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Derek Jeter entered the 2011 season 74 hits shy of becoming the first player to reach the 3,000-hit milestone while wearing a New York Yankees uniform. Based on his career tendencies,1 it looked as if Jeter would reach that mark during New York’s homestand between June 7 and 16, and sure enough, he entered the […]

Even by the Chicago Cubs’ deep-rooted standards of frustration, the second inning of the Cubs-Brooklyn Robins game of May 12, 1915, was one to forget. The Cubs committed four errors and a passed ball in the inning, helping the Robins to five runs and an early 7-1 lead at Ebbets Field. The home team cruised […]

The woman took her seat in the fourth row of the grandstand in the crowded ballpark. She had purchased her ticket at the last moment and she was unrecognized as she sat among the patrons in a crowded Milwaukee County Stadium.  Later on that evening, Mrs. Henry Aaron would cover her face with her hands […]

With Pennsylvania law still barring Sunday baseball,1 the Pittsburgh Pirates scheduled two games against the Washington Senators2 for Saturday, May 30, 1896, at Exposition Park.3 It was the first doubleheader of the season for both clubs, and a huge crowd was expected. The sixth-place Pirates (17-13) were looking to climb in the standings at the […]

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 […]

Duke Snider, the Duke of Flatbush, had a phenomenal stretch, blasting at least 40 home runs in five straight seasons (1953-1957) while batting .311 with a .407 on-base percentage and a .618 slugging percentage, yet did not win an MVP award. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   Sportswriters expected another duel between the starting pitchers, but Duke […]

In late January of 1901, American League President Ban Johnson convened a series of organizational meetings at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago. The purpose of the gatherings was to iron out the final details in preparation for the launching of his new major league. Seven years earlier, Johnson, a Cincinnati sportswriter, had become president […]

The Cardinals entered the 2 P.M. doubleheader with the Brooklyn Robins far off the pace in the National League race. Winners of only 50 of their 118 games to this point in the season, the disappointing club was sixth in the National League, ahead of only the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Braves. The third-place Robins, […]

A crowd of 34,078 showed up for Opening Day 2012 at Tropicana Field. A group of 120 season-ticket holders carried an enormous American flag on the field for the pregame ceremony. The 2011 wild-card banner was lifted to the rafters, joining those from 2008 and 2010. Jim Dundee, son of boxing legend Angelo Dundee, threw […]

From his debut in the majors to his fifth and final game spanned a mere 11 days in April 1947, despite his getting two hits in that last game. But Frank Strickland Shofner played nine years in the minor leagues. Though both were Texans, Strick Shofner was no known relation to pitcher Milt “Pinky” Shoffner, […]

Harold Wolfe is among the several baseball players from northern Ohio to make it to the big leagues via the minor-league Duluth (Minnesota) White Sox in the second decade of the 20th century. The White Sox player-manager from 1909 to 1916 was Cleveland native Thomas J. “Darby” (aka “Dook”) O’Brien (1876-1964). O’Brien recruited boys from […]

Norris O’Neill, one of three nineteenth-century baseball figures nicknamed Tip, made a name for himself on the West Coast, where he captained the Oakland squad for several years. He played and/or managed in the minors from 1885 to 1899. In his youth, O’Neill was an acclaimed catcher, but after turning pro he tired of 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 […]

Right-hander Elmer Singleton pitched professionally for 23 seasons — more than half of them in the Pacific Coast League, where he won 146 games and once carried a no-hitter into the 13th inning. Over parts of eight major league campaigns with the Boston Braves (1945-1946), Pittsburgh Pirates (1947-1948), Washington Senators (1950), and Chicago Cubs (1957-1959), […]

“I didn’t like how my baseball career ended, particularly because I was so young. I won only 19 games total. But I realized how fortunate I was to have made it to the majors. Not many make it. And how many guys who played for many years didn’t get to play in the World Series […]

Massachusetts-based contractors Lou Perini, Joseph Maney, and Guido Rugo became majority owners of the Boston Braves baseball club in 1944. In 1947, through a working relationship with Perini, Massachusetts native Joseph Cairnes shifted his career path from construction engineer, in the private and public sectors, to major league baseball administrator with the Braves. Perini, familiar […]

You could say that John Candelaria’s story is a tale of heartbreak, or a tale of unfulfilled promise, or a tale of self-destruction, and you might be right every time. On the other hand, how unlucky can a person be if he managed to pitch in the major leagues for 19 seasons? The Candy Man […]

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 […]

After his third year in organized baseball, 22-year-old right-handed pitcher Bill Burwell was drafted into the United States Army in 1917 and was assigned to the recently formed 89th Infantry Division, the “Rolling W,” and later deployed to Europe. During one of the last major offensives of the war, the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in northeastern […]

Remarkably little is known about Rooney Sweeney considering that he cut a wide swath during his short but eventful baseball career. We know that he was born in New York City on November 1, 1858, stood around 5’8” and weighed in the neighborhood of 155 but thus far have found no record of which way […]

Clara Díaz Chacón was a little girl who lived on a street in the fishing village of Puerto Caimito in Panama. A few houses up the road was an elementary school classmate. That boy’s studies ended in the ninth grade, but their paths crossed again when they were teenagers. They became boyfriend and girlfriend, and […]

“He’s either the poorest great third baseman or the greatest poor third baseman.”1 In perhaps one of the best non-Yogi-Berra quotes in baseball history, this was Branch Rickey’s assessment of Frenchy Bordagaray, a colorful outfielder/third baseman who played for several teams in the 1930s and 1940s. He was free-spirited enough to fit in with both […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Black Sox Scandal Committee’s December 2023 newsletter. Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, center left, and American League president Ban Johnson, center right, seen here in 1911, were friends and business partners when they founded the AL together at the turn of the 20th century. Two decades […]

Cheney Stadium is known as the “100-Day Wonder.” In 1960, it went from drawing board to a finished ballpark in approximately 100 days, just in time for the Tacoma Giants’ inaugural season in the Pacific Coast League (PCL). Since then, the ballpark has continuously hosted Tacoma’s Triple-A ballclubs, and is the oldest continually operated Triple-A […]