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Popular wherever he played, Bud Sharpe showed great promise on the field and later as a manager, only to die in his prime. A tall and energetic man, the slender Sharpe stood 6′ 1″ and weighed 170 pounds. A right-hander, he was a minor figure in his 165-game major league career, posting a .222 average […]

Hooty Phillips, father of Lefty Phillips. (Courtesy of the Nashville Metro Archives)   The John William “Lefty” Phillips story begins with another ballplayer, his father, John “Hooty” Phillips.1 Father and son played for their hometown Nashville Elite Giants, among other teams. Neither Hooty nor Lefty Phillips is especially well-known, although Hooty Phillips had a longer […]

Joe Cascarella was the son of a fruit merchant and grocer who had come to America from Italy in 1886. Joseph and Freda Cascarella were both Italian natives, and they gave their four children standard biblical names: Mary, James, Joseph, and John. The younger Joe’s 2002 obituary in the Baltimore Sun characterized his father as […]

Failed phenoms are commonplace in baseball, since it is the game of failure. Dick Wakefield, the first bonus baby, was the most expensive flop the game had ever seen. When he signed with the Tigers in 1941, he was hailed as another Ted Williams, even — blasphemy in Detroit — the second coming of Ty […]

In 1970 sportswriter Ted Blackman quipped, “If John Bateman bought a pumpkin farm, they’d cancel Halloween.”[fn]“Hustling Bateman Frets in Hospital Bed,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1970, 24.[/fn] The luckless reference was to the cursed timing of a kidney injury that hospitalized the Montreal Expos starting catcher two days before the start of the 1970 […]

In 1989, following his junior year of high school, 16-year-old Marc Newfield led his Orange County, California-based Mickey Mantle League team to a national championship. That summer, Newfield demonstrated such prodigious power that his teammates nicknamed him “Captain Crunch.”1 One teammate recalled, “You should have seen him in the league. He just bombed balls … […]

The 1983 film National Lampoon’s Vacation introduced moviegoers around the world to Walley World, a fictitious Southern California amusement park billed as “America’s favorite family fun place.” The film depicts Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, leading his family on a cross-country journey from the suburbs of Chicago to Walley World. Following an everything-that-can-go wrong-does-go-wrong […]

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” This remark has been credited (dubiously) to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, a contemporary of Boston pitcher Jim Sullivan. This saying could apply to Sullivan starting in the mid-1890s, when he experienced deep sorrow repeatedly. At least […]

“I got the name Show Boat in St. Louis with the Cards in 1930,” wrote George “Showboat” Fisher in a 1985 letter. “The show ‘Showboat’ was in St. Louis most of the summer, the fans liked what they saw, so they started to call me ‘Show Boat.’ I hit .374 to lead the club, and we won […]

Orel Hershiser set a major-league record by pitching 59 consecutive scoreless innings in 1988, but he was well behind the mark established by Oliver “Rube” Faulkner, who pitched 78 consecutive scoreless innings in 1903 for the Wilmington (Delaware) Athletics.1 Faulkner was an enigma. A right-hander blessed with talent, he declined opportunities to pitch in the […]

Bill Phillips’s professional baseball career spanned a quarter century from 1890 to 1915. A right-handed pitcher, he was a five-time 20-game winner in the minors and pitched for the Cincinnati Reds for six seasons. A smart and respected baseball man, Phillips managed several teams, most notably the Indianapolis Hoosiers, champions of the Federal League in […]

“(For Dykstra) no dare was too bold, no drink too strong, no car too fast, no poker hand too big.”  — Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won!1 “The Dude would be an experience even if it had nothing to do with baseball. You could meet the Dude away from the field and come […]

Although he was never provided the steady playing time he felt he needed to establish himself as a regular outfielder, Kevin Romine forged a career as a utility outfielder for the Boston Red Sox for six seasons. However, Romine’s lasting legacy in professional baseball may not be as a player, but as a father; both […]

Dave Roberts stole that base in the ALCS. Doug Mientkiewicz caught the last out of the World Series. Trot Nixon was a perennial Red Sox fan favorite whose dirty uniform symbolized an unrestrained style of play. Nomar Garciaparra’s sweet swing won consecutive batting titles (1999, 2000) and made the Fenway faithful swoon. Super-utility César Crespo, […]

In addition to being a pretty good pitcher and the first German-born player in the major leagues, Charles Getzien had one of the better nicknames in nineteenth-century baseball: Pretzels or Pretzel Twirler. Before becoming a Boston Beaneater, Getzien gained prominence as a star for the Detroit Wolverines of the National League, winning a championship with […]

Jimmy Hart played roughly half of one major-league season, that as a switch-hitting, left-handed-throwing first baseman under John McGraw with the 1901 Baltimore Orioles. His season ended prematurely when he was fined and suspended by American League President Ban Johnson for punching umpire John Haskell. A short time after rejoining the team, upset that the […]

On April 11, 1912, the New York American League club opened its season at Hilltop Park in New York City with a new official team nickname, the Yankees. For the first time in the club’s history, the players wore pinstriped home uniforms. The team also welcomed a new manager, Harry Wolverton. He preferred the team’s […]

“I have never seen a pitcher like him, and I have caught some of the best in the business.” – Frank Duncan1 “That Rogan can beat you, even when you pitch around him.” – Candy Jim Taylor2   How good was Bullet Rogan, also known as Bullet Joe Rogan? If the baseball gods were kind, […]

If you came to the ballpark hoping to see something you hadn’t seen before, then this was the right game. Position player pitching? Check. Pitcher hitting a home run? Check. Pitcher with two hits in an inning? Check. Fan interference? Dancing in the dugout? Overturned call on replay review? Triples? Stolen bases? Double plays? Bases-loaded […]

On September 3, 1964, Don Larsen of the lowly Houston Colt .45s tossed a four-hit shutout against the first-place Philadelphia Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.1 Larsen allowed only six baserunners en route to his first whitewash in more than five years.2 Phillies third baseman Dick Allen, who was favored to win the National […]

To fans who followed major-league baseball in the 1970s and 1980s, the name Kent Tekulve often summons very specific images. They think of a lanky pitcher with a string-bean build, a professorial bespectacled appearance, and a distinctive submarine delivery. And they generally picture him in a closing or short-relief role. The latter memory is supported […]

After three seasons as a Cleveland Indians coach, former big-league catcher Wally Schang was looking for a challenge. It had been almost eight years since his last major-league game, and he was itching to get back into active duty.1 The 49-year-old Schang made an unorthodox move. He signed on to become the player-manager of the […]

Federal League Park in Indianapolis, looking in from the right-field fence. (Indianapolis News, January 27, 1917)   Specifically constructed in 1914 to serve as the home field for the Indianapolis Hoosiers, Federal League Park was a state-of-the-art steel and concrete stadium with a seating capacity in excess of 20,000. Only three years later, the handsome […]

Days before the start of the 1889 National League season, New York Governor David Hill vetoed legislation that would have rescued the Polo Grounds from imminent demolition by New York City officials. With his club’s ballpark lost, New York Giants principal owner John B. Day activated his fallback plan. Until Day could build a new […]