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The Pittsburgh Pirates seemed poised to win their first National League pennant since 1909. They had taken took a big step forward in 1921. The emergence of rookie hurlers Whitey Glazner and Johnny Morrison gave Pittsburgh the best pitching staff in the National League by a wide margin.1 Perhaps more importantly, the offseason acquisition of […]

The Cincinnati Reds arrived in New York for a three-game series on June 1, 1904, with a 26-12 record, only percentage points behind the Giants, who stood atop the National League at 25-11. The Reds kicked away the opener 2-1 the next day, with a couple of errors in the eighth. In the second game, […]

The first game of the doubleheader between the Cleveland Naps and Boston Red Sox on July 19, 1909, featured a matchup of two pitchers who were swapped in a multiplayer trade before the season, but it was little-known Cleveland shortstop Neal Ball who stole the show. When Cy Young’s longtime batterymate Lou Criger was traded […]

For both major leagues, 1912 “was a banner year for streaks by pitchers,” as noted at the start of a SABR article on such accomplishments.1 Future Hall of Famers in each league had already tied or set records for consecutive wins as the Tigers prepared to face Red Sox ace Joe Wood during the second […]

Even before playing an inning of major-league baseball, Babe Ruth was something of a legend.1 Partly this came from his on-field accomplishments. At age 19, just before the 1914 season, he joined the International League Baltimore Orioles, signed by owner-manager Jack Dunn after Dunn saw him throw a no-hitter in a 1913 semipro game in […]

But Mr. Jinx was on the job, Determined he would slyly rob Young Woodburn of his fame; For, when V. Campbell hit the ball, He made Konetchy slip and fall, And spoiled that no-hit game. – L.C. Davis, St. Louis Post-Dispatch1   Perhaps it was a jinx. Perhaps nerves. Or perhaps just bad baseball luck. […]

If Red Sox owner James McAleer had made a bundle betting against his own team in Game Six, he may have lost it all in Game Seven when Smoky Joe Wood failed to deliver. New York had scored five runs in the first inning the day before. Now, facing Boston’s best pitcher, they scored six […]

The Chicago White Sox right-hander Big Ed Walsh “slobber-balled along,” gushed Windy City sportswriter Henry David, “his flow of expectoration kept up round after round.”1 Beat reporter I.E. Sanborn of the Tribune was equally excited about the hurler’s wet ones, declaring that Walsh pitched “steadily, deliberately, and carefully with his spitball breaking wonderfully.”2 Big Ed […]

Was Joe Giannini potentially the wealthiest player ever to appear in the Red Sox lineup? Joseph Francis Giannini was born in Drytown, Amador County, California, on September 8, 1888 (per the California Death Index – though according to his World War I draft card, he was born on that date in 1889). He had played […]

Hyland Gunning had himself a good education, graduating from South Orange (New Jersey) High School and attending both Andover and Princeton. [Gunning’s player questionnaire at the National Baseball Hall of Fame] He’d been born in Maplewood, New Jersey, on August 6, 1888, and he was a good size for a first baseman – 6-feet-1 and […]

A tremendous all-around athlete who was one of the Deadball Era’s best at fielding his position, Claude Hendrix was a spitball pitcher who posted three 20-win seasons, each with a different team, en route to a lifetime 144-116 record and 2.65 ERA. With a batting average of .241, 13 home runs, and 97 RBIs over […]

“There is something inspiring to discouraged ball players in the career of William Hinchman, of the Pirates. A man who had had his show and apparently failed, it took years of patient plodding before another opportunity presented itself.”1 That’s how author J.C. Kofoed introduced his Baseball Magazine article on Hinchman, who had an all-star-worthy year […]

Tight batting races are usually decided by one or two hits throughout the course of a long season. In the closest batting race in National League history, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols edged Colorado’s Todd Helton .3587 to .3585 to take the batting championship in 2003. Before that, the closest race in league history […]

The 1914 season was the fourth in a row in which a team with Josh Devore in the outfield went to the World Series. The speedy Devore was a great leadoff man for the Giants championship teams of 1911 and 1912, and played with the pennant winners of 1913 before being traded. He joined the […]

Right-hander Pat Simmons pitched for the Boston Red Sox in 1928 and 1929, appearing in 33 games with a career 3.67 earned run average, but never winning a game. He was charged with two losses. His surname was Anglicized. Unlike his contemporary namesake Al Simmons, who had been born as Aloys Szymanski, Pat Simmons was […]

Mike Maroth may be best known for being the last pitcher to lose 20 games in a season (as of this writing in 2017), but there was much more to his career than what happened in 2003. He toiled for one of the worst teams in history, the 2003 Detroit Tigers that went 43-119, but […]

In the early 1900s the fledgling automobile industry sought out connections to the national pastime. The Chalmers Motor Company presented a car to the most valuable player. Ty Cobb considered opening a Hupmobile dealership. According to a newspaper ad, “ ‘Hans’ Wagner, ‘Ty’ Cobb, Sam Crawford and other ball players ride in their own machines […]

Burleigh Arland Grimes, who pitched in four games for the St. Louis Cardinals at the beginning of the 1934 season, was born on August 18, 1893, on his parents’ dairy farm about halfway between the towns of Emerald and Clear Lake in northwestern Wisconsin. (Wisconsin records indicate he was born in Emerald, but he always […]

Right-handed pitcher George Shelby Smith enjoyed a very good year in the minors in 1925, going 17-5 for the Toronto Maple Leafs . His most outstanding achievement in baseball, he said years later, occurred that year. He hit an inside-the-park home run in the eighth inning of the May 30 game against Rochester, the only […]

Roy Partee’s career as a scout rivaled that of his career as a catcher. He caught for the Boston Red Sox for five seasons, 1943-48, and he scouted (mostly for the Mets) for more than a quarter of a century. He also managed in the minor leagues and helped win World War II. Partee was […]

Like his contemporary in the National League, Mickey Doolan, George McBride was the prototypical “good-field, no-hit” shortstop during the Deadball Era. Widely viewed as the best defensive shortstop in his league, McBride struggled mightily at the bat. A relatively large shortstop, standing 5’11” and weighing 170 pounds, McBride was described in the press as an […]

“Rarely has there been a baseball player as good as George Grantham whom it was so difficult to settle in one regular position.” — James J. Long, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph 1   George Grantham, 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds in his prime, was tough and durable. A perennial .300 hitter despite frequent nagging injuries, he had unexpected […]

With his brothers and sisters, Al Van Camp could almost have fielded two baseball teams. Edward Victor Van Camp, born in Lille, France, in 1871, came to America in 1884. There he met Alice Rose Van DePutte from Altre, Belgium. The two married in Moline, Illinois, in August 1892. And became a quite productive couple; […]

In 1928, right-hander Ed Carroll’s six losses did more to win him a major-league berth than the six games he won that same year. He went on to an undefeated rookie year, pitching for a last-place team. Edgar Fleischer Carroll came from Baltimore, where he was born on July 27, 1907, the son of William […]