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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 […]

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 […]

When baseball’s stars convened in Pittsburgh for the 1994 All-Star Game, emerging pennant races and milestone quests shared headlines with labor-management discord. A strike shuttered the majors a month later, relegating the unfinished campaign to an ignominious place in the game’s history, but the National League’s 8-7 win over the American League in 10 innings […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

The Saturday afternoon affair at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull seemed insignificant to most baseball fans. Despite being 24 games above .500 (89-65), the second-place Chicago White Sox had been mathematically eliminated and were 11½ games behind the runaway American League-leading New York Yankees. The homestanding Detroit Tigers were 75-79 and clinging to fifth […]

George Brett entered the 1992 season as an accomplished veteran leading a rebuilding team. The 1991 Royals finished with an 82-80 record, 13 games behind the AL-West-leading Minnesota Twins and only one game removed from the basement. Kansas City hadn’t reached the postseason since winning the 1985 World Series, although the Royals won 92 games […]

In January 1949, the St. Louis Cardinals sold right-hander Murry Dickson, a mainstay since their glory years earlier in the 1940s, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $125,000. Dickson defeated his former club five times in eight decisions that season, with one victory especially harmful to St. Louis’s championship aspirations. His complete-game 7-2 win at Pittsburgh’s […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Kurt Bevacqua played in 15 major league seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers, and San Diego Padres from 1971 to 1985. Bevacqua crafted a career as a pinch hitter and utility player at a time when that role was needed on a major league roster and for […]

Sam Jones was an intimidating pitcher. He was big (6 feet 4 and 200 pounds), threw hard, had a massive sweeping curveball, and could be quite wild. Three times he led the National League in both strikeouts and walks (1955, 1956, and 1958). He narrowly missed this feat a fourth time in his finest season, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd starts his autobiography recalling back in 1964 when he was 5 years old, and his uncle Frank Boyd brought three civil-rights workers by the family home. Later that same year, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were discovered murdered. Dennis believes they were killed just after they left the Boyd […]

In baseball parlance a journeyman is a player who is experienced, reliable, and a good, solid performer, as distinguished from one who is a brilliant or colorful star. Chick Fulmer was a prototypical journeyman ballplayer. He had his colorful moments, but mostly he was just a clever, dependable teammate of more flamboyant players, whom he […]

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 […]

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 […]