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Blaine M. Thomas was born in August 1888, in Glendora, California — but no one has yet been able to turn up the date of his birth. His debut is easy to pin down, though. He started the second game of a doubleheader for the Boston Red Sox in St. Louis on August 25, 1911, […]

A superb gloveman, infielder Billy Clingman spent 17 seasons in professional baseball beginning in 1890. As a player he witnessed the start of Honus Wagner’s career, once cleanly handled 22 chances in a double header, and was the first Washington Senator to hit a home run. As a manager, he is given credit for developing […]

How many kids growing up have dreamed about playing in the major leagues and hitting a home run in their first major-league at-bat to win a game? Danny Sheaffer came close on April 9, 1987, while playing for the Boston Red Sox on the road against the Milwaukee Brewers. Having already passed the milestone of […]

After Fred Thomas of the Boston Red Sox left for the Navy in July of 1918, third base was a tough position for manager Ed Barrow to fill. Catcher Wally Schang played there on occasion, but the hot corner was mostly played by a succession of career minor leaguers. All had strengths and weaknesses as […]

Outfielder Al Shaw played from 1907 to 1909 with the St. Louis Cardinals, for nine end-of-season games in 1907 and for more than 100 games in each of the following two years. For the next four years he played in Single A and Double A, until he came back to the majors for the two […]

Quietly dependable though seldom spectacular for most of his five full major-league seasons as an infielder, Steve Yerkes grasped immortality when he played a central role in one of baseball’s legendary episodes. In the bottom of the 10th inning of the deciding game of the epic 1912 World Series, Yerkes raced home with the winning […]

George Grosart had a short and tragic baseball career. He played seven games with the Boston Beaneaters in 1901 before joining the Dayton Old Soldiers in the Western Association. He went to spring training with Toledo in 1902 even though he was suffering from typhoid fever, and died on April 18, 1902, just a week […]

A competent but colorless right-hander, Joe Lake had the misfortune of pitching for some of the Deadball Era’s worst American League teams. In six big-league seasons, he was never once a member of a winning team, and three of Lake’s clubs finished more than 50 games behind the pennant winner. Through it all, Joe labored […]

On September 28, 1908, at the end of his tenth game as an American League umpire, John “Jack” Kerin was coldcocked by a furious Chicago White Sox fan who broke his nose.1 This incident makes a fitting introduction for two reasons. It reminds us that Kerin worked in an era when umpires faced physical threat—and […]

Frank Truesdale was the classic journeyman player. Generally a weak hitting switch hitter, he was also something of a stone hand around second base, his usual position. Truesdale possessed enough talent to latch on to several major league teams, yet not enough to stick around long.   Lacking in physical prowess, Truesdale stood 5’ 8” and […]

In 1928, “Big Ed” Morris’s first full season in the major leagues, the hard-throwing right-hander was one of the top pitchers in the game. That year he won 19 games for a woeful Boston Red Sox squad that finished last in the American League, 43½ games behind the pennant-winning New York Yankees. Amazingly, Morris completed […]

Eleanor Callow was more than just the greatest power hitter in All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) history. On top of being the all-time leader in home runs and triples, Callow was perhaps the league’s best all-around position player. A speedy outfielder with a strong throwing arm, Callow ranks in the Top 10 in career […]

Midway through the 1898 season, the pitching-poor Washington Nationals engaged right-hander Charlie Weber, a versatile mid-tier minor league journeyman whose everyday position was mostly second base. Given a late-July start against the Chicago Orphans, the newcomer promptly demonstrated that he was not the answer to the Nats’ problems, yielding nine runs – and 19 baserunners […]

Infielder Bill Narleski may have lost some playing time due to serving more than three years in the infantry during the First World War, but he found that the Second World War gave him a couple of years he probably wouldn’t have otherwise had. His son Ray pitched for six seasons in the majors, winning […]

Native Philadelphian Monte Cross played short for the Phillies and Athletics during a particularly successful era in his city’s baseball history. After several earlier major-league stops, he manned the position for the slugging, first-division Phillies from 1898 to 1901. Then, jumping to the American League in 1902, Cross helped the Athletics to two pennants over […]

“He has nothing but a little curve and confidence,” Giants manager John McGraw said of his rookie pitcher Al Demaree in 1913.1 Yet after a late arrival to the majors, the right-hander contributed to four pennant-winning staffs over an eight-year career. Demaree also chronicled baseball, with humor and insight, as a cartoonist for several decades. […]

Two injuries defined Mort Flohr’s pitching career—one wildly exaggerated, the other all too real. Flohr, fresh out of Duke University and pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics, hit Babe Ruth on the wrist with his very first major-league pitch on June 8, 1934. Sportswriters inflated the event in later retellings: One account had the young left-hander […]

Saturday Night Live’s Garrett Morris popularized the line “Béisbol has been berry, berry good to me.” Long before that sketch, pitcher Bob Harmon was living proof of what a baseball career could do for the life of a player. He carefully managed his paychecks and invested in oil fields while still pitching for the St. […]

Jim Johnson may have second thoughts if he grew up in today’s era of millionaire ball players. However, the southpaw who pitched for one season with the 1970 San Francisco Giants, valued family and a desire to become an educator as more important values than remaining in the big leagues. Just as he did by […]

A scrappy outfielder, Nemo Leibold had a 13-year major-league career and played on four World Series teams, winning a championship with the Chicago White Sox in 1917 and another with the Washington Senators in 1924. Later a distinguished manager in the minor leagues from 1928 to 1948, Leibold is best known for passing through the […]

How about batting third in the lineup, between eventual Hall of Famers Max Carey and Honus Wagner, in your first major-league start? Frank Edington could rake, and he gave the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates an offensive shot in the arm for three weeks during the summer of 1912. Yet as it turned out, the 20-year-old never […]

Here are the SABR Bookshelf listings for Summer 2014. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Society for American Baseball Research, 4455 E. Camelback Rd., Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018. An e-book file will also suffice; please send the e-book in […]

Mention the corner of Michigan and Trumbull to baseball fans in the Motor City, and they will immediately think of Tiger Stadium. While it is true that the Detroit Tigers played in that storied park, at that location, from 1912 to 1999, the history of professional baseball at “The Corner” actually dates back to 1896. […]

Fans at the Polo Grounds decided that they had seen enough after eight innings of the New York Giants’ 1907 home opener. With the Giants trailing the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-0, thousands streamed onto the field, mingling with the players. Virtually no police officers were in the ballpark to preserve order. Frustrated fans in the grandstand […]