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On April 24, 2004, the Boston Red Sox came to the plate 26 times with runners in scoring position and were hitless each time. Nonetheless, they beat the New York Yankees, 3-2 in 12 innings, on the strength of three sacrifice flies and staunch relief pitching. Most games are noted for what did happen during […]

On May 6, 1915, New York Yankees pitcher Jack Warhop threw a pitch that gave him an unwanted place in baseball history. In the third inning of a game against the Boston Red Sox, Warhop surrendered a home run to rookie pitcher Babe Ruth. It was the first of Ruth’s 714 career round-trippers, a big-league […]

This was a bizarre game on Labor Day weekend in 1990 in which the visiting New York Yankees lost their left fielder and then their right fielder in the same inning, both of them hurt by running into the wall in their respective areas of the Fenway Park outfield. It was also the game in […]

On July 23, 1912, Boston Braves pitcher Otto Hess elected to pitch to Honus Wagner in the bottom of the ninth with a base open and the winning run in scoring position. Two pitches later, Wagner, the reigning (and eight-time overall) NL batting champion, singled home the game-winner for the Pittsburgh Pirates.1 Eight days later, […]

Before there was David Ortiz, there was Dave Henderson. Before Big Papi thrilled Red Sox fans with his October heroics, the man they called Hendu brought Boston back from the dead in Game Five of the 1986 ALCS. With the Angels one strike away from winning the pennant, Henderson — a backup outfielder obtained from […]

Baseball’s All-Star Game was played at Griffith Stadium in 1937 and 1956, and now it was time for another generation of local baseball fans to gather at the new District of Columbia Stadium to watch the feats of the greats. History told us later that the 1962 All-Star Game featured 18 future Hall of Famers.1 […]

San Diego Padres hurler Steve Arlin could hardly be classified as a headhunter. Coming into his August 17, 1971, start against the Montreal Expos, he had hit only four batters in 197 big-league innings. That didn’t stop the pugnacious Ron Hunt, who was usually fine with reaching base on a hit-by-pitch, from grumbling when Arlin […]

The Boston Red Sox won both halves of the Memorial Day doubleheader against the visiting Philadelphia Athletics, 10-2 and 4-3, but Ted Williams hadn’t helped much until the eighth inning of the second game. In the first game, he had gone 0-for-3, hitting into two double plays, grounding out 3-1, and walking a couple of […]

“On a muggy, overcast night in Chavez Ravine,” the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 11-3, a game highlighted by Willie Stargell’s home run in the seventh inning that was the first ever hit out of Dodger Stadium. “It appeared to be Apollo 12,” one observer noted as the baseball landed in the parking […]

The names Ed Spiezio, Steve Huntz, Dave Ricketts, and Eddie Bressoud dotting manager Red Schoendienst’s lineup on September 20, 1967, at Connie Mack Stadium were not typical ones for the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet, the men whom the strange platoon was replacing – Brock, Javier, McCarver, Maxvill, and others – had already completed their work. […]

When Mike Piazza was traded to the Florida Marlins on May 14, 1998, he had no idea how long his South Florida sojourn would last. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Piazza’s team since the 1992 season, may have been underachieving, just 19-21 when they traded Piazza and Todd Zeile to the Marlins for Gary Sheffield, Manuel […]

Coming off the 2003 season, which saw the New York Yankees come from behind in Game Seven of the American League Championship Series and – once again – beat the Boston Red Sox, there were more than a few people in Boston who hoped that someday, somehow, the Red Sox might come out on top. […]

Buried midway down the front page in most of the country’s sports sections was the fact that Chicago right fielder Billy Williams hit for the cycle, propelling the Cubs to a 7-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a Sunday doubleheader. The bigger news of the day involved Jim Ryun, […]

Nearing the midway point of the 1900 season, Noodles Hahn made history by shutting out one of baseball’s most potent offenses without allowing a base hit. Hahn, a 5-foot-9, 160-pound left-hander with the Cincinnati Reds, blanked the Philadelphia Phillies on July 12, prompting the Cincinnati Enquirer to report, “No-hit games have been pitched before, but […]

Both starters worked into the ninth inning, and it seemed like a game the Red Sox didn’t want to let get away. Three times they had to take the lead, even in those first nine frames. And then they had to do it once again in the 12th, with one swing from their venerable left […]

The game of baseball attracts all types of personalities, from the angry to the stoic to the eccentric to the comedic and everything in between. William M. “Big Bill” Brown, who played in the majors from 1887 through 1894, definitely falls into the comedic category, though he was also quite serious about the game. Though […]

Leon Brown’s older brother Curtis was a one-game major-leaguer, appearing with the Montreal Expos in May 1973. Leon, who was also an outfielder, didn’t have a whole lot more time at the top level. He got into 64 games for the New York Mets in 1976. Yet both of the Brown brothers pursued their dream […]

The list of major-league record-holders contains names familiar to all baseball fans — Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Spike Owen … wait a minute! Spike Owen? Yep. While his name won’t roll as easily off the casual fan’s tongue as some others would, Spike Owen was indeed a record-setter during a steady 13-year career, […]

When Calvin Griffith sold the Minnesota Twins in 1984, he was the one of the last of the family owners whose franchise represented their principal business and source of wealth. Griffith spent nearly his entire life in baseball, spending his young adulthood working in one capacity or another for the Washington Senators organization that his […]

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 […]

Tony Gwynn is clearly Mr. Padre. Perhaps Kevin Towers should be called Top Friar. Towers bled brown and orange. He was drafted by the San Diego Padres as a pitcher, pitched in their minor-league system for eight years, became a scout and minor-league pitching coach for the club, was promoted to director of scouting, and […]

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, […]

Joe Hietpas caught the last half-inning of the season’s finale for the New York Mets in 2004. That was his entire major-league experience. He never came to the plate in The Show, an oddity for a position player. “At the time, you don’t look at it as your one missed opportunity for an at-bat. It’s […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the December 2021 issue of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. Peter J. Wilt, a lifelong White Sox fan and soccer executive, has solved a Black Sox mystery, discovering the unmarked grave of pitcher Lefty Williams at Melrose Abbey Memorial Park in Anaheim, California. The location […]