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A fine major league pitcher for several years, Jim Brosnan wrote the first honest portrayal of the life of a baseball player. The Long Season and subsequent works have earned him continued praise ever since. His writings paved the way for many other players’ “autobiographies,” usually written with considerable help, and filled with more tawdriness […]
Clarence “Lefty” Russell was the most sought-after pitcher in the minor leagues during the summer of 1910. The Baltimore Oriole southpaw was the sensation of the Eastern League, baffling hitters with his crackling fastball, roundhouse curve, and elusive spitball. Russell’s domination of opposing batters quickly drew the attention of quite a few major league teams, […]
Matt Williams combined power with precision during his 17-year career in major league baseball. An All-Star third baseman, Williams hit 20 or more home runs for 10 consecutive seasons, winning four Silver Slugger awards. Defensively, he was a smooth fielder displaying a wide range and an accurate throwing arm, winning four Gold Glove awards. His […]
From manager Don Heffner’s perspective, hurler John Tsitouris drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Red Ruffing because “when you sent him out to the mound, you knew he was going to give you a good job.”1 Splendid likeness for a pitcher with a lifetime 34-38 record. Tsitouris’s tantalizing ability caused teams to continually try […]
Besides having had a key pinch-hitting appearance in the 1914 World Series, Larry Gilbert is arguably the greatest minor-league manager of all time. Managing for 25 years solely in the Southern Association, Gilbert’s record was 2128-1627, good for an astounding .567 winning percentage. His teams won the pennant nine times, won the Shaughnessy playoffs three […]
Kevin Gryboski pitched parts of five seasons (2002-2006) in the major leagues. The big right-handed reliever with an excellent sinker spent the bulk of his time with the Atlanta Braves. As of 2021, he owned the distinction of being the only player to twice pitch in all five games of a League Division Series, having […]
Dick Pole was a 6-foot-3, 200-pound right-handed pitcher who broke in with the Red Sox in 1973. Born on October 13, 1950, in Trout Creek in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, one of the few Yoopers who worked a major-league mound. Richard Henry Pole was signed as a free agent by the Boston Red Sox in 1969. […]
Frankie Frisch may have been playing possum, or just being coy. But after the St. Louis Cardinals won Game Six of the 1934 World Series, the big question was which pitcher manager Frisch would send to the hill for the seventh and deciding game. His star pitcher, Dizzy Dean, was coming off a loss in […]
Don Cardwell seemed the definition of a journeyman pitcher, but his career intertwined with the stuff of legend. He threw a no-hitter two days after being traded, he grabbed love beads off Ron Swoboda’s neck at the height of the 1960s culture clash, and Cardwell, who always liked to swing the bat, became the back […]
Having lost no fewer than nine pitchers to the armed forces during World War II, the St. Louis Cardinals invited 28-year-old rookie Ken Burkhart to spring training in 1945. Owning a 91-64 record in seven minor-league seasons, Burkhart became one of the season’s big surprises, winning 18 games, third best in the senior circuit. But […]
The first professional baseball team Jack O’Brien played for lasted only 14 games (they were 7-7) – the 1895 Troy Trojans of the New York State League. On May 22 Troy withdrew from the league, and the following day the Albany team was dropped from the league. The players dispersed, most of them, to other […]
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer was close to achieving baseball immortality, but he didn’t know it. It was June 15, 1938, and he was on the mound in Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field with the bases loaded, two outs, and a 1-and-1 count on the irrepressible Dodgers shortstop Leo Durocher. One more out and his name […]
Bill Veeck’s one-man carnival came blaring into Chicago on March 10, 1959. He and an investor group bought a majority interest in the Chicago White Sox from Dorothy Comiskey Rigney, granddaughter of the franchise’s founder, Charles Comiskey. The 45-year-old Veeck was coming home. He liked to say, “I am the only human being ever raised […]
The son of a Chicago policeman, Golden Gloves boxer, and “bonus baby,” Jim O’Toole would become a confident, competitive and highly consistent member of the Reds starting rotation throughout the early 1960s. The lefty made significant contributions to his team’s success in two of the most dramatic seasons in Cincinnati’s long major-league history: 1961 – the […]
Switch-hitting shortstop U.L. Washington played eight full major-league seasons and parts of three others from 1977 to 1987, most of them with a toothpick in his mouth. A product of the early-1970s Royals Baseball Academy, he played in three postseasons for Kansas City and started every World Series game for the franchise’s first pennant-winning team […]
As the owner of the Boston Red Sox for 43 years, few if any people have influenced the history of the team as much as Tom Yawkey. He was a man of immense wealth who spent millions on the Red Sox and on gifts to dozens of charitable organizations. He saved a dying franchise in […]
No essay-length biography could possibly do full justice to John Montgomery Ward. His life, both on and off the diamond, was entirely too eventful. His playing career was replete with notable achievements. When he joined the Providence Grays in 1878, an 18-year-old Ward was the National League’s youngest player. During the 1880 season, he hurled […]
As the first president of the Boston Baseball Association in 1871, Ivers Adams was the father of professional baseball in Boston. The Association’s baseball team was a charter member of the National Association during its inaugural season in 1871, played five seasons in that league, and then became the Braves franchise in the National League. […]
“You can’t win ’em all.” It’s said with a shrug, a human acknowledgement that nobody goes undefeated, that nobody is perfect, that even if you do everything possible sometimes you will lose. The origin of this phrase could be Connie Mack after the 1916 Philadelphia A’s went 36-117. But it could also be from Cliff […]
Lew Fonseca was a batting champion, a versatile fielder who played multiple positions, a manager, and a batting instructor. Off the field, he was an accomplished singer, radio announcer, and a film director and producer. But most of all, he was a promoter of and educator for the game of baseball, taking the technical resources […]
John Trautwein comes from a baseball family. His father Jack and brother Dave both played minor-league ball, and his son Michael, selected in the 13th round of the July 2021 major-league draft and signed with the Cincinnati Reds, represents the start of a third generation. John pitched in nine games for the 1988 Boston Red […]
The 1965 World Series moved to Metropolitan Stadium for Game Six. The Los Angeles Dodgers were holding a 3-2 series lead, and Walter Alston’s crew was looking to close out the Twins. Standing in the way of the championship was Minnesota ace Jim “Mudcat” Grant. Claude Osteen took the hill for the Dodgers. Grant, who […]
The archives of baseball are filled with the stories of players whose major-league careers spanned one year, others who played a decade or more, and an unfortunate few who only grabbed a cup of coffee, arriving after years in the minors and leaving after a scant handful of games that gave their careers a certain […]
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Baseball Research Journal No. 33 in 2004. If this was a real scientific journal and I was a real academic, the title of this article would be The Problem of Distinguishing Between Transient and Persistent Phenomena When Dealing with Variables from a Statistically Unstable Platform. But […]