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Hawaii has been sending more and more men to the majors in recent years. Through the end of the 2021 season, 48 men born in the Aloha State had made it to The Show; 25 of them arrived from 2000 onward. Yet only one player out of the whole group, which dates back to 1914, […]

In his long and accomplished baseball career, San Francisco Bay Area native Emil “Lefty” Mailho managed over 2,500 hits, yet all but one — a pinch single in a 1936 contest — came in the minor leagues. One writer described Mailho as “arguably the best .056 lifetime hitter the majors (have) ever seen.”1 Mailho, who […]

Ty Cobb rounded third and, despite the stop sign from his coach, kept on going. Cleveland catcher Harry Bemis caught the relay and braced himself. Cobb could collide or evade. He chose collision and the ball rolled away from Bemis. Cobb was declared safe. In the heat of the moment Bemis began hitting Cobb in […]

Looking back over a century of hometown baseball, a Pittsburgh sportswriter observed that pitcher Nick Maddox “may be the best September call-up in Pirates’ history.”1 No wonder. In his September 13, 1907 major-league debut, the 20-year-old right-hander threw a two-hit, 14-strikeout shutout at the St. Louis Cardinals, winning 4-0. Three days thereafter, he set the […]

Grant Johnson, baseball historian Gary Ashwill argues, “was the best everyday player in Black baseball from 1895 to 1909.”1 After slugging his way to a legend with a hometown Findlay, Ohio, club in 1894, “Home Run” Johnson’s career mapped the finest Black teams of the era. He starred at shortstop for the Page Fence Giants, […]

Selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the second round of the 1983 MLB amateur draft, Bob Milacki garnered little attention with a pedestrian record of 16-21, 3.79 in his first 290 innings in the minor leagues. “I’d been in the organization [three] years and never impressed anybody,” the right-hander later acknowledged.1 In 1988, as the […]

Across the decades, baseball players from the celebrated to the obscure have traded in their spikes for movie or TV scripts. Some — Chuck Connors, Bob Uecker, and Greg Goossen come to mind — enjoyed careers in the entertainment industry as, respectively, the star of TV’s The Rifleman, a sometime film and TV actor and […]

One of the greatest pitchers in minor-league history, lanky righthander Louis “Crip” Polli compiled a minor league lifetime record of 263-226 over 22 seasons. After a late start in professional ball, Polli had the mixed blessing of spending his prime years in the juggernaut New York Yankees organization of the late 1920s and early 1930s. […]

Silas Kenneth Johnson, who pitched for four National League teams over 17 seasons, was born in Danway, in north-central Illinois, on October 5, 1906, the second of four sons of Norwegian-Americans Nels and Tillie Johnson. The family soon moved to the nearby town of Marseilles, where they operated a 460-acre farm. Nels had been a […]

Until a devastating ankle injury effectively ended his major-league career, George Van Haltren was late 19th-century baseball’s premier leadoff man. A lefty hitter with keen strike-zone awareness and a quick bat, Van Haltren topped the .300 mark in 13 of his 14 seasons as a lineup regular. He also drew a slew of walks, stole […]

Philip Henry Niekro Jr. was born in Blaine, Ohio, on April Fools’ Day — April 1, 1939. That was appropriate, for he spent much of his career fooling batters with a pitch that most other pitchers wanted no part of. The first of the Niekro family in America were Jozef Niekra, from Slodkow, Polish Russia, […]

Wrigley Field at night, as pictured in 2014.   After rain washed out the Chicago Cubs’ initial attempt at an inaugural game under the lights on August 8, 1988, there was an anticlimactic sense to their first official night game at home the following day. True, the game itself was historic. When umpires halted the […]

On July 22, 1953, the Mattoon (Illinois) Phillies and Decatur (Illinois) Commodores of the Class D Mississippi-Ohio Valley League played a doubleheader at Mattoon Baseball Park.1 These were the second and third games in a five-game series between league-leading Decatur, known in the local media as the Commies, and third-place (6½ games out) Mattoon.2 The […]

On the dusty shelf of forgotten US Bicentennial knickknacks, behind the commemorative plates and drinking glasses and red, white, and blue iron-on decals, you’ll find a Williamsport Tomahawks cap and T-shirt. The 1976 Tomahawks — known to sportswriters as the “Tommies” or “Toms” — were a single-season entry in the Double-A Eastern League, affiliated with […]

The Boston Red Sox-Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day game of April 5, 1974, was not one to remember for fans of either crisply played baseball or proper decorum. The on-field action included three runs scored on wild pitches or passed balls, subpar outings for both starting pitchers, and relief pitching that allowed six of six inherited […]

Sources agree that a mere 306 fans turned out for the game on Thursday afternoon, October 1, 1964, at Boston’s Fenway Park. It can stand as the lowest documented attendance of a game at the ballpark, though there was a game there in 1922 which the Chicago Tribune claimed drew only, precisely, 68.1 That number […]

Babe Ruth made history on May 21, 1930, when, in the first game of a doubleheader, he became the first player to hit three home runs in a game at Shibe Park.1 Oddly enough, that’s not the primary reason why Babe is remembered for this game. Instead, he is incorrectly remembered, thanks to erroneous information […]

When the expansion Chicago Colleens got off to a 1-13 start in their inaugural season in 1948, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) held an emergency meeting to decide how to prop up the floundering franchise.1 Rockford Peaches fans were not happy with how the issue was resolved.2 When the dust had settled, the […]

Joaquín Andújar was running out of time. Bruce Sutter was, too. When the St. Louis Cardinals opened a season-ending three-game series against the National League East Division champion Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on September 28, 1984, Andújar was making his fourth attempt to win his 20th game. Sutter, meanwhile, needed one save to tie […]

Marcus Thames’s career was marked by his penchant to hit home runs with regularity, despite not being a full-time player. His most noteworthy homer was the first one of his major-league career, which occurred in his first at-bat with the New York Yankees on June 10, 2002. Moreover, the homer came on the first pitch Thames […]

Though the Pittsburgh Pirates had finished in second place in 1977, five games behind the Philadelphia Phillies, they had won 96 games and harbored high hopes for overtaking their intrastate rivals as the 1978 season began. Unfortunately, as the month of August arrived, things were not looking good for the Bucs. After enduring a seven-game […]

The sickening sound—a sharp crack—could be heard above the din of the 31,027 fans who filled Fenway Park that Friday night. On August 18, 1967, in the midst of what would become to be known as the Boston Red Sox’ “Impossible Dream” year, a brilliant career was derailed and a life nearly taken when favorite […]

For years, Sunday baseball was banned in Boston – and in most cities around the country. Over the years, various states and cities began to permit Sunday ball. By the late 1920s, prohibitions on Sunday games remained in only two major-league states – Massachusetts, home of the Boston Red Sox and Braves, and Pennsylvania, home […]

The Chicago White Sox had played well in the first half of the 1981 season. When a strike by the players brought a halt to the season on June 12, the White Sox had a 31-22 record. The strike ended on July 31. After games resumed on August 9, the White Sox struggled in the […]