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Although he was a catcher in 527 of his 922 major league games, Mike Grady is best known as a third baseman who made a record number of errors on one ground ball, a play that never happened. At 5’ 11” and a muscular 190 pounds, Grady was a versatile player for the Phillies, Browns, Giants, […]

Craig Lefferts battled all his life to make it to the major leagues. Once he did, he stayed there for a decade, and became famous for running from the bullpen to the mound, showing his lifelong enthusiasm for the game. Craig Lindsay Lefferts was born on September 29, 1957, in Munich, West Germany.1 His father, […]

An outstanding three-sport high school athlete from Lima, Ohio, Bill Sharp earned a football scholarship from powerhouse Ohio State before entering professional baseball. With the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, Sharp was a spray-hitting swinger and a skilled defensive outfielder for parts of four major-league seasons (1973-1976) before knee problems ended his career. William […]

White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillén once said of A.J. Pierzynski: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”1 Pierzynski was a fierce competitor with a strong desire to win. This desire at times could rub teammates the wrong way and many times would get […]

An American League umpire for seven years in the 1960s, Al Salerno’s abrupt 1968 dismissal set off a legal firestorm and led to decades of personal struggles. In fact, Salerno never got over what happened to him, and to the very end of his life he remained angry and bitter over the game he had […]

“Betty Caywood is a tall, beautiful blonde with big blue eyes,” the Boston Globe’s Gloria Negri wrote, “and because of her baseball may never be the same again.”1 Caywood was the first female announcer to be hired by a major league team. She had qualifications for the job: an experienced television performer, poised, personable, and […]

Breaking barriers her entire life, Mary Pratt, an outstanding athlete from Eastern Massachusetts, pitched in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from 1943 to 1947. After her professional baseball career, Pratt went on to become an educator, coach, and a strong advocate for the advancement of women in sports. Pratt was born on November 30, […]

Bob Hope entertained troops in war zones, hosted the Academy Awards 19 times, and had more wealth than Midas thanks to oil investments, real estate holdings, and television commercials for Texaco and Chrysler. His relationship with NBC, unparalleled in show business, started on radio in the 1930s and continued on television when it became a […]

Babe Ruth greets a Civil War veteran under the approving gaze of his mentor in life and baseball, Brother Matthias. (Erin Casey)   Shortly before he died, baseball superstar Babe Ruth publicly credited a man who was born on Cape Breton Island with making him the ballplayer and man he had become. He did it […]

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, […]

Craig Cacek (pronounced Cass-ek) played in seven games for the Houston Astros in 1977. From June 18 to July 10 he was in the major leagues for the only time.1 He had one hit, one RBI, and one walk in 21 plate appearances, a .050 batting average. The Astros’ trade of Cliff Johnson to the […]

Right-handed knuckleball pitcher Al Papai earned many more accolades serving four years in the United States Army during World War II than he did in four years of appearances in major-league baseball. He was one of the 11 children of Illinois coal miner Victor Papai and his wife, Mary, the former Marie Pongracz. Both were […]

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 […]

“I’m sure God never meant me to be a ball player,” Taft Wright said. “If he had, I wouldn’t be built so close to the ground and always worrying about my weight and being muscle bound.”1 Sportswriters called him “Fat Wright” and “Round Man.”2 Wright was a born designated hitter — born decades too soon. […]

On August 29, 1948, before a season record crowd of 33,826 at Sportsman’s Park, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals played in a “furiously fought doubleheader”1 that had postseason implications. In the first game, Brooklyn second baseman Jackie Robinson hit for the cycle,2 leading the Dodgers to a victory over the St. Louis […]

On April 28, 1986, the Biddeford (Maine) Journal-Tribune declared that that night’s scheduled exhibition between the Cleveland Indians and their Triple-A farm team, the Maine Guides, would be “the first time ever that a major league team has played in the state.”1 It wasn’t, but the sportswriter might be excused for not knowing that. America’s […]

On September 5, 1943, about 500 fans attending a minor-league game at Bradner Field in Olean, New York, rose to their feet in silent, somber tribute to a local hero. John Moller, formerly a star pitcher and outfielder with the Olean Oilers of the Class D Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York (PONY) League, had been killed in action […]

To tell the story of Robin Roberts’s 286th and final major-league victory is to tell a tale of a fading star passing the baton to a future star and of two old friends in the twilight of their careers patching together one more winning effort. The rising star was Ferguson Jenkins. The old friends were […]

Chicago’s Comiskey Park, built in the heyday of the first wave of steel and concrete ballparks and opened in 1910, hosted its share of iconic baseball moments. A World Series championship in 1917 was followed by the infamous Black Sox Scandal two years later. It was the site of the first All-Star Game in 1933 […]

The California Angels came to Cleveland for a two-game series between the two division leaders on July 17, 1995. The Indians had a comfortable 14 1/2-game lead over both Milwaukee and Kansas City in the American League Central Division. It was their largest lead ever over another team. The Indians were coming off a four-game […]

The Brooklyn Bridegrooms routed the Pittsburgh Alleghenys 20-1 in the darkness-shortened second game of a National League doubleheader on August 1, 1890. In the blowout, Brooklyn’s Thomas P. “Oyster” Burns became just the fourth player in major-league history to hit for a natural cycle, recording a single, double, triple, and home run in ascending order. […]

It took a lot to pry the attention of the baseball world away from New York teams on September 30, 1973. The Yankees played their final game at the original Yankee Stadium, losing to Detroit. And the Mets split a doubleheader with the Cubs to cling to a one-game lead in the National League East. […]

“There’s more of a feeling on this club that we’re going to win than there was even in ’59,” said veteran Jim Landis. “That ’59 club had plenty of confidence, don’t get me wrong, but this club has better pitching.”1 Landis, the last member of the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox still with the team, was […]

In 1964 Johnny Pesky, longtime Boston Red Sox star, was in his second season as Red Sox manager. According to his SABR biography, Pesky “brought some fire to the position, after years of yawns under the likes of Pinky Higgins.”1 Boston had not posted a winning record since 1958. Since 1961, when the American League expanded […]