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How hard did Jerry Vezendy throw? Hard enough to strike out 102 batters in 71 innings in the Class A New York-Penn League in 1964. Hard enough for the Boston Red Sox to sign him to a major-league contract that October to prevent him from being drafted by another team.1 Hard enough, too, to land […]

If Catfish Hunter was going to pitch a perfect game, Minnesota Twins manager Cal Ermer was going to make him earn every out.1 Hunter, a 22-year-old right-hander in his fourth season with the Athletics, had retired 24 straight batters going into the top of the ninth inning at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, on May 8, 1968, […]

Terry Felton had nothing to say. Not that anyone could blame him – what could Minnesota’s loveable loser say that he hadn’t already said after the first 15 losses of his career? Felton was once again the tough-luck loser on September 12, 1982. This time he left the game in the sixth inning with two […]

Montreal Expos fans were stunned by the news.1 On April 5, 1972, the Expos traded the face of the franchise, 28-year-old superstar Rusty Staub, to the New York Mets for three promising young players: 24-year-old outfielder Ken Singleton, 23-year-old first baseman Mike Jorgensen, and 21-year-old shortstop Tim Foli. Although the ever-popular Staub helped the Mets […]

For a pitcher who finished with a .500 record, Charlie Hough packed a lot of highlights into his major-league career. The Hawaii-born, Florida-raised knuckleballer pitched in 858 games across 25 major-league seasons, appearing in three World Series and an All-Star Game.1 He won 216 games,2 including the first game in Florida/Miami Marlins franchise history, and […]

Willie Stargell began 1975 with a new assignment. For the first time in 14 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Stargell was the club’s Opening Day first baseman.1 Already Pittsburgh’s all-time home-run leader, he celebrated by belting two more homers and going 4-for-4 as the Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-4, on April 10 at frigid […]

Detroit Tigers right-hander Lynwood Thomas “Schoolboy” Rowe “gave one of the most courageous exhibitions of pitching ever seen in World Series,” wrote H.G. Salsinger of the Detroit News.”1 After the Tigers’ demoralizing 8-3 loss to Dizzy Dean and the St. Louis Cardinals in Game One of the 1934 fall classic at Navin Field in the […]

Baseball card #186 in the 1967 Topps set seems in retrospect like a victory of hope over reality. The card shows New York Mets teammates Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda, hitters known more for their power potential than their actual production, kneeling with bats in a spring-training setting above the headline “METS MAULERS.” First baseman […]

The 1968 season is remembered as “the Year of the Pitcher,” and for good reason. For the first time since the Deadball Era, both the American and National Leagues posted ERAs under 3.1 Only one AL hitter, Carl Yastrzemski, finished with an average of .300 or greater, and major-league batters as a whole averaged just […]

Anyone who has stepped up to the plate in a baseball or softball game has dreamed about hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. On one magical weekend in 1985, it was more than a dream for Orioles center fielder Fred Lynn. On May 10 and 11 at Memorial Stadium, […]

Lyle Bigbee was an imposing figure. Six feet tall, 180 pounds with red hair, he was a three-sport star at the University of Oregon and went on to play both major-league baseball and professional football. But by August 4, 1942, the 48-year-old Bigbee had lost his way. Sitting in a room in a Portland, Oregon, […]

Tall, powerful, and fleet-footed, Burnis “Wild Bill” Wright was one of the Negro Leagues’ brightest stars for nearly a decade before embarking on a lengthy and successful Hall of Fame career in the Mexican Leagues. A towering 6-foot-4, 220-pound switch-hitter who slashed for average and slugged with power, he bunted effectively, ran like the wind, […]

In his major-league career Clay Kirby won 75 games, yet he is best remembered for one of his losses. On July 21, 1970, Kirby, on the mound for the San Diego Padres, pitched eight innings of no-hit ball against the New York Mets before manager Preston Gomez removed him for a pinch-hitter. Kirby had given […]

William Warren Peace was born in Kittrell, North Carolina, on August 6, 1921. Kittrell is a village in Vance County, about 35 or 40 miles northeast of Durham. The population at the time of the 1920 census was 223. “It’s a little one-horse town,” Peace told interviewer Brent Kelley. “In fact, the horse died. [Laughs] […]

His professional playing career was brief, distinguished only by one of the most peculiar nicknames in major league baseball history. Otherwise, Mother Watson, a two-game pitcher for the 1887 Cincinnati Reds of the American Association, was a nonentity, a performer who left an impression on the game so indistinct that modern reference works cannot even […]

John Farrell began his professional baseball career as a right-handed pitcher with an 0-5 record for the 1984 Class-A Waterloo Indians in the Midwest League. He’d been drafted three times by that point, but it was certainly an inauspicious start to a career that saw him manage the 2013 Boston Red Sox to a world […]

Loyd Christopher hit a home run on the first pitch he ever saw in professional baseball. He was playing for the Akron Yankees in 1938. New York Yankees scout Bob Coltrin had signed him the year before, and the team had assigned him to the Class-C Middle Atlantic League Akron team to start his career.1 […]

“(For Dykstra) no dare was too bold, no drink too strong, no car too fast, no poker hand too big.”  — Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won!1 “The Dude would be an experience even if it had nothing to do with baseball. You could meet the Dude away from the field and come […]

Right-handed-hitting outfielder Ken Hunt and one-time major-league single-season home-run leader Roger Maris1 were boyhood friends while growing up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After the Maris family moved to nearby Fargo, the two all-around athletes were high-school sports rivals. During Hunt’s senior year in football, his team lost one game, a 7-6 setback to Fargo […]

Known as one of the steadiest setup and capable closers in Blue Jays history, Duane Ward was instrumental in the organization’s back-to-back World Series championships, in the early 1990s. Standing at 6-feet-4 and 210 pounds, he was a powerful right-handed pitcher capable of throwing 95-mph fastballs and hard, sweeping sliders. Ward’s versatility allowed him to […]

From 1960 through 1964, Cuban righty Ed Bauta pitched in one full major-league season and parts of four others with the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets. Bauta wasn’t a strikeout artist, averaging between five and six K’s per nine innings throughout his recorded pro baseball career. He relied on a sinker, thrown from […]

No one chooses to become a professional widow, and Eleanor Gehrig derived little satisfaction in being called one. Yet few ballplayers’ wives maintained a level of such prominence so long after their husband’s death as they had when he was alive. Mrs. Lou Gehrig was married less than eight years; she was a widow for […]

Hanson “Hans” Horsey had a whirlwind four-inning cup of coffee with the 1912 Cincinnati Reds as a 22-year-old pitcher tasked with “taking one for the team” in an April blowout loss. But the slightly-built (5-foot-11, 165 pounds)1 right-hander, drafted after two seasons in Class-B baseball, pitched six more seasons in the minor leagues before returning […]

St. George Grounds began as a paradise, created alongside the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, in what became the city that never sleeps.1 The centerpiece of developer Erastus Wiman’s resort on the northeast prow of Staten Island, New York, the Grounds were, variously, the last home of the American Association Metropolitans, the setting […]