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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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

It was probably no great surprise when the city of Flint, Michigan, dropped out of affiliated professional baseball after the 1951 season. The Flint Arrows of the Class A Central League finished the season 60 games under .500 and drew just 25,900 fans across 68 home games, or about 381 fans per game – about […]

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 […]

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 […]

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, few players were as feared with the bat or possessed the brashness of Jack Clark. Twice he powered teams to the World Series. Four times he played in the All-Star Game. His prowess at the plate moved his manager to call him “the greatest fastball hitter of […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 arriving at Kauffman Stadium for the first time) “As we drive up we see the Crown. There was a little mist and I’m thinking ‘this is an unbelievable sight.’ The lights are on. It doesn’t get any better than that. Then all of a sudden we pull in, we go into the clubhouse, and […]

“Carmen Fanzone always led a double life.” That’s how Jerry Crowe led a story about the former ballplayer and trumpeter that ran in the Los Angeles Times.1 Primarily a third baseman on the diamond, Fanzone played in parts of five seasons (1970-1974) for two major-league teams that suffered nearly century-long droughts between World Series wins: […]

Rocky Bridges an All-Star? “They were close to launching an investigation,” he said after being named to the 1958 American League All-Star team.1 Bridges made the squad as the token representative of the last-place Washington Senators, but for most of his 11-year big-league career he was the designated comedian for seven teams, a utility infielder […]

“What do [you] think of Tommy Henrich?”“I don’t know, he’s dependable, I guess.” This bit of repartee, from Philip Roth’s novella Goodbye Columbus, just about sums up Henrich’s career with the New York Yankees during the late 1930s and 1940s. If Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Bill Dickey, Phil Rizzuto, and Yogi Berra were […]

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, […]

Traded for Ted Williams. That’s the sort of distinction one could well dine out on for years. The trade occurred in December 1937. Al Niemiec’s major-league career was over at the time, though he was only 26 and naturally hoped to get back to the big leagues. He played five more years in the Pacific […]

Even the most casual baseball fan is familiar with Eight Men Out, the book (and the movie) that tells the story of the eight members of the Chicago White Sox who were forever banished from organized baseball for fixing the 1919 World Series. Joe Gedeon was the “ninth man out.” The regular second baseman of […]