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Imagine an infielder who played his last game more than half a century ago, who appeared in 1,058 games and batted .262 lifetime. Probably only his family and his most diehard fans would know his name. But that’s not so in the case of William Richard “Billy” Cox. Anchoring the infield on three Brooklyn pennant […]

“I don’t care for Rockefeller’s millions and I have no desire to share Wilson’s honors,” Heinie Wagner once quipped to a group of players during a long, hot train ride out west. “But I would like to be as good a pitcher as Walter Johnson and always be able to pitch for a team as […]

Bill McCool was once one of the most promising pitchers in baseball – a teenager with a fastball that was often too much for major leaguers to handle. But bad luck and injuries derailed his career before he turned 25. William John McCool was born on July 14, 1944, to Carl and Dolores McCool. He […]

Art Shires arrived on the major league scene in 1928 with much fanfare, almost all of it of his own making.  The Italy, Texas native nicknamed himself “Art The Great,” once boasted that, next to Babe Ruth, he was the biggest drawing card in the American League, and frequently stopped passersby on the sidewalk to […]

Ed Gharrity was a player, manager, umpire, scout, and coach during his professional career. Invited to spring training with the Washington Senators in 1916, he made an immediate positive impression. Catching for the rookies in an intrasquad game against the regulars in Charlottesville, Virginia, he threw out four would-be basestealers in the 1-1 tie. That […]

Paul Henry Konerko was born on March 5, 1976, in Providence, Rhode Island, to Henry “Hank” and Elena Konerko. Elena, who worked in the medical field, was the first nursing director for Mission of Mercy (MOM), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization “dedicated to bring healing and wholeness to individuals in need through the practice of medicine.”1 […]

The first thing one might note in glancing at the major-league baseball record of left-handed pitcher Tom Borland is that his career line was 0-4, with a 6.75 earned run average. Was it a burden he bore for the rest of his life? Regardless of anything else, he accomplished something that tens of millions only […]

 Purchased by the Chicago White Sox from the Pacific Coast League near Labor Day of 1959, Joe Stanka was a 28-year-old journeyman in his 10th minor-league campaign. He appeared in just two games for the Go Go Sox, winning one, losing none, and compiling a 3.78 earned run average in 5⅓ innings of pitching. He […]

“When he pitched, he looked like a spider doing aerobics,” one witness said.1 Lanky right-hander Pascual Pérez entertained fans and infuriated opponents with his spontaneous, emotional style over all or parts of 11 seasons (1980-1985, 1987-1991) with the Pirates, Braves, Expos and Yankees. Perhaps best known for getting lost on the way to his home […]

Mothers will do anything for their children. If you were Patty Kendall, those selfless duties would have included hitting ground balls to your son Jason, sometimes for hours on end, until he missed one. “That was the deal,” said Patty. “If he missed one, I went in. He used to keep me out there for […]

Many famous major-league players had their careers interrupted by military service in World War II, and we wonder what records men like Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese, Hank Greenberg, and others might have achieved if it hadn’t been for those lost years. Furthermore, a large group of younger men […]

Outfielder Carroll Hardy played for four major-league baseball teams between 1958 and 1967. Over time he has come to be known largely for one at-bat, in which he hit the ball back to the pitcher in the first inning of a late September game of almost no consequence in the standings, but most of his […]

In 1981 the Smithsonian Institution hosted an exhibition called “Black Baseball: Life in the Negro Leagues.” A fair-sized crowd attended the exhibit when it opened on April 24 and Negro League stalwarts Buck O’Neil, Monte Irvin, Buck Leonard, and Judy Johnson were also on hand. According to the Washington Post’s report about the exhibit’s grand […]

In articles about Danny Boone adjectives such as little, tiny, short, diminutive, and sparky typically preceded his name. In retrospect the more important description was expressed by Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox in 1981: “Boone is amazing. He may not throw hard, but he knows how to pitch.” He added, “If Dan Boone weighs […]

Swift Canadian Mel Kerr made just one major-league appearance. It came with the Chicago Cubs as a pinch-runner in September 1925 as the team utilized the multi-sport athlete’s world-class foot speed. Yet, as is often the case, there is more to the story than that solitary moment in his life. Indeed, Kerr was ranked with […]

It’s the bottom of the ninth, and coach Otto Vogel’s Iowa Hawkeyes trail the Golden Gophers of Minnesota by a run. Manush, the Iowa hitter, fouls to the catcher, who went behind the Iowa dugout to make a brilliant catch of the ball and supposedly end the ballgame. However, coach Vogel is claiming the ball is out […]

During the fourth game of the 1927 World Series, Pittsburgh hurler Johnny Miljus threw a wild pitch in the ninth inning that scored Earle Combs from third base, completing a sweep by the New York Yankees. Perhaps the happiest player that day was New York shortstop Mark Koenig. His .500 batting average in the Series […]

Bob Emslie, National League umpire and newlywed in 1893. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)   Robert Daniel Kean Emslie, the least-known famous umpire in baseball history, made his earthly debut on January 27, 1859, in Guelph, Ontario, the fourth son and seventh of eight children born to Alexander and Mary Graye,1 immigrants from […]

Right-handed pitcher Chet Nichols Sr. showed tremendous promise early in his baseball career. The undisputed star of his high school’s champion baseball team, Nichols went on to shine in semiprofessional and minor-league ball. As a major-leaguer, however, he struggled. Hampered by injuries, the 5-foot-11, 160-pounder appeared in only 44 games over six seasons, 1926-1928 and […]

Si Burick’s byline adorned the sports pages of the Dayton Daily News in seven decades, from the 1920s to the 1980s. Over that impressive span, he demonstrated that it’s possible to have a big-league career without ever working in a big-league city. In 1983 he received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award “for meritorious contributions to […]

Left-hander Dean Stone spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, pitching for six different teams and compiling a career record of 29-39 with a 4.47 earned run average in 686 innings. His most celebrated moment was almost certainly his being the winning pitcher of the 1954 All-Star Game without officially facing even one […]

Ron Fairly was born to be a major leaguer on July 12, 1938. His father Carl had a 10-year minor league career and reached the International League with Toronto and the American Association with Indianapolis. The year Ron was born was one of Carl’s best seasons as he hit .302 and slugged .406 for the […]

Game Seven of the 1968 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals ranks among the greatest of all time. Screenwriters could not have created more drama. The two historic franchises had last met 34 years earlier, in 1934, in a bitter World Series battle that ended in a painful Game Seven […]

On October 14, 1965, the Minnesota Twins lost a heartbreaking World Series Game Seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-0. While the disappointment was palpable, there was every reason to believe the Twins would soon be back in the Series. The team had won the pennant convincingly with a record of 102-60, […]