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The Boston Red Stockings squad was one of the original eight teams when the National League formed in 1876.1 In 1883 the team changed its nickname to the Beaneaters,2 and in 1907 changed it once more to the Doves. Up to this point, the NL team’s success was confined to the nineteenth century, with six […]

“‘Finis’ was written to the 1927 chapter of the New York-Pennsylvania league yesterday afternoon as the season gasped its swan tones and passed on into peaceful sublime.”1 The Shamokin (Pennsylvania) News-Dispatch rolled out its purplest prose on September 12, 1927, invoking “swan tones” and “peaceful sublime” to summarize the hometown Shamokin Indians baseball team’s final […]

California starter John Candeleria pitched seven strong innings and the Angels got seventh-inning home runs from Dick Schofield and Gary Pettis and beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-3. The victory — which gave the Angels a 2-1 lead in the ALCS, provided some comfort to Angels manager Gene Mauch, who was ejected in the fourth […]

If there was one man upon whom manager Frank Selee could depend, it was Bobby Lowe. Selee signed Lowe to a contract in 1889, and for the next 12 seasons, Lowe capably played second base and other positions for Selee’s Boston Beaneaters. When Selee became manager of the Chicago Colts in 1902, he brought Lowe […]

“For weeks on end, the once fell bludgeonings of Johnny Mize were but a ghastly whisper,” opined the St. Louis Post Dispatch about the slugger’s prolonged slump in 1938.1 After bursting on the scene as a rookie in 1936, batting .329 and knocking in 93 runs, the stout 6-foot-2 Georgian laid a legitimate claim as […]

“Naturally we’re going to miss him,” said Philadelphia Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer about left-hander Curt Simmons. “No team can lose a pitcher of Curt’s caliber without feeling it.”1 In his breakout campaign, the 21-year-old southpaw made his last start on September 9 of the Phillies’ most exciting season in history since their last pennant, in […]

 Joe Oeschger, the ace of the Boston Braves pitching staff, cruised through the first eight innings of the opening game of a Thursday afternoon doubleheader at Braves Field. He gave up just three hits to the last-place Philadelphia Phillies, as he propelled the fourth-place Braves to a comfortable 6-0 lead going into the top of […]

When one thinks of home-run hitters and the Milwaukee Braves, Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews immediately come to mind. However, Joe Adcock, the hulking 6-foot-4-inch former basketball player at Louisiana State University, had the reputation of smashing some of the longest home runs ever witnessed. Although measuring the distance home runs travel has historically been […]

The New York Giants were once again in their familiar position of first place in the National League. John McGraw’s bunch were a dynasty in the early 1920s, winning back-to-back World Series titles against their crosstown rival New York Yankees in 1921 and 1922. In 1923 they saw the Yankees finally have the upper hand […]

America’s Memorial Day festivities in 1948 included parades honoring fallen veterans and doubleheaders graced by the heroics of World War II comrades-in-arms. At Shibe Park in Philadelphia, former Navy and Marine Corps pilot Ted Williams drove in three runs in a win over the hometown A’s. Cincinnati Reds portsider Ken Raffensberger, inducted into the Navy […]

When Cardinals right-hander and future Hall of Famer Jesse Haines retired in 1937 after 18 seasons with the club, he held the franchise record for wins (210), innings pitched (3,203⅔), starts (387), and complete games (209), and had helped guide the Redbirds to five NL pennants and three titles. Haines’s pitching records have all since […]

The Boston Red Sox won both halves of the Memorial Day doubleheader against the visiting Philadelphia Athletics, 10-2 and 4-3, but Ted Williams hadn’t helped much until the eighth inning of the second game. In the first game, he had gone 0-for-3, hitting into two double plays, grounding out 3-1, and walking a couple of […]

Moping about the lobby of Boston’s luxurious Hotel Statler, Harvey Hendrick began talking about the dreary, pluvian commotion outside. “Boston weather is like this,” he said as he and his Brooklyn teammates watched sheets of rain and sleet blow past the hotel windows. “Sometimes it stays this way for two whole weeks. And then it […]

After 51 seasons and a single pennant at the Baker Bowl, the Philadelphia Phillies moved house. In late June of 1938, Phillies President Gerry Nugent announced that his team would become tenants of the Athletics at Shibe Park. The declining condition of the Baker Bowl motivated the relocation and was probably no surprise to baseball […]

As Boston Herald sportswriter Burton Whitman saw the preseason matchup, “It was the first time in 18 years that Boston teams engaged in Civil War.” However, as Boston Globe sportswriter James C. O’Leary averred, “It will be the first time these two clubs have come together since the days of Old Cy Young and Young […]

From the 1960s until his death in 1991, Bert Convy was a household name with an authentic nice-guy persona. But before that, he was a minor-league baseball player. It was not well known to the millions of people who knew him as an entertainer—game show host, actor, and, briefly, member of a 1950s rock group […]

The once thick and perfectly groomed dark hair grew thin and gray over a professional career spanning a remarkable sixty-nine years. From 1920 to 1989, Johnny Neun served in the capacities of player, coach, manager, instructor and scout. Along the way, he earned a reputation as a great baseball mind, an excellent storyteller, and an […]

James Henry “Jimmy” Bannon was born on May 5, 1871, in Amesbury, Massachusetts. He grew up in Saugus, Massachusetts, where he played ball with his brothers Tom, George, and William. Tom Bannon also became a professional ballplayer and played two seasons with the New York Giants (1895, 1896). George and William never made it out […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Like a host of other marginal talents, pitcher John Connor owes his place in major league player ranks largely to the profusion of clubs accorded major league status during the 1884 season. At one time or other that year, no fewer than 33 different organizations claimed a National League, American Association, or Union Association franchise. […]

In 1937 rookie outfielder Gibby Brack captured the imagination of the baseball world with a 12-game hitting streak in the first two weeks of his major-league career, topping the National League in hitting. “There is power in his swing and speed in his legs,” exclaimed The Sporting News. “[H]e started out to make good for […]

This article was published in the June 2015 issue of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee newsletter.   On September 28, 1920, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Hartley Replogle announced, “We are going after the gamblers now. There will be indictments in a few days against men in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and other […]