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Adam Hyzdu was a multisport superstar at a high school known for superstar athletes including Buddy Bell, Barry Larkin, and Ken Griffey Jr. After being selected in the first round of the 1990 amateur draft, Hyzdu went on to have an interesting 18-year career in professional baseball. The slugging right-handed outfielder knocked out 273 minor-league […]

A flaky southpaw from California with a deep repertoire of pitches, Frank Bertaina spent parts of seven major league seasons (1964-1970) with the Orioles, Senators and Cardinals. Primarily a starter, he was in Baltimore’s bullpen for the 1966 World Series but did not see action. Frank Louis Bertaina was born on April 14, 1944, in […]

Speed and power made switch-hitting outfielder Junior Félix a top prospect, but his career was derailed by defensive deficiencies, injuries, and concerns about his real age. Félix was believed to be just 21 when he hit the first pitch that he faced in the majors for a home run in 1989. By 1994, however, when […]

For baseball fans in New England, the 1967 season is known as the “Impossible Dream,” and for Russ Gibson it was doubly a dream fulfilled.. After toiling in the minors for ten years, 1967 was the year he achieved his dream of playing for the Boston Red Sox, his hometown team. Baseball writers of the […]

“It’ll be kinda tough to do a story on me,” Don Lenhardt once said, “because I lead an ordinary life. Nothing really exciting ever happened to me.”1 For literally millions of people, of course, the opportunity to get a time at-bat in one baseball game would be pretty exciting, even if they were to strike […]

He neither slugged like Aaron nor pitched like Spahn, but Lou Perini made his own indelible mark on baseball history. In fact, one can argue that few men ever made a greater impact on the game without playing professionally than the construction giant who moved the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee. For a half-century from […]

Before the 1915 Army-Navy baseball game, 24-year-old Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower led his fellow Army cadets in the “Long Corps” yell: “Rah, Rah, Ray! Rah, Rah, Ray! West Point, West Point, AR-MAY!”1 Playing left field for the Army team was 22-year-old Omar Bradley. By a score of 6-5, Army defeated Navy for the seventh consecutive year […]

For nearly half a century, one man’s voice defined baseball in Baltimore. Chuck Thompson, referred to as “the voice of God in Baltimore”1 by fellow sportscaster Ted Patterson, was the play-by-play broadcaster of Baltimore baseball for nearly every season from 1949 through 2000. Cal Ripken, Jr. grew up listening to Thompson on the radio and […]

Johnny Antonelli, somewhat unfairly, is remembered by the incidents he was part of, instead of as an individual who had an impressive pitching career. Labels abound and, of the memories attached to them, controversies. He was, in the minds of many, a “bonus baby” who never paid his dues in the minors. A player on […]

On a warm September evening in 1995 at Baltimore’s Camden Yards, Oriole shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. helped restore America’s faith in baseball. The contentious nature of the previous year’s strike had left many of the sport’s dedicated fans wondering what the future held for their beloved national pastime. Following the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, the […]

At spring training in 1921, Branch Rickey, vice president of the St. Louis Cardinals as well as the club’s field manager, was looking over the rookies in camp at Orange, Texas. Turning to veteran shortstop Doc Lavan, he said, “Tell that bat boy to get out of the infield.” Advised that the “bat boy” was […]

Mike Cuellar was a four-time 20-game winner for the Baltimore Orioles, and the winner of 185 major-league games. He could also lay claim to being the one of the most superstitious players in baseball. “He had a routine and please don’t interfere with it,” remembered a teammate, Paul Blair. “He would walk to the mound […]

“An average day in the minors is far superior to the best day pulling green chain and risking life and limb in a stifling sawmill,” said Jamie Burke, commenting on his first seven years in the minors. “It’s my job; I’m getting paid for something I love to do.”1 That attitude is what kept Burke […]

Was it nature or nurture? Plenty of both figured in the life of Milton Joseph Bolling III, a former Red Sox shortstop who spent 43 years with the organization. He was born on August 9, 1930, in Mississippi City, Mississippi, while his parents were on vacation; but he grew up in a baseball town – […]

Mention brothers from the Dominican Republic who were major-league outfielders in the 1960s, and most people will understandably think of Felipe, Matty, and Jesús Alou. But Manny and Elvio Jiménez also fit the description. While Elvio appeared in just one game, Manny Jiménez spent all or parts of seven seasons (1962-1964, 1966-1969) with the Kansas […]

Del Pratt was arguably the second-best second baseman of the second decade of the 20th century. And his argumentative nature led The New York Times’ John Kieran to call him “the greatest clubhouse lawyer baseball ever knew.” Pratt was born into a well-off family on January 10, 1888, in Walhalla, South Carolina, near the Georgia-North […]

“It’s an unbelievable feeling to be able to contribute to a team like this. I see how hard these guys work, and when I come up here from Triple A it’s not a vacation.” — Andy Dominique, after his first major-league hit with the 2004 Red Sox1   Andy Dominique played nine games in the […]

Johnny Murphy was an ace relief pitcher for the 1930s New York Yankees who spent 18 years playing professional baseball. Murphy spent even longer in the front office, first with New England’s obsession—the Boston Red Sox—serving as a scout and then ran the team’s minor league operations. Moving onto New York’s National League expansion franchise, […]

From 1975 through 1982, Dennis Lewallyn pitched in parts of eight seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and Cleveland Indians. The 6-foot-4 righty totaled a year and a half of major league service time, going 4-4 in 34 games. “I threw a sinker, slider, change-up; did not throw a lot of pitches in […]

His nickname says it all: The Human Rain Delay. In the years before seemingly every big-league ballplayer stepped out of the box after every pitch to go through a routine of incessant equipment adjusting, Mike Hargrove was an anomaly and drove pitchers, managers, fans, and even broadcasters mad. “With machine-like precision,” wrote Bob Sudyk, “Hargrove […]

Baseball lifer Gaylen Pitts knows all about perseverance, patience, hard work, and fulfilling a dream. He toiled as a versatile infielder for ten years in the minor leagues and missed almost two full seasons serving his country during the Vietnam War before he got a chance on the big stage as a midseason temporary call-up […]

At 6-feet-4, and close to 300 pounds, Jumbo Brown lived up to his name.1 Part of baseball’s first wave of relief pitchers, the massive righty saw action in 249 major-league games, starting just 23. He compiled a 33-31 won-lost record with 28 saves and a 4.07 ERA. The Rhode Island native played with many of […]

This multi-purpose facility has been called “The Madison Square Garden of Puerto Rico.”1 Its use in boxing and basketball is a big reason, but the parallel extends to track and field, as well as political conventions. Baseball, however, forms an especially rich chapter in the history of Estadio Sixto Escobar (as it is known to […]

Had he achieved his dream of becoming New York mayor, Abe Stark would probably be best remembered for that. Instead, most people remember Stark because of his iconic sign at Ebbets Field. This article is #2 in a series of three about the Brooklyn clothier-turned-politician and that sign. It focuses in detail on the sign […]