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It wasn’t your typical August day in San Diego. With temperatures in the 70s and a lot of clouds, it wasn’t the picture-perfect setting for baseball. For the Padres, it was their first year under the ownership of Ray Kroc, and the team was struggling. The Padres were 44-65 and in the midst of a […]

After 11 straight games at home to start the 1984 season, the Oakland A’s made their way to Seattle for the start of a nine-game road trip. The A’s had won seven games but were coming off a 12-8 loss to the California Angels the previous day. The Seattle Mariners were enjoying the best start […]

When the American and National Leagues expanded from eight to 12 teams in the 1969, each league split into two divisions, the East and the West. The division winners would face each other in the League Championship Series to determine the league representative in the World Series. The new alignment in effect replaced the term […]

The fourth-place Philadelphia Phillies seemed to have the upper hand on the defending World Series champion Milwaukee Braves once again. The Phillies had defeated the Braves in their previous five meetings in 1958, including come-from-behind victories in the bottom of the ninth the past two evenings. They threatened to make it six straight wins when […]

There had not been too many bright spots for either the Atlanta Braves or the Cincinnati Reds in the first few months of the 2016 season. Atlanta opened by losing nine straight ballgames, quickly took possession of the bottom spot in the National League’s East Division, and never left. With an 18-44 record, they hosted […]

The Cincinnati Reds, trailing the Chicago Cubs 9-0 after eight innings in the first game of a September 26, 1912, doubleheader at Chicago’s West Side Park, scored 10 runs in the top of ninth. It would have been the greatest ninth-inning come-from-behind victory in major-league history – except that the Cubs scored two runs of […]

The Washington Senators finished dead last in the 12-team National League in 1893, and a few changes were made for 1894. Washington parted with manager Jim O’Rourke and hired a new skipper, Gus Schmelz. “Prominent third baseman”1 Bill Joyce had been acquired from the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in February 1893 but refused to play for the […]

Labeled “a right-handed Eddie Lopat … [George Susce] was regarded as a junkman, just like the great [New York] Yankee lefthander.”1 The son, brother and uncle of professional baseball players who made their mark collectively over seven decades, Susce dreamed of reaching the big leagues ever since his days as a child selling scorecards and […]

Catcher Russell “Hack” Ennis played in one major-league baseball game. Though he did not get to bat, he was behind the plate when Ty Cobb got his last hit in a Detroit Tigers uniform. On September 19, 1926, with his Washington Senators ahead, 7-6, Ennis entered in the bottom of the ninth inning of the […]

Joe Burke broke into baseball with help from his wife, and spent the rest of his life in the game. He was involved in the business side of the game in both the minor and major leagues, and is best remembered as general manager and president of the Kansas City Royals teams that won six […]

On July 15, 2003, Ray Boone was taking in the scene at the All-Star Game at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field. “Anybody that’s not proud in this situation,” he said, “there’s something wrong with them.”1 As the patriarch of the first three-generation family in the major leagues, Boone had reason to beam with pride. His son Bob […]

Al Sothoron was a spitball pitcher and a master of trick deliveries. When the moist pitch was outlawed, Sothoron was one of 17 practitioners of the art who were exempted from the ban under a grandfather clause. Whether he continued to use other trick pitches, some of which were now illegal, is a matter of […]

When John Joseph O’Brien took the field for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms on July 25, 1891, he was “unheralded and unknown,”1 described as “a little pale-faced chap who looked as meek as a country youth fresh from the mourners’ bench.”2 He hit the first pitch he saw for a line single to right, then added another […]

It is hard to reconcile Henry Chadwick’s world of gentleman baseball players with the portrayal of New York City in Martin Scorcese’s film The Gangs of New York. One link between these two worlds was John Morrissey; immigrant, “wharf rat”, heavyweight champion, gambler, businessman, congressman and state senator. Morrissey is tied to baseball through accounts […]

For three years at the turn of the last century Nick Altrock was arguably the best left-handed pitcher in the game. His talent, pitching smarts, and extraordinary fielding ability helped him win 62 games for the Chicago White Sox from 1904 through 1906 and beat Mordecai Brown in Game One of the 1906 World Series. However, […]

As the end of the year 1894 approached, prospects appeared bright for Tommy Cahill. A college graduate on hiatus from medical school studies, he also had a season of playing major league baseball on his resume. And after having just batted .328 for the high-minor Eastern League Scranton (Pennsylvania) Miners, a likely return to the […]

Ken Holcombe was a Jehovah’s Witness who first caught the attention of big-league scouts at a tryout camp. A right-handed pitcher of modest stature, he was 5-foot-11 and listed at 169 pounds. Kenneth Edward Holcombe was born in Burnsville, North Carolina, on August 23, 1918, to Lee Polk Holcombe and Eula Pansy (Wilson) Holcombe. Lee […]

Tommy Umphlett had a superb rookie year in 1953, finishing second to the Detroit Tigers’ Harvey Kuenn, in American League Rookie of the Year voting. It wasn’t close. Kuenn received 23 first-place votes and Umphlett received the other one. Umphlett drove in more runs (59 in 137 games, compared to Kuenn’s 48 RBIs in 155 […]

There were 54 men who played for both the Boston Braves and the Boston Red Sox, but in all of baseball history, there was only one who played for both teams in the same year. That was Gene Bailey, and the year was 1920. He hit .083 for the Braves and after he was purchased […]

When Johnny Cash sang the Shel Silverstein song “A Boy Named Sue,” he was telling the fictional story of a boy given a girl’s name by a father who was about to leave him, so that the boy would grow up tougher and able to weather what life might throw at him. In researching Johnny […]

Howie Fox was a right-handed pitcher who spent most of his career with the Reds during the club’s franchise-worst stretch of 11 consecutive losing seasons. By the time Cincinnati finished over .500 again, Fox had been traded, released and tragically murdered. Howard Francis Fox was born on March 1, 1921, in Coburg, Oregon — population […]

Southpaw Ernie Koob attracted national attention in mid-1915 by jumping from college to the big leagues with the St. Louis Browns. Less than two years later, the highly-touted curveballer tossed the first no-hitter by a Brownie in Sportsman’s Park, in 1917. But he never achieved the stardom many expected, compiling a 23-31 slate in parts […]

Vic Correll made his major-league debut for the Boston Red Sox in the last game of the 1972 season. It was October 4 in Detroit. The season was a very unusual one; the Red Sox finished just a half-game out of first place. Detroit won the pennant. On October 1, the Red Sox held a […]

Seventeen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Monday, April 20, 2015. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. The date for the Jim Rygelski Research Conference has been set for August 22, however the venue has not been fully determined […]