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Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

Joe Heving was born four years later than his brother Johnnie, but made his major league debut 10 years afterwards. John was a catcher who played professional ball from 1919 to 1946, including five years with the Red Sox from 1924-1930. Joe Heving heaved for a living – he was a right-handed pitcher, an early relief specialist […]

What do you do, when at the age of 26, you discover you can throw a baseball harder than most professionals? If you’re Jack Kull and it’s 1908, you go to the local minor-league ballpark, climb a tree and wait until an opposing manager comes out of the ballpark after the game. You then offer […]

Variously referred to as “The Bryan boy,” “Bryanite,” “Bryan’s contribution to the major leagues,” “Bryan baseball star,” and “Bryan’s gift to the diamond,” John Hudson’s life and family centered around baseball…and Bryan, Texas. He was born in Bryan on June 30, 1912, and lived there his entire life. He remained there during baseball off-seasons and […]

His baseball ability was once described as good mouth, no hit. Not known for his bat but a solid glove man, Jimmy Smith built an 8-year major league career with his wit and his mouth. Referred to as “Serpent Tongue,” Smith rode a great ability as a bench jockey to remain on rosters while compiling […]

He entered this world on Friday the 13th and exited on April Fools Day. In the 37 intervening years, Rube Waddell struck out more batters, frustrated more managers, and attracted more fans than any pitcher of his era. An imposing physical specimen for his day, the 6-foot-1, 196-pound Waddell possessed the intellectual and emotional maturity […]

John Francis Hayden was the youngest of five children born to Irish immigrant William Hayden and Mary Buckley Hayden, from Maryland. He’s listed in baseball records as being born on October 21, 1880, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, though census forms all say he was born in October 1877. His father may have died […]

Pitcher Chet Kehn (pronounced keen) appeared in just three games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April and May 1942. He got no decisions and posted a 7.04 ERA. Yet he holds a distinctive position in baseball annals, being one of just 10 big leaguers to hit 1.000 in a career of more than one at-bat.1 […]

John Michael “Red” Corriden, the first-base coach for the 1947 New York Yankees, was a baseball lifer. From 1908 until he retired from baseball after the 1958 season, a span of fifty-one years, Corriden served as a player, coach, manager, and scout. The 1947 season was Corriden’s first as a Yankees coach. He was brought […]

Before signing a $100,000 bonus contract with the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, John Stephen DeMerit had been a standout athlete since he was a youngster. In the fifth grade he set a record for the 100-yard dash (12.1 seconds) at the Port Relays, an annual event held in his hometown of Port Washington, Wisconsin, 27 miles […]

A standout in three sports, he was considered one of the greatest athletes in the history of his college. Yet in his career as a professional baseball player, he failed to achieve stardom. Jimmy Stewart was seemingly a substitute with no position to call his own, but he carved out a 10-year career in the […]

Yeah, who needs a .300 hitter? Especially if you’re a perennially last-place ballclub. Outfielder Ike Boone hit .337 for the Boston Red Sox in 1924 and .330 the following year, with on-base averages of .404 and .406, respectively. The Red Sox finished in last place nine years in row, excepting only 1924, when they finished […]

It is fitting that Bill Sayles started his big league career in Boston. The Sayles family had come full circle. He may not have realized it, but he was not the first of his family to ply his trade in Massachusetts. His ancestors landed on Boston’s shore before Boston was Boston. The Sayles family can […]

Right-handed pitcher Merlin Nippert pitched six innings of major-league baseball for the Boston Red Sox in September 1962. He appeared in four games between September 12 and September 22. It was but a brief stint, yet he had made the grade and acquitted himself reasonably well as a big leaguer. Merlin Lee Nippert was born […]

When rule changes in the 1880s allowed pitchers to begin throwing overhand, and therefore much faster, a skilled catcher was a valuable commodity. The following summed up how Bill Traffley was viewed: “The one thing that makes Traffley a very desirable catcher is his indomitable will, his energy, and the desperate chances which he accepts. […]

Gambling posed a serious threat to baseball in 1919. Rumors of a “fixed” World Series were widespread. Owners of major- and minor-league teams were anxious to get control of the situation and restore the public’s confidence in the sport. “The very life of baseball depends upon keeping it above suspicion of any sort,” said Dr. […]

Left-hander Bill Walker overcame two life-threatening heart attacks by the age of 15 to become a big-league pitcher. He debuted with the New York Giants in 1927 after a mentally taxing seven-year journey in the minor leagues. With two National League ERA titles in three years (1929 and 1931), it appeared that Walker was headed […]

Catcher Jack Warner worked ten years in the National League and five years in the American League, ranging from 1895 to 1908. He caught more than 1,000 games, hitting a solid .249, with a .303 on-base percentage. One of the most noted moments of his career came when he assaulted his own manager under the […]

George Fox was the definition of a utility player. In the minors, he played every position – including pitcher. “Fox can play any position on the nine and do it well,” wrote his hometown paper, the Pottstown, (Pennsylvania) Ledger.1 When he made the major leagues, he played first base, third base and catcher. In addition, […]

When Cincinnati Reds pitcher Dr. Harley “Doc” Parker stepped onto the mound at Brooklyn’s Washington Park on June 21, 1901, it’d been five years since he last pitched in a National League game. Opportunities created by the American League’s transformation to major-league status paved the way for Parker’s return. Unfortunately for him, it was one […]

On the path to the 2004 World Series championship, the rain-shortened June 25 Red Sox win over the Philadelphia Phillies was notable in many respects. The 11-run margin of victory was the largest of any Red Sox game in 2004, matched by three other such games.1 Manny Ramírez had five runs batted in, the first […]

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 […]

St. George Grounds began as a paradise, created alongside the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, in what became the city that never sleeps.1 The centerpiece of developer Erastus Wiman’s resort on the northeast prow of Staten Island, New York, the Grounds were, variously, the last home of the American Association Metropolitans, the setting […]

As a kid growing up in Pasco across the river, being able to stand on the mound at Sanders Field was as big for me as going to Yankee Stadium. — Bruce Kison1 Sanders Field, circa 1953 (Photos courtesy of the Eastern Benton County Historical Society)   Sanders-Jacobs Memorial Field, originally known as Sanders Field, […]