joe DeMaestri, Kent Hadley, and Roger Maris to the New York Yankees for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern, and Marv Throneberry. For Hadley, the trade effectively ended his major-league career. Kent William Hadley was […]

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 […]

John Arthur “Long John” Johnson played briefly with the 1939 Baltimore Elite Giants. He had a professional baseball career, in the second Negro National League, that spanned nine seasons from 1938 to 1946. A pitcher – starting and relief – he threw right-handed and batted left-handed; he stood 6-feet-3 and weighed 182 pounds. Johnson’s career […]

The boy loved baseball. As a teenager he was the best baseball player in his hometown. But Charlie Gould probably never dreamed of playing baseball for a living. His future career was more likely as a clerk or perhaps as a bookkeeper. At that time, there were no openly all-professional baseball clubs, where a young […]

Emery Adams pitched during 11 years in the top Negro Leagues, from 1932 to 1947, with military service during World War II explaining one break in his statistical record. Two earlier gaps seemingly resulted from run-ins with the law, but a jury acquitted him of the serious charge that might have cost him the entire […]

Candy Cummings, at first glance, appears to be one of the least qualified pitchers in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His major-league won-lost record is usually listed as 21-22, because most career totals begin with the formation of the National League in 1876. Cummings earned his stardom in amateur play during the late 1860s and […]

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 […]