Search Results

Though their demanding fans may disagree, the 1980s Red Sox were successful by most measures. While they lost a heartbreaking World Series in 1986 and suffered a League Championship Series sweep two years later, the team enjoyed eight winning seasons against only two losing ones. Their hitters outscored their opponents by an average of 42 […]

If laughter is the best medicine, then Lou Costello should have won a Nobel Prize. Costello’s legacy of laughter rests on a body of work encompassing burlesque, Broadway, radio, films and television. Its anchor is a baseball comedy sketch derived from a burlesque staple — straight man explaining to a friend that words known primarily […]

Despite winning three professional batting titles, outfielder Luis Mercedes played only 70 major-league games over parts of three seasons (1991-1993) for the Baltimore Orioles and San Francisco Giants. After retiring, he became a renowned hitting instructor in his native Dominican Republic. Luis Roberto Mercedes Santana was born on February 15, 1968, in San Pedro de […]

No one chooses to become a professional widow, and Eleanor Gehrig derived little satisfaction in being called one. Yet few ballplayers’ wives maintained a level of such prominence so long after their husband’s death as they had when he was alive. Mrs. Lou Gehrig was married less than eight years; she was a widow for […]

“We didn’t just want to win. We wanted to step on the opponent’s neck,” Mookie Wilson said.1 “What you saw was what you got, like it or hate it,”2 said Bobby Ojeda of the cantankerous New York Mets of 1986. Any championship team is pieced together over time, although it can appear that the success […]

Sportswriters treated pitcher Monte Weaver as a curiosity during his nine seasons with the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox. He was a college professor, a mathematician, a hypochondriac and – most radically – a vegetarian, according to the sports pages. Montie Morton Weaver was born on June 15, 1906, in Helton, North Carolina, a […]

In the baseball record books, Bob Neighbors was originally without a date of death but a “date of loss.” Now, most have the August 8, 1952, date of death but provide no indication of where he died. For books or sites that offer information on the place of burial or cremation, there is often a […]

The New York Yankees dynasty began with Jacob Ruppert Jr. When Ruppert purchased the franchise in January 1915 with his partner, the improbably named Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston, it was one of the American League’s most hapless teams. The previous owners, a gambler and a shady ex-police chief with Tammany Hall connections, had run a shoestring […]

After Hal Trosky retired in 1946, it was 30 years before his hometown, tiny Norway, Iowa, provided its second major leaguer in Bruce Kimm. But while Kimm exited the major leagues in 1980, the very same season marked the debut of Norway’s third – and perhaps most successful – player, pitcher Michael James Boddicker.  Born on […]

South Korean lefty Dae-Sung Koo was the 10th of his countrymen to play in the major leagues.1 He pitched part of one season with the New York Mets in 2005. Koo, who had previously played for 12 years in his homeland and Japan, was 35 years old when he signed with the Mets. In New […]

Nearly everyone knows of a person who is a natural. The classmate who barely cracks open a book and yet gets straight A’s. The popular student whom everyone emulates. The athlete who succeeds in any sport they attempt. The phrase “He’s a natural” has been used again and again to describe those with innate ability. […]

While growing up in Chicago’s affluent North Shore suburb of Glencoe, Ross Baumgarten hardly looked like a kid who would live the American boy’s dream of playing major-league baseball one day. “I was small for my age,” recalled Baumgarten. “I was only 5 feet tall and weighed 90 pounds when I was a freshman in […]

To say that Alexander Schacht was obsessed with baseball is to understate. He was possessed by it. Schacht was an undersized man with an oversized heart and love of baseball. It consumed him as he traveled from hamlet to hamlet trying to sell his wares as a pitcher. When he did finally make it to […]

Ed Ashenbach was known as the “King of the Minors.” Who else could claim discovery of Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Alexander? From 1890 to 1911, Ashenbach toured the minors as an outfielder and manager. During this period, minor leagues were formed and disbanded at a dizzying pace. “Ash” navigated these waters, […]

A onetime budding prospect in the Milwaukee Braves’ organization, Al Spangler drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn for his speed and pesky hitting throughout much of his early career. Seemingly in spite of the table-setting success of an Ashburn-like talent, Spangler often found himself on teams in search of a power-hitting slugger, […]

Pitcher Joe Berry was variously described as little, skinny, slight, bandy-legged, and pint-sized. Berry was officially listed as 5-feet-10 and 145 pounds, but Jim Coleman of The Sporting News wrote that “he was only 135 pounds and looks as harmless as a dead moth.”1 So small was Joe that in 1942 during an exhibition game […]

Clad in the uniform of his hometown team, Paul Molitor stood on third base after he collected the 3,000th hit of his major-league career. The first player ever to reach the milestone with a triple, Molitor enjoyed a number of memorable moments in a Minnesota Twins uniform through the final three seasons of his 21-year […]

Imagine an infielder who played his last game more than half a century ago, who appeared in 1,058 games and batted .262 lifetime. Probably only his family and his most diehard fans would know his name. But that’s not so in the case of William Richard “Billy” Cox. Anchoring the infield on three Brooklyn pennant […]

In his book The Boys of Summer, author Roger Kahn relates how even after leaving daily 1950s baseball coverage to write for magazines, his “journalistic identity, such as it was, lived with my [New York Herald] Tribune stories” on the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Robert Frost consoled him, telling Kahn that “nearly everyone has to lead two […]

Bob Cobb (1899-1970) embodied the American Dream. Rising from humble beginnings, he revolutionized both the restaurant industry and baseball entertainment in Los Angeles, California. His journey from a Montana boarding house to ownership of both the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant and the Pacific Coast League’s Hollywood Stars exemplified how vision, determination, and an unwavering commitment […]

The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series championship in 2006, their first season at the new Busch Stadium. (Kevin Ward/Flickr.com. Used by permission: CC BY-SA 2.0.)   Introduction The St. Louis Cardinals have achieved a level of success in Major League Baseball that has been outdone only by the New York Yankees. Through the […]

Editor’s note: This article continues from Part 1, on the New York Giants team ownership from 1883 to 1957.   Stoneham the Younger The narrative of Giants ownership had changed abruptly and dramatically on January 6, 1936, when Charles A. Stoneham died of symptoms associated with Bright’s disease. The franchise immediately passed into the hands […]

Greenlee Field, located in the 2500 block of Bedford Avenue, had its official opening on April 29, 1932, when the Crawfords hosted the New York Black Yankees and lost a tough 1-0 game. (NOIRTECH RESEARCH, INC.)   In 1931 the United States economy was drowning in the sea of the Great Depression, which brought nearly […]

Here are The SABR Bookshelf listings for Summer 2013. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: SABR, 4455 E. Camelback Rd., Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018. To ensure a listing in The Baseball Index — SABR’s online catalog of baseball research materials at www.baseballindex.org […]