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Baseball is different. Among the worldwide variety of stick and ball games, baseball (along with its cousins cricket and rounders) is different in that it is the player, and not the ball, who does the scoring – and the ball is often far away when the scoring is done. In field hockey, hurling, lacrosse, shinty, […]

Milwaukee Braves beat reporter Lou Chapman characterized the accomplishment as “stranger than fiction.”1 Jim Wilson, a 32-year-old spot starter who had almost been placed on waivers in spring training, tossed the first no-hitter in the history of County Stadium on June 12, 1954, when he blanked the Philadelphia Phillies. Described by Lloyd Larson as “one of […]

In the midst of the best game of his career, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Fred Frankhouse was just four outs away from every pitcher’s dream – a no-hitter – when Mother Nature intervened. Pacing in the clubhouse, “fuming with impatience,” reported the New York Times, Frankhouse wondered if he’d get the chance to etch his name […]

The Boston Red Sox hosted a Friday afternoon game against the St. Louis Browns on September 14, 1951. The Red Sox were still in the hunt for the American League pennant. They were just 3½ games out of first place, and had won a walkoff game against the Browns the day before when Johnny Pesky […]

Shortstop Johnny Rawlings had the game of his life leading the cellar-dwelling Boston Braves to their most convincing win in the twentieth century (to that date) by clobbering the visiting Brooklyn Robins, 16-0. It was the 189th game at the huge Wigwam, just off Commonwealth Avenue, and never had the home team won by that […]

When the 1969 baseball season got underway, the Cincinnati Reds’ fiery right-hander Jim Maloney felt that he had something to prove. For two seasons he had battled chronic shoulder pain that had taken a few notches off his heater. He was no longer the consistently overpowering hurler who had posted a 74-34 record over a […]

In the words of Stan Musial, “If I hadn’t come up to the Cardinals in the fall of 1941 and hit so hard, I’m convinced I would have been sent down in the spring of 1942 because I hit so softly.”1 Musial, the rookie most discussed in baseball circles, started slowly in spring training in […]

On September 7, 1923, Boston Red Sox right-hander Howard Ehmke no-hit the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park, winning 4-0 while walking just one batter. There was one Red Sox error, by left fielder Mike Menosky, and Boston turned a double play, meaning that Ehmke faced just one batter over the minimum 27. To make his […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds split the first four games in the best-of-five 1972 National League Championship Series. The defending World Series champion Pirates had cruised to the Eastern Division title with a regular-season record of 96-59, 11 games ahead of the second-place Cubs. The Reds (95-59), who had defeated the Pirates in the […]

In a three-game stretch in 1950, Boston Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams homered at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park on June 27, 28, and 29. His homer in this Wednesday night game on June 28 broke a 2-2 tie in the top of the eighth inning and won the game for the visiting Boston Red Sox […]

“Nice work, kid,” St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Rogers Hornsby said to Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Glenn Wright as Wright tagged Hornsby.1 It was the top of the ninth inning at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on May 7, 1925. The 24-year-old Wright had caught a line drive and stepped on second before tagging Hornsby, completing the sixth […]

“I knew it all the time,” said Yankees right-hander Allie Reynolds jokingly after holding the Boston Red Sox hitless in the first game of a doubleheader on September 28. “How could I help it? The scoreboard was right there.”1 Described as a “smashing triumph”2 by John Drebinger of the New York Times and a “mound […]

Half of the most famous version of the “Pretzel Battery,” catcher Heinie Peitz was a noted “coacher”—more of a bench jockey in modern parlance—whose mouth gained him nearly as much attention as his play. For nine years of his 16-season (1892–1906, 1913) career, he was a Cincinnati Reds mainstay. When he retired, Peitz ranked 12th […]

Mark Malaska served as a major-league baseball relief pitcher during two seasons. In 2003, the 6-foot-3, 191-pound left-hander broke into “The Show” with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He then joined the 2004 Boston Red Sox in their fabled World Series championship run. During his major-league career, Malaska appeared in 41 games and posted a […]

It is one of those records that may never be equaled, much less broken. For 75 years a handful of pitchers have come close to tying Johnny Vander Meer’s record of pitching two consecutive no-hitters. But it has proven elusive for even the most elite hurlers throughout major-league history. His first no-hitter came on June […]

In baseball history, few major leaguers have turned to sports writing as a full-time profession after their playing days. Sam Crane and Tim Murnane were nineteenth-century players who then wrote for, respectively, the Boston Globe and the New York Evening Journal. Charley Walters twirled in a half-dozen games for the 1969 Twins before becoming a […]

Bill Shettsline was the most identifiable face of the Philadelphia Phillies during their first half-century. After joining the team in 1884 as a ticket salesman, he soon became team secretary, before being suddenly thrust into a managerial role in 1898. Reckoning with cheap ownership, unruly players, and a baseball war, Shettsline nonetheless achieved a .548 […]

Between growing up on a dairy farm and working as a Federal crop inspector for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Jim Bucher wedged in 17 years of playing professional baseball from 1930 to 1946. Bucher was an infielder and occasional outfielder who batted left-handed and threw right-handed, and spent his better years in the […]

Ray Chapman is remembered as the only player to have died as the result of being hit by a pitch during a major-league baseball game. Chapman’s death in 1920 did not, however, make him the first major-league alumnus to suffer such a mortal injury. Infielder John Dodge, who played 97 games in the majors in […]

On October 26, 2005, at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, Chicago White Sox radio play-by-play broadcaster John Rooney was at his accustomed position behind the ESPN 1000 mic. It was Game Four of the World Series, and a victory over the Houston Astros would give the White Sox their first World Series championship in 88 years. […]

Perseverance is defined as “(continuing) despite difficulties, opposition, or discouragement.”1 Robert Louis Hartman was a model of the above. He persevered throughout a baseball career that began at age 14 with the semipro Kenosha Chiefs and labored through five minor-league seasons. A 20-win season in 1958 earned the left-handed pitcher a promotion to the Milwaukee […]

In articles about Danny Boone adjectives such as little, tiny, short, diminutive, and sparky typically preceded his name. In retrospect the more important description was expressed by Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox in 1981: “Boone is amazing. He may not throw hard, but he knows how to pitch.” He added, “If Dan Boone weighs […]

Although he was a four-time All-Star with the Boston Braves and respected throughout baseball as an excellent defensive catcher and steady hitter, Phil Masi is best remembered for being part of one of the most controversial plays in World Series history. During the bottom of the eighth inning in Game One of the 1948 Series […]

In the 1970s, three decades after his four-year major-league playing career had come to an end Johnny Welaj (pronounced “WELL-eye”) wrote to author Harrington E. Crissey Jr. to reminisce. “It was great to be associated with [Philadelphia Athletics manager] Connie Mack,” he said. “There are not enough good things that baseball can say of him. […]