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If the baseball fans of Seattle had understood the significance of April 12, 1969, they might have arranged a parade, or perhaps a municipal celebration at Seattle Center with plenty of free-flowing Rainier beer.1 And certainly, more than 8,319 of them might have come out to Sick’s Stadium for the evening’s Seattle Pilots-Chicago White Sox […]

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 […]

“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 […]

Boston Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar was apparently seeing the ball well in this Friday night game against the New York Yankees at Fenway Park. He homered three times, off three different pitchers, but all three came with the bases empty and were not enough to overcome an uncharacteristically poor start by Curt Schilling, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

As the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles prepared to meet in the winner-take-all Game Seven of the 76th World Series, there arose a commotion over a column written by Baltimore Sun sports editor John Steadman. The Pittsburgh media provided the Pirates and their fans with the gist of Steadman’s opinion, which was that the Bucs […]

For every great World Series pitcher’s duel, there are a dozen duds that don’t live up to the hype. Game Two certainly fell into the latter category; the hype belonged in a class by itself. The game’s starting pitchers had each put together 24-4 seasons by age 24 – Dwight Gooden pulled off the feat […]

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 […]

The hopes of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of repeating as division champion in 2008 appeared to be derailed by injuries before the season began. As players reported to spring training in Tempe, Arizona, number-two starter Kelvim Escobar suffered a reaggravation of a shoulder injury and was certain to begin the season on the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

On April 29, 1995, rookie right fielder Jon Nunnally became the first Kansas City Royals player to hit a home run in his first big-league at-bat. Five years later, on June 28, 2000, Nunnally did it again, when he homered on his first plate appearance as a player for the Orix BlueWave in Osaka, Japan. […]

  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 […]

Al Blanche pitched only 33 1/3 innings in the major leagues, all in relief for the woeful Boston Braves/Bees of 1935-36. A star at Providence College who attracted no major league scouts, the tall, slender Italian right-hander pitched batting practice for the Braves until given his own opportunity. While having a short baseball career, Blanche […]

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 […]

Jackie Tobin’s older brother, Jim Tobin, pitched in the major leagues from 1937 through 1945, first for the Pirates, mostly for the Boston Braves, and then for the last several weeks of his career for the Detroit Tigers. Though Jackie, an infielder, was a little more than eight years younger, the two played in Boston […]

Though a renowned power hitter in 12 seasons in the Pacific Coast League and a bit player in a handful of films at midcentury, Frankie Kelleher’s top billing as a slugger and a star is perhaps dubiously enshrined in a one-night performance he sparked on a hot Los Angeles Sunday afternoon in 1953, a scene […]

As confetti filled the sky within Raymond James Stadium on January 9, 2017, Clemson assistant football coach Bill Spiers soaked it all in. The Tigers — representing his alma mater, and the team of which his son Will was a member — had just beaten the Alabama Crimson Tide 35-31 in a dramatic national championship […]