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Lew Burdette had been close twice before. He had hurled two one-hitters — in 1954 and 1957 — but the third time proved to be charmed as he no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 the night of August 18, 1960, in front of 16,338 fans. The day of the game had been a difficult one for […]

Unlike the gentleman who preceded him as baseball’s home-run king, Hank Aaron was not, by any stretch, a flamboyant figure. Babe Ruth brought excitement into every train car, barroom, and ballpark. His home runs were mammoth; his presence, electrifying. Aaron was the opposite in demeanor, bringing a quiet consistency to fans in Milwaukee and Atlanta; his career total bases […]

It is hard to find a more important date in Braves Field history than October 11, 1948. Not only was it Game Six of the World Series, a do-or-die contest for the hometown team, but it was also a chance for that club to take its biggest step yet toward reconquering the city it had […]

The Boston Red Sox won the game in the top of the first inning. They just couldn’t know it yet. They were emerging from a streaky stretch. They lost eight games in a row, then won eight games in a row. They had lost 8-7 on July 15 when the Tigers rallied for four runs […]

This Sunday night game, televised nationally by ESPN, started later than most night games—at 8:10 P.M.—and didn’t end until just before 2:00 A.M. local time on Monday. Surprisingly, when it ended, 5 hours and 44 minutes after first pitch, the majority of the crowd of 21,504 was still there.1 Those who remained couldn’t say they […]

Budding media mogul Ted Turner, who had obtained the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves games on his television station, WTCG, in 1973, purchased the franchise in 1976 and attempted to engineer an immediate reversal of its faltering fortunes. Turner dipped into the brand-new free-agent market and signed one of its trailblazers, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher […]

Henry Aaron won his first of two batting titles in 1956 with a .328 mark. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   After falling behind the Brooklyn Dodgers, 2-0, the Milwaukee Braves came back to win, 3-2, in 10 innings. This victory gave the Braves a four-game sweep of the defending World Series champions.1 Joe Adcock tied the score […]

Johnny Neun, the Detroit Tigers’ 26-year-old backup first baseman, was having breakfast with teammates on May 31, 1927. An article in the morning newspaper reported the unassisted triple play turned by Chicago Cubs shortstop Jimmy Cooney the day before, prompting Neun to remark, “I wonder how long it will be before anybody makes another one.”1 […]

“You see, it’s like this. You get the guy out a couple of times and the law of averages is bound to catch up with you.”  – White Sox starter Billy Pierce.1   Left-hander Billy Pierce led both leagues with a 1.97 earned-run average in 1955. His 20 wins led the American League two years […]

In December of 1945, several weeks after the signing of Jackie Robinson was announced, Branch Rickey tapped Mississippi native Clay Hopper as manager of the Montreal Royals.1 The hiring made a lot of sense. Not only was Hopper, who had managed minor-league teams for Rickey since 1929, a trusted field general, but he was a […]

The race for the American League pennant had tightened considerably. The Boston Red Sox came into the game just 2½ games behind the New York Yankees. It truly was a race. The Red Sox had been 12 games behind on the Fourth of July, seven back at the end of July, and as close as […]

The fourth-place Boston Beaneaters hosted the Chicago Colts at the South End Grounds for the finale of a four-game series on June 11, 1891. The Colts appeared to have no trouble in winning the first two games of the series, taking the opener 5-3 and the second game, the following day, by 9-7. In the […]

Babe Ruth put on a home-run show in his hometown on April 18, 1919. The Boston Red Sox pitcher-outfielder swatted four round-trippers in four at-bats during a chilly, one-sided exhibition game against the Baltimore Orioles. The Babe had begun to make his grand transition from top-flight left-handed pitcher to full-time outfielder and slugger. In 1918 […]

The New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds faced off in Game Two of the best-of-five National League Championship Series on October 7, 1973, at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. The first game had been a heartbreaker for the Mets. Tom Seaver went the distance but lost when Johnny Bench hit a game-winning home run in the bottom […]

Many surgical procedures or even surgical incisions are named after the surgeons who originally performed them. Having a medical condition named for a patient is uncommon, although silent movie star Rudolph Valentino died of Valentino Syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is better known as Lou Gehrig Disease. Of course, if Claude Elliot had a more […]

It was a Wednesday afternoon in May. The Chicago White Sox were in Boston. The season was young. Chicago (14-13) was in fourth place. The Red Sox were 11-13, in seventh place, but only five games behind the league-leading Yankees. The season was full of possibilities for both teams. The Red Sox had lost the […]

Pitcher Nick Cullop had already turned in two strong seasons in the minors, but it was his performance in Cuba in the fall of 1912 that cemented his reputation. A group of New Orleans Pelicans players augmented with Heinie Groh went to Cuba for a 12-game series. They only won four of them; those were […]

These days, a man coming from Gayville might be taunted in some circles, feted in others. There appear to be two Gayvilles in South Dakota, one an unincorporated place on the western edge of the state and the other a town in Yankton County in southeastern South Dakota. In 2010, the population was 407. In […]

The 1906 season opened for the Boston Beaneaters in Brooklyn on April 12. Making his major-league debut that day with Boston was outfielder Johnny Bates, a compact left-handed swinger (5-feet-7 inches and around 170 pounds). Batting fifth in the lineup, Bates strode to the plate to face Harry McIntire in the second inning. The 22-year-old […]

“Atta-boy, Frank”1, the slick-fielding Fordham University shortstop shouted to the diminutive second baseman with every successful double play turned on the practice field at Rose Hill. The oft-repeated ritual helped propel the shortstop to a major league contract before college graduation. More than 50 years later, when the shortstop-turned-baseball-coach-turned-Fordham institution had to retire, the keystone […]

Marty Keough came from a family with a deep sports tradition that so far encompasses four generations and both genders. His father was Cecil D. “Zeke” Keough, a star right-hander at the University of California at Berkeley. Marty said, “He beat USC, I think, two or three times in one year. That was his claim […]

Across the decades, baseball players from the celebrated to the obscure have traded in their spikes for movie or TV scripts. Some — Chuck Connors, Bob Uecker, and Greg Goossen come to mind — enjoyed careers in the entertainment industry as, respectively, the star of TV’s The Rifleman, a sometime film and TV actor and […]

Alabaman Leo “Lefty” Townsend is not the same Leo Townsend who was once a Hollywood screenwriter and alleged Communist sympathizer in the 1950s.1 Nor is he the same Townsend as Ira “Texas” Townsend, a right-hander who pitched for the Boston Braves in 1920 and 1921. This Leo Townsend pitched in seven games in September 1920 […]

One might think Ed Kenna was a genteel soul who overachieved in his baseball life by appearing in two games with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902. After all, the “poet pitcher” was a well-educated son of a US senator who authored two volumes of verse.1 Yet for years after his Philadelphia stint, Kenna starred in […]