Search Results

Nicknamed “Sure Shot” for his lightning quick and accurate throws to first base, Fred Dunlap was a 19th-century second baseman whose name has mostly been lost to time. Despite his lack of recognition today, Dunlap could have a fair claim to being one of the best at the keystone position in his era. A hard-hitting, […]

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?” […]

The fifth-winningest pitcher of all time, Warren Spahn went 363-245 over parts of 21 years from 1942 to 1965. Only by remaining in the game two seasons too long did he fail to finish with an ERA under 3.00 (3.09) and a winning percentage over .600 (.597), and his totals are all the more impressive […]

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 […]

“Funny thing, nobody asked me about my pitching,”1 said the hurler best remembered as the only pitcher to hit two grand slams in one game. Yet Tony Cloninger was much more than a great hitting pitcher. In the waning days of Warren Spahn’s great career, the Milwaukee Braves looked to Cloninger to step into the […]

“If we had one game to win, we wanted Leon to pitch.” — Monte Irvin   So much of Leon Day’s story is caught up in his last years and his long wait for the Hall of Fame call. For Day, who spent a lifetime exceeding at his professional calling, punching his card at every […]

How many major leaguers have started a full-fledged cult? Alfred W. Lawson did, with his “Direct Credits Society” and “University of Lawsonomy” – a bizarre belief system melding social welfare policy and quack physics. Along the way he also: Founded baseball teams and leagues; Invented jersey numbers and pioneered night baseball; Invented, built, and crashed […]

Ryan Garton is an example of a boy who grows up rooting for his hometown big-league team and dreaming of one day playing for it, and then, with the benefit of hard work, talent, and some good fortune, sees that dream come to fruition. Ryan Patrick Garton was born on December 5, 1989, in Clearwater, […]

“I’d like to have played in the Majors.”1 — Spotswood Poles   Spotswood Poles. One could not ask for a more memorable name. And with the unique appellation, not surprisingly, his name was misrepresented in multiple ways in official documents. The1886 Winchester, Virginia Register of Birth, the earliest official notification of Poles’ arrival, spelled his […]

On May 1, 1920, Boston Braves rookie pinch-hitter Lloyd Christenbury, in his first official at-bat of the season, beat out a bunt single in the bottom of the ninth inning of a 1-1 tie against the Brooklyn Robins, sending teammate Rabbit Maranville into scoring position. Unfortunately, the Braves could not push across the winning run. […]

In an era when the common impression of a baseball catcher was a sturdy player with bulging shoulders, a husky framework, and brute strength, the 5-foot-7 (many sources say 5-foot-9), 155-pound Ray Schalk did not convey an imposing figure behind the dish. But as John C. Ward wrote in Baseball Magazine in 1920, “Schalk is […]

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 […]

By the numbers, Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield’s start against the White Sox on June 10, 1996, looks like one of the worst games of his 19-season career. On a foggy night, Wakefield yielded a career-high 16 hits, along with eight runs, as Chicago steamrolled the struggling Red Sox 8-2 before a crowd of […]

The first frost would not arrive in Cleveland for another six days. Two thousand fans officially attended the pennant-clinching game against the defending champion Beaneaters. The attendance, slightly above average, was pretty respectable for a fall Wednesday afternoon game in northern Ohio when the home team’s pennant chances were long gone. Because the Spiders departed […]

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 […]

The Southern Tier Expressway does not lend itself to reflection or nostalgia. The six-lane divided highway breaks off from Interstate 81 in Binghamton, New York, and heads west, offering drivers — when construction allows — the fastest possible route to Elmira, Corning, the Finger Lakes, and other destinations in the Empire State’s southern and western […]

On April 16, 1915, an overflow crowd jammed newly constructed Harrison Park to witness a historic event: the home opener of the Newark Peppers of the Federal League, the first major-league club based in New Jersey in more than 40 years. And, sadly to Garden Staters, the last. When the renegade circuit disbanded the following […]

This article was originally published in the December 2025 edition of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. One of the unsolved puzzles of the Black Sox Scandal is the inclusion of substitute infielder Fred McMullin in the plot to throw the 1919 World Series. Given that there was little prospect that McMullin, a bench […]