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Orioles pitcher Billy O’Dell was surprised when he was greeted by a host of reporters after the American League’s 4-3 win in the 1958 All-Star Game. Two days earlier, he believed he had no chance of getting into the game, and now he was the All-Star Game’s MVP. “I had good stuff all right,” O’Dell […]

The Cincinnati Reds had endured a rough winter. Confessions of game-fixing tarnished their long-coveted championship. Three key players were holdouts. A beloved team executive passed away. But the slings and arrows of baseball’s fortune could not diminish Cincinnati’s celebration of Opening Day. As a record crowd overflowed Redland Field, the Reds opened 1921 by surging […]

Trailing the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League standings in July 1921, the New York Giants bolstered their lineup by trading for star outfielder Irish Meusel. In his second game after the controversial deal, Meusel sparked New York to an early lead over the Pirates, but the Giants also needed Phil Douglas’s shutdown relief pitching […]

The long history between the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates saw the teams play the first home game in Mets history in 1962 at the Polo Grounds and the first game ever at Shea Stadium. The Pirates won both, though for the record the Mets won the first game between the teams at Citi […]

National League hitting and scoring declined during the early 1890s, with pitchers like Cy Young of the Cleveland Spiders on the rise. To boost offense, the NL adjusted its rules in 1893, most prominently by increasing the distance between batter and pitcher to 60 feet 6 inches. In their first game at the new distance, […]

The last day of the regular season in the 1959 National League pennant race, September 27, ended without a league champion. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves ended the schedule in a tie. Los Angeles had bested the Chicago Cubs 7-1 on the final day and the Braves, hearing of the Dodgers victory, and […]

Throughout his career, Curt Schilling was known as a big-game starting pitcher who performed well in high-pressure situations. Appearing in four World Series with three teams—winning three titles—he compiled a postseason record of 11-21 with a 2.23 ERA, including a mark of 4-0 with a 1.37 ERA in five games when his team faced elimination. […]

“Ebbets Field just isn’t the same.” – Roscoe McGowen1 Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field was a special place for baseball fans of all ages. Baseball’s literature tells the story of the National League’s Brooklyn Superbas, Robins, and Dodgers – over 3,400 games in 45 seasons (1913-1957) and 28 World Series games in nine different postseasons.2 Ask any […]

Controversy and contrast defined Scott Perry’s brief major-league career. In 1918, his first full season, the Boston Braves and Philadelphia Athletics battled for his services, exposing the increasing inability of Organized Baseball to govern itself in the pre-commissioner era. Philadelphia retained Perry, and he produced a memorable rookie effort, becoming one of only seven pitchers […]

William Henry Wright, better known to the baseball community as “Harry” Wright, today strikes historians as, in the words of Bruce Markusen, an “especially underrated Hall of Famer.”1 Popularly regarded in his time as “The Father of Professional Baseball,” Wright’s modern legacy pales in comparison, though many of his innovations characterize the game that we […]

Ken Burns’s documentary Baseball opens with a line that characterizes the hard-driving spirit of Irish-blooded players like Jimmy Esmond, who came up in the early twentieth century. “The game’s greatest figures have come from everywhere: coal mines and college campuses, city slums and country crossroads. A brawling Irish immigrant’s son [John McGraw] who for more […]

William H. “Bill” Lennon was the first player in a professional major league baseball game to score a run. From 1871-1873, he played in 28 games in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, recording 26 hits and batting .215 with 13 RBIs. He also umpired 15 games in that circuit through 1874. Previously, […]

Born on October 17, 1859, in Hoagland, Ohio, a small town about 53 miles east of Cincinnati, William Ewing was the uncle of twentieth-century major league pitcher Bob Ewing and the older brother of major league pitcher John Ewing, with whom he formed a formidable battery for two years (1890-91) before John left the game […]

Red Shannon is one of the 53 players who played for both the Boston Braves and the Boston Red Sox. His career embraced five consecutive years in the American League, bookended by two disconnected years in the National, first for the Braves and later with the Cubs. Shannon’s debut was with the Braves, in the […]

Branch Rickey was “a man of strange complexities, not to mention downright contradictions,” wrote the New York Times’ John Drebinger. The great decision to break baseball’s policy of excluding blacks, for which he is justly praised, has, in recent decades, tended to overwhelm the highly negative image he had earned before that decision. He went […]

Every great city has its own great bar. Elizabethan London had the Mermaid Tavern. Paris has its Deux Magots. In New York City in the 1950s, there was no shortage of options, but for sports fans there was only one choice: Toots Shor’s. Initially located at 51 East 51st Street, across the street from Radio […]

In 1887, future Hall of Fame hurler Tim Keefe was interviewed and praised pitcher Charlie Sweeney. He regarded him as the “greatest twirler that ever lived, and that his equal does not now exist, and … never will.”1 Keefe was referring specifically to Sweeney’s 1884 performance, in which he won a combined 41 games with […]

Mark Clear was a hard-throwing righty pitcher who was released by the Phillies after one year in the minors but became a durable two-time All-Star after converting to a reliever. He played from 1979 through 1990 for the Angels, Red Sox, and Brewers. The 6-foot-4 inch, 200-pound hurler, earned nicknames “The Elongated Man” and “Horse,” […]

Two Long Islanders joined the Boston Red Sox in 1961: Carl Yastrzemski and Chuck Schilling. It was Schilling, a second baseman, who won the team’s MVP award that year. Of course, Yastrzemski went on to become a Hall of Famer and one of the most celebrated Red Sox ever, whereas Schilling’s big-league career ended after […]

Baseball history is filled with all variety of wonderful-sounding names. But has there ever been a more perfect name for a baseball player than Champ Summers? “With a name like that, you gotta be halfway decent anyway,” Champ would say years later. “If my name had been George, nobody would have noticed me, but Champ?” […]

A 21-year age difference was not the only thing that separated Frank Foutz from his older brother Dave. There was also a vast disparity in their abilities. Pitcher-first baseman-outfielder Dave Foutz was among the late 19th century’s most accomplished baseball players. Four years after Dave’s untimely death in early 1897, young Frank Foutz became a […]

Ray Kolp had an average fastball that appeared better when used in tandem with his assortment of spinners, most notably a curveball. His greatest talent came as a bench jockey. Blessed with a high tenor voice, he could easily get an opponent’s attention from the bench. But Kolp took it one step further. Veteran catcher […]

Tried and convicted of murder in a court of law, Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb hurled his best pitches from behind prison walls. The tall, lanky right-hander with a nasty temper and a taste for booze won just a single game as a major leaguer. He won 131 games while playing for teams based at the San […]

Although the home grounds of the Baltimore Orioles of the nineteenth century occupied several locations, the team found a permanent setting at Union Park between 1891 and 1899. Baseball in Baltimore began around 1855. In 1882, as a charter member of the American Association, they were known as the Lord Baltimores. They won only 19 […]