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Meat seems to have been the family business, and working with meat was apparently more in Dutch Lerchen’s skill set than baseball. Still, he tried his hand at playing ball, making the major leagues at least briefly as a shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. The year was 1910. He was born Bertram Roe Lerchen, in […]

Frank Mulroney came from Mallard, Iowa, a right-hander. He was born 12 days before the Boston Americans opened the 1903 season, on their way to winning the first World Series ever played. On April 8, 1903, John P. Mulroney, a retail merchant of groceries, and his wife Alice (Cullen) welcomed their second child to the […]

In 1909 Joe Bernard was a bookkeeper for Springfield Marine Bank in Illinois, playing baseball two or three games a week for local amateur teams and a semipro club in Gillespie, Illinois. The 27-year-old, 6-foot-1, 175-pound righthander had never played a game in the minor leagues. His chances of ever pitching in the major leagues […]

A versatile fielder who could play second, third, or short, Heinie Zimmerman rose to prominence with the Chicago Cubs during the early teens as a lovable eccentric whose aggressive batting style won the loyalty of fans and the respect of opposing pitchers. But despite winning the National League’s Triple Crown in 1912, the lifetime .295 […]

Bob Quinn was a baseball man for more than 60 years. He started as a player in the 1880s, although he never made the majors, and then became a business manager/general manager. At various points from 1917 through 1945, he held this role at the big-league level with the St. Louis Browns, the Brooklyn Dodgers […]

Otis Miller’s father, Henry Miller, may have mellowed with age; he started with the hard stuff, and then moved over to softer beverages. Henry’s parents both had come to the United States from Germany. Henry was the proprietor of a saloon in Belleville, Illinois, according to the 1910 census, but ten years later he was […]

Baseball scouts have historically thrived on anonymity.   They ply their trade in the game’s shadows, rarely drawing acclaim or notoriety.  George Huff was the exception that proves the rule.   As both coach and scout, Huff was intimately involved in baseball for some 30 years.  But in truth baseball was essentially a sideline.  Despite considerable success […]

Jimmy Burke, a coach for the 1929 Cubs, was the quintessential baseball lifer. A marginal ballplayer at best, he somehow managed to hang around in the game for 38 years. His long career as player, manager, coach, and scout began in 1896 with the Peoria Distillers of the Western Association, where he felt privileged to […]

Today Harry Steinfeldt is the answer to a oft-heard trivia question: Who was the third baseman in the Cubs’ famous Joe Tinker-to-Johnny Evers-to-Frank Chance infield? In his time, however, the .267 lifetime hitter was considered one of the greatest third basemen in the game. “Harry Steinfeldt, the Cubs third baseman whose glorious fielding kept the […]

Eddie Brown was a great hitter and a superb defender for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, and Boston Braves during the roaring decade of the 1920s. Over the span of 20 seasons in professional baseball, Brown patrolled all three outfield stanchions, covered first base one full season, and handled shortstop another. As a rural […]

It was just past the midpoint of the 1901 season.1 Pittsburgh had been in first place in the National League since June 11. At the close of play on July 22, the Pirates held a slim, two-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals. The next day, Pittsburgh began a three-game series against the seventh-place Cincinnati […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates came home from a six-game road trip to St. Louis and Cincinnati with excitement in the air on Tuesday, June 29, 1909. A new ballpark was about to be opened to much fanfare and the guests for the occasion were the 37-21 Chicago Cubs, led by manager Frank Chance. Over the past […]

The Chicago Cubs were clinging to a slim lead atop the National League standings in July 1915 when they hosted the Cincinnati Reds in a two-day, four-game series. Two sets of doubleheaders had been scheduled on consecutive days. The two teams had met the previous week in Cincinnati, where they had faced off for five […]

Cy Young pitched the first no-hitter of his career on September 18, 1897, for the National League’s Cleveland Spiders. His second was a perfect game for the American League’s Boston Americans on May 5, 1904. His third no-hitter was against the New York Highlanders on June 30, 1908 – and it was the second time […]

In The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams wrote, “I had a higher percentage of game-winning home runs than Babe Ruth.”1 Research shows that Ted Williams had 110 game-deciding home runs, among the 521 he hit (21.11 percent). Ruth hit 126 game-winners of his own total of 714 (17.65 percent). A “game-winning home run” is defined […]

George McQuinn led the offense as the Browns swept the Boston Red Sox, 9-3 and 4-3, in a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park on July 19, 1941. McQuinn’s 4-for-5 performance in the first game included the only batter’s cycle of the 1941 season. McQuinn, considered the best defensive first baseman in the American League at the […]

Philadelphia resident George McFadden was there bright and early. There would be 6,055 games played in the history of Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium decades later), and no one knows how many games Mr. McFadden attended. His claim to fame is that he was the first fan to enter the sparkling new and innovative […]

After 15 seasons of pitching for the New York Giants, many of them dominant, Christy Mathewson was clearly not himself as the 1915 season began. The revered “Matty” lost his first three starts, posting a 4.50 ERA over that span. He was reported to have taken up the spitball for the first time – though […]

The sixth game of the 1912 World Series was the one that produced the most controversy. Rube Marquard was the obvious choice for the New York Giants, after his 2-1 victory over Boston in Game Three, but there was some concern that “Marquard’s arm has gone awry.”1 If so, John McGraw would probably turn to […]

On September 17, 1898, Bill Phyle of the National League’s Chicago Orphans became the first Native American to pitch in a major-league game, whitewashing the Washington Senators, 9-0 at Boundary Field in Washington. In so doing, Phyle also became only the second Native American to appear in a major-league game, a season after Louis Sockalexis […]

Boston Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth, later nicknamed the Sultan of Swat, began his home run-hitting career in a game on May 6, 1915, against his future team, the New York Yankees. A crowd of about 5,000 visited the Polo Grounds for an American League matchup between the two rivals. (In the National League on […]

No one won. No one lost. Game Two of the 1912 World Series ended in a 6-6 tie after 11 innings. There was strong suspicion that by starting Jeff Tesreau against Boston’s best pitcher, Joe Wood, Giants manager John McGraw may have partially conceded Game One so that he could throw his two big guns […]

Boston Red Sox ace Smoky Joe Wood started three games in the 1912 World Series and was also called on for relief in the decisive Game Eight. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   Game Seven (in the sense of an ultimate game) of the 1912 World Series was actually the eighth game, A 6-6 tie in the […]

SABR Salute: Jack Kavanagh Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical […]