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The Milwaukee Brewers were playing .500 baseball through the first 60 games of the 1988 season (30-30). On June 12 the American League East fourth-place Brewers played the final game of a three-game series against the AL West’s fifth-place Chicago White Sox (26-32). Chicago had won the first two games, holding Milwaukee to a total […]

The 1986 season began with low expectations for Red Sox fans as the team was predicted to be mired in mediocrity. Once the season commenced however, even the most pessimistic Red Sox fan started to believe this could be the year…or at least began to take notice of this team. Dwight Evans hit the first […]

On August 9, 2009, Felix Pie became just the second Baltimore Orioles player to hit for the cycle in a Baltimore ballpark. In the game, Baltimore batters smashed a record nine doubles as part of a 19-hit attack and defeated the Anaheim Angels, 16-6. Orioles rookie Chris Tillman picked up his first career win before […]

A modest crowd of 9,018 fans gathered at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field on Saturday, April 18, 1970, as much of the nation was riveted on activities that took place earlier in the week many thousands of miles above the Earth. Millions of TV sets across the land were focused on the return to Earth and dramatic […]

When the New York Mets arrived in Los Angeles for a weekend series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in early September 1985, fans could be forgiven for feeling that the games were a preview of the National League Championship Series.1 The hometown Dodgers were running away with the NL West, 8½ games up on the […]

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 […]

On this crisp afternoon, the sky was a vivid blue, the grass and ivy were a radiant green, and the infield dirt was a golden brown. One color, though, was making its debut at Wrigley Field. For the first time, a Black baseball team would play in the famous ballpark, a hallmark of racially segregated […]

The New York Mets were on a five-game winning streak, their longest of the 2003 season, when they took the field on August 18, 2002. After beating the San Francisco Giants in the first two games of a homestand at Shea Stadium, they won the first three games of a Friday-Monday series against the Colorado […]

Joe Schultz, a catcher in his playing days, spent over 40 years in professional baseball. His career included five full seasons and parts of four others as a fringe reserve in the majors. That paved the way for 13 years as a minor-league manager and another 14 as a big-league coach. He was there for […]

Somewhere, back in the swirling mists of time, there existed a magical and wondrous age when aspiring athletes did not commit their lives to the fanatical and single-minded pursuit of one sport by the time they were five years old. Take, for instance, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, who were notable for having a number of […]

Known as one of the feistiest players in baseball history, Edd Roush channeled that energy into a Hall of Fame career. An old-timer was quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1919 saying that Roush was more like the fiery old Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s than any other player in the National League. The […]

Phil Gagliano grew up in a baseball-oriented family. Though his grandparents on his father’s side of the family hailed from southern Italy (Sicily and Calabria), and on his mother’s side from the Tuscany region, the second-generation Americans took to baseball whole-heartedly. Phil’s father, Ralph, who was a director of purchasing at a wholesale food business […]

Daryl Irvine worked in 41 major-league games for the Boston Red Sox in the years 1990-1992. He was a right-handed reliever pursued by both the Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays before signing with Boston. He won four games and lost five in his work in the big leagues. Irvine came from Grottoes, Virginia, […]

Luis Arroyo was a chunky little Puerto Rican southpaw whose out pitch was the screwball. He spent just four full seasons in the majors, plus parts of four others, from 1955 through 1963. He enjoyed modest success overall as a big-leaguer, but he had one outstanding season. That was 1961, when he helped the New […]

Longtime Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once wrote that Ralph Garr was as hard to get out as an impacted tooth.1 Getting “The Road Runner” out was an especially difficult task in his signature year, 1974, in which he won the National League batting title, hitting .353. This came after finishing second to Joe […]

Considering that his professional career almost ended before it started, Joe Sambito made the most of his opportunity. His future in the game teetered several times, but for a period of five years, 1977-1981, the left-hander from Long Island, New York, with a good fastball and a nasty slider was arguably one of the best […]

Righty reliever Kenny Greer’s 10-year career in pro ball featured two stints in the majors, in 1993 and 1995. In his big-league debut, he pitched a perfect 17th inning and got the win as the New York Mets scored the game’s lone run in the bottom half. His only other big-league decisions were both losses, […]

Puerto Rico and baseball. From the legendary Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda to Roberto Alomar, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and Pudge Rodriguez, the small island with only 3.5 million inhabitants has left an indelible footprint on the major-league landscape. As of 2016, the Caribbean nation has produced no fewer than 250 big-league players, including at […]

Texan outfielder C. L. Taylor was the first star of the new West Texas League in the summer of 1920. The “sphinx-like speed merchant”1 also led the Texas-Oklahoma League in hitting in 1922. At age 27, in the spring of 1925, he reached the majors but went hitless in six at-bats with the Chicago Cubs. […]

Even before he was born into this world, Mickey Mantle was being prepared for life as a future big-league baseball player. His father, Elvin “Mutt” Mantle, a former semipro player and a lifelong baseball fanatic, proclaimed that if his first child turned out to be a boy, he would name him Mickey, in honor of […]

There are many Moonlight Grahams. One is a quasi-relative of mine who signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians and made their roster but never got into a major-league game. Carter Hamilton was from a small town in Iowa. He was a pitching star at the University of Iowa and was signed to an Indians […]

Manny Mota never seemed to age. “He’s scary,” said Steve Garvey, his teammate with the Los Angeles Dodgers. “I wish just one spring he would show up with one gray hair.”1 That was in June 1979, a couple of months before the Dominican set the career record for pinch hits. Mota wound up with 150 […]

“There was never a more graceful player than Bridwell.” — Sportswriter Sam Crane, 19101   Al Bridwell was a natural in the field, one of finest defensive shortstops of the Deadball Era. Hitting did not come naturally to him, but as a member of the New York Giants, he became a solid hitter under the […]

Ebbets Field has been gone for more than half a century, but the place still has a remarkable grip on our consciousness. At least three books have been devoted to the lovable old ballpark in Crown Heights.1 Yet even these in-depth works don’t shine much light on what happened after the Dodgers left Brooklyn. They […]