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The rebuilding and fortunes of some major-league baseball teams tend to be cyclical. Especially those that do not have the ownership with the deep pockets who could buy the top-tier free agents every season. The Minnesota Twins were one of the former, not the latter. But the Twins were putting together a solid club that […]
Greg Minton did everything for the San Francisco Giants during the 1982 season, including stealing the team bus. More about that later. The right-handed relief ace achieved a milestone when he recorded his 30th save of the season in the Giants’ come-from-behind 5-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 25 at Dodger Stadium. […]
Only 17 men born in North Dakota have appeared in a major-league baseball game.1 The first to do so was Truck Hannah, starting catcher for the New York Yankees on Opening Day, April 15, 1918. James Harrison Hannah was born near Larimore, Dakota Territory, on June 5, 1889, less than five months before President Grover […]
“I can’t say enough about it, or savor it enough,” said inspirational team leader Gary Carter after his New York Mets clinched the NL East crown by defeating the Chicago Cubs.1 While hard-throwing Dwight Gooden buoyed the team with a sparkling six-hitter, September call-up Dave Magadan, making his first big-league start, supplied the offensive fireworks […]
No one at Montreal’s Jarry Park on Saturday, April 19, 1975, could ignore the howl of tropical-storm-force winds.1 Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark listened to the wind and let it dictate last-minute changes to his starting lineup. The results made him look like a genius as his team downed the Expos, 3-0. Most accounts of […]
This game featured five future Hall of Famers, yet Montreal Expos manager Dick Williams likened it to one of his son’s Little League games.1 “(The) last time I was at a Little League game (to watch one of his sons) the Commissioner threw me out for going on the field,” said Williams. “I haven’t been […]
The Chicago Cubs overcame two ejections and the first-place New York Mets in the opener of a five-game series at Wrigley Field on August 4, 1986. Dennis Eckersley earned his second win over the Mets in six days and Ron Cey drove in two key runs, leading the Cubs to a 4-2 victory. After surging […]
When the Boston Red Sox scored three ninth-inning runs to walk off the Seattle Pilots on August 7, 1969, it probably wasn’t divine intervention at work; it was probably just a first-year expansion team frittering away a game, the way expansion teams do. But with hundreds of nuns1 and one of America’s most prominent churchmen […]
Edgardo Alfonzo did what few achieve in New York – be great while going relatively unnoticed. Alfonzo didn’t receive much attention, nor did he seek it out. On a team with power-hitting catcher Mike Piazza and outspoken manager Bobby Valentine, even Alfonzo’s breakout season of 1999 – which culminated an eight-year climb to his personal […]
“Batting and playing first base for the Boston Red Sox: Mary Elizabeth Murphy. First base: Murphy.” You can almost hear Sherm Feller, the longtime Red Sox public-address voice, announce her – the first female ballplayer for the Boston Red Sox. It never happened, though. It’s well-known that the Red Sox were the last big-league team […]
A scorecard from the 1967 season of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team’s last of 72 successive years in the International League and its predecessor. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) Monday September 4, 1967, the annual Labor Day holiday in Toronto, was a day of many endings. For schoolchildren it was the […]
“El Presidente! El Perfecto!” That was broadcaster Dave Van Horne’s call on July 28, 1991, at Dodger Stadium, after Dennis Martínez completed the only perfect game in Montreal Expos history. Other Montreal pitchers had thrown no-hitters – Bill Stoneman in 1969 and 1972, and Charlie Lea in 1981. Also, just two days before Martínez’s gem, […]
One game short of his 300th career victory, Early Wynn was without a job in baseball as the 1963 season began. Wynn, who first pitched in the major leagues in 1939 for the Washington Senators, had been a four-time 20-game winner for Cleveland in the 1950s. Traded to the White Sox in December of 1957, […]
Montreal’s 24-year-old right-hander Charlie Lea was an unlikely candidate to toss the first no-hitter in the history of Olympic Stadium. Pounded in his first two starts in 1981 (nine runs in 6⅔ innings), Lea held the San Francisco Giants hitless on Mother’s Day. “I’m not the type of person who jumps up and down,” he […]
On the back cover of his album The Nylon Curtain, released in September 1982, singer-songwriter Billy Joel is pictured enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette while reading the newspaper. The paper in front of him is easily identifiable as the New York Times, and a baseball-related headline is visible: “Expos Top Punchless Mets.”1 […]
Chicago’s Wrigley Field had already played host to a visiting team scoring at least one run in every inning of a nine-inning game against the Chicago Cubs. The date was September 13, 1964. The St. Louis Cardinals pounded out 18 hits in a lopsided 15-2 victory. The Cubs aided and abetted the Redbirds that afternoon; […]
Rube Foster was the star of the 1915 World Series, pitching two complete-game wins for the Boston Red Sox in a five-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies and going 4-for-8 at the plate. His ninth-inning single won Game Two. Foster played pro ball for just one team in the big leagues, the Red Sox, with […]
It would be easy to mock someone with a nickname like Fothergill’s, but Fatty Fothergill couldn’t have been too fat. Once after hitting a home run at Fenway Park for the Detroit Tigers, he rounded the bases and did a front flip landing on home plate. At 5-feet-10.5 inches he struggled with his weight and […]
Tom Ferrick was a baseball lifer. The right-hander won Game Three of the 1950 World Series, pitching in relief for the Yankees, a high point of a playing career in the majors that spanned 12 years. He served three years in the Navy in World War II and pitched for five teams from 1941 to […]
“When Mr. Reardon speaks you are under the impression that he has just spit out a hand grenade.” — Harry A. Williams, Los Angeles Times1 Beans Reardon learned a lot about umpiring at the age of 16 when he worked as a riveter’s assistant. “Riveting was good education for umpiring,” he recalled. “If I […]
As a pitcher, Lary Sorensen handled plenty of challenges over the course of his successful 11-year major-league career with seven teams. But not even the best-hitting opposing lineup—like the one he faced in the 1978 All-Star Game—compared to the opponent he battled after his playing days: alcoholism. His story resembles an amusement park ride, with […]
Few players have managed to overcome greater challenges to succeed in professional baseball than Gary Ryerson. In 1952 an outbreak of poliomyelitis, more commonly called polio, swept the United States. The infectious virus attacked mostly the legs and caused muscles to become weak, poorly controlled, and ultimately paralyzed. The epidemic struck 57,628 Americans.1 Of those […]
Michael Thomas “Mike” Roarke grew up playing ball in West Warwick, Rhode Island, starred in football and baseball at Boston College before graduating in 1952, built a reputation as a stellar catcher and handler of pitchers in the minor leagues in the 1950s, came to the Detroit Tigers in a multi-player trade with the Milwaukee […]
“Who is the only person enshrined in both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the National Baseball Hall of Fame?” Cal Hubbard first earned acclaim as a bone-crushing tackle, then as a formidable umpire, and finally as an exceptional baseball executive. For nearly half a century his name was known by every self-respecting football […]