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On July 14, 1953, the National League defeated the American League, 5-1, in the major-league All-Star Game at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. On that same date in another Midwest town, Decatur, Illinois, the All-Star game for a Class D minor league, the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League,1 was played at Decatur’s Fans Field. The game featured the […]

The White Sox needed a win badly. After splitting the first two games of the World Series against the Dodgers in Chicago, they lost the next two games in Los Angeles. Their backs were at the wall and they needed a win to keep their championship hopes alive. Chicago Tribune writer David Condon wrote that […]

A swarm of excited White Sox fans converged on the South Side ballpark’s neighborhood to wait overnight for the bleacher gate to open at 8 A.M. on Friday, October 2, 1959. Through an intermittent drizzle, they passed the time by watching television, ringing cowbells, and playing bridge.1 A male foursome from Pearl City, Illinois, even […]

On Friday, July 25, 1947, Crosley Field was packed with 24,430 spectators as the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Philadelphia Phillies. On the surface, that many showing up to watch a sixth-place team play the last-place Phils seemed curious during a season in which Cincinnati posted the lowest home attendance of all teams in the National […]

Federal League Park in Indianapolis struck fear into the hearts of pitchers – and it wasn’t just because the park was built on top of a former burial ground.1 The spanking-new facility, constructed specifically for the city’s Federal League entry, was the most hitter-friendly ballpark in the majors.2 Its dimensions were 365 feet down the […]

“The Reds were woefully weak with the willow, not being able to hit beyond the diamond and not scoring a base hit in thirty times at bat.”1 That was the brief description by the Boston Globe of Larry Corcoran’s no-hitter on August 19, 1880, the first of three in his career. These were the days before the phrase […]

Ballpark discounts and giveaways have fueled memorable moments, including some that certain teams would rather forget. In the second half of a doubleheader on September 26, 1942, after the New York Giants gave free admission to any child who brought scrap metal for the World War II effort, mobs of kids stormed the Polo Grounds […]

A quick glance at John Neuer’s line in the baseball encyclopedias suggests that he was just another cup-of-coffee major league pitcher who had a brief trial and failed to impress. But then a number jumps off the page and demands an explanation: in six major league starts and one relief appearance, Neuer hurled three shutouts. How […]

Billy Hamilton was the greatest base stealer and most prolific run scorer of nineteenth-century baseball, but few recognized his name when he gained admittance to the Hall of Fame long after his death. Bill James, who ranks Hamilton as the ninth-best center fielder of all time in his book, The New Historical Baseball Abstract (1999 ed.), remarked […]

On September 19, 1988, the Pittsburgh Pirates paid tribute to the Homestead Grays by hoisting a black-and-white commemorative flag over Three Rivers Stadium. The occasion commemorated an event from 40 years earlier, when the Negro National League’s Grays defeated the Birmingham Black Barons, champions of the Negro American League, four games to one in the […]

A small memorial park is all that remains of Lane Field, home of the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres from 1936 until 1957.1 Wind glyphs fly from three poles in the small park, each depicting a player from Padres history, a fielder, a batter and a pitcher. Ted Williams is both the batter and […]

If his only claim to fame had been giving a young pitching prospect named James Bell his nickname, “Cool Papa,” he would have perhaps been the answer to a baseball history trivia question. Had his sole contribution to the story of the game been that of teaching a young Satchel Paige how to throw what […]

When a reader sees the nickname “Wild Bill” associated with a pitcher, the first thought is that the fellow suffered with awful control. For example, Wild Bill Donovan debuted in 1898 and walked 69 in only 88 innings. Wild Bill Hallahan led his league in walks every season he pitched over 200 innings. In more […]

“A ballplayer making good in the big league, a handsome fellow in any company, his waving brown hair carelessly thrown back from his brow, his voice pitched in those taking North Carolina accents, was it any wonder that he found ready listeners?”1 Thus wrote the Twin-City Daily Sentinel (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) of George Suggs, whose […]

Remember Mathewson, Ames, and Donlin,Buck Ewing, Rusie, Smiling Mickey Welch?Remember a left-handed catcher named Jack Humphries,Who sometimes played the outfield, in ’83? — From Rolfe Humphries, “Polo Grounds.”1   By the usual baseball benchmarks Jack Humphries’ major-league career was the definition of forgettable: backup catcher with the New York Gothams and the Washington Nationals in […]

A decade before the Ray Chapman tragedy, another infielder from Cleveland met a similar fate. Charles “Cupid” Pinkney was playing for Dayton in the Central League, and just 21 years old, when a pitch from Casey Hageman of Grand Rapids struck him in the head. Pinkney died the next day and was buried in Cleveland’s […]

There have been few shorter major league careers, but minor league lifers would surrender a fortune to have had Walt Kellner’s cup-of-coffee experience. Kellner’s short stay in the majors was preceded by boundless expectations appended to the hard-throwing right-handed hurler. Most of those forecasts were rose-colored projections based on the 1949 rookie success of Walt’s […]

In March 1884, young pitching prospect Jim McElroy1 joined a contingent of ball-playing California hopefuls headed east in search of employment by a professional club. Before the season was out, McElroy achieved his objective, pitching for both the National League’s Philadelphia Quakers and the Wilmington Quicksteps of the Union Association. But success eluded him, as […]

Bob Smith was a shortstop with a strong arm and a weak bat who made himself into a pitcher when he was 30 years old and lasted 15 seasons in the majors. He was stuck on losing teams for most of his career, so naturally the highlight was a defeat. In 1927 Smith pitched and […]

Developing a passion for umpiring began at a young age for Dave Phillips, and baseball was simply in his family’s DNA. His parents met on a St. Louis baseball field in the 1930s while his mother, Helen Creamer, was playing softball and his father, Bob Phillips, was umpiring her games. Their son grew up to […]

Sandy Nava, the first Mexican-American in major-league history, was quite a bit younger when he entered the major leagues than the encyclopedias indicate, ten years in fact. He was actually 22 years old at the time of his debut with the Providence Grays, as a backup catcher for Monte Ward and Hoss Radbourn in 1882. […]

For about a decade near the turn of the last century, now forgotten Manhattan Field served as an important New York sports venue. Hastily erected in 1889 to accommodate a displaced New York Giants franchise and initially called the New Polo Grounds, the park was an early success, hosting good regular season crowds plus that […]

The Minneapolis Millers had a number of locales to hang their hats during their nearly 80 years of professional baseball, but the ballpark most closely associated with the team was the one described by former Minneapolis Tribune writer Dave Mona as “soggy, foul, rotten and thoroughly wonderful Nicollet Park.” In 1896, Nicollet Park replaced a […]

Editor’s note: This article was published in the Spring 2021 edition of “Beating the Bushes,” the SABR Minor Leagues Committee newsletter.   When major league baseball announced it had formed agreements with the Atlantic League, the Frontier League, and the American Association in 2020, it was introduced as a new partnership with independent minor league […]