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Russ Hall spent 45 years in baseball, starting with semipro ball in his hometown of Shelbyville, Kentucky. During his playing days, he was a baseball rarity. He threw left-handed yet played shortstop and third base. He went on to be a manager, umpire, scout, and owner. His final job was as secretary of the Association […]

John Kyle Mitchell’s big-league pitching debut took place exactly where he had hoped it would, in Fenway Park. It was an exhibition game played there between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets on September 4, 1986, to support Boston’s Jimmy Fund and New York amateur baseball.1 But he was not with the Red […]

Dick Fitzgerald’s left arm should be put on display in a glass case, if not donated to science. It’s known as the ultimate innings-eater. It has Satchel Paige wear-and-tear. It has an expiration date on it somewhere, doesn’t it? Doing a complete inventory, the Pennsylvania native has served up more than a million pitches, encompassing […]

On July 23, 2000, Marty Brennaman, radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds since 1974, was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest award bestowed on a baseball broadcaster. (Honored with Hall of Fame induction that day were former Reds manager Sparky Anderson and former Reds first baseman […]

The Newark Eagles’ May 5, 1946, season-opening game against the Philadelphia Stars, a 2-0 no-hit victory for Eagles pitcher Leon Day, soon spelled opportunity for a multi-talented college player named Oscar Givens. Shortstop Benny Felder made two errors in the game,1 and when the two teams moved from Ruppert Stadium to Delaware’s Wilmington Park the […]

Fans of two franchises that featured the ultimate in futility for so many years might find it interesting that right-hander Bill Fleming pitched for only two major-league teams: the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. He didn’t have a winning record for either. Though born Leslie Fletcherd Fleming on July 31, 1913, in Rowland, California, […]

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound right-handed pitcher saddled with the seemingly unfortunate nickname Pinky was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, as George Rowland Woods on May 22, 1920. Every standard source presented the year of his birth as 1915, but after being asked why he was playing high school ball at the age of 23, his brother Francis confirmed […]

To say that Alexander Schacht was obsessed with baseball is to understate. He was possessed by it. Schacht was an undersized man with an oversized heart and love of baseball. It consumed him as he traveled from hamlet to hamlet trying to sell his wares as a pitcher. When he did finally make it to […]

“Fred Wenz Provides Red Sox Mysticism” — how can the reader resist responding to a newspaper headline like that? The article in a 1969 issue of Boston Herald Traveler discussed “the Wenz enigma — a situation which has found Fireball Fred blinding minor league hitters and then getting bombed in the majors.”1 It wasn’t the […]

Becoming the third woman to own a major-league baseball club, Joan Whitney Payson marked history by heavily investing in the expansion New York Mets of 1962. The club’s first majority stockholder, she was also the first of her gender to purchase such an enterprise with her own funds. Born into considerable wealth, she used much […]

Arturo (Art) López had 49 at-bats with seven hits for the 1965 New York Yankees. He was the first player born in Puerto Rico to be originally signed by the Yankees and play for them.1 The outfielder was also the first boricua to play for a Japanese professional baseball team. During a professional career that […]

John Lyston was a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher from Baltimore, Maryland, who played professionally in the late 19th century. The talented tosser possessed an outstanding curveball that complemented his powerful fastball. Early on, John was a standout hurler in the amateur and semi-pro ranks in and around the Baltimore area. Word of his pitching prowess soon […]

He was equally as adept at coordinating pitchers and throwing out baserunners as he was as a leader and strategist in the dugout. However, Alfonso Ramon Lopez chose to credit his supporting cast of players for his successes rather than himself. Much like his mentor Casey Stengel, Lopez knew that he could not have won […]

John Kennedy listed two goals when he completed a questionnaire for statistician William J. Weiss in 1951: “To become a major leaguer & one of the greatest.” Kennedy completed his first goal. He earned a roster spot as a shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1957, becoming the first African American member of the team. […]

John Joseph Sevcik may have only 12 major-league games on his baseball résumé but those 12 games took place in 1965 when the Minnesota Twins won the American League pennant by winning a franchise-record 102 games and advanced to the World Series. The Twins lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, and Sevcik […]

After a rough rookie season with the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1933, Jack Knott emerged as a rubber-armed swingman-reliever. He appeared in more games over a four-year stretch (1934-1937) than any other AL hurler, and later transitioned into a once-a-week-type starter for the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Athletics. Like those of many players […]

In the 1890s, Paterson, New Jersey, was a thriving city of 100,000 people. It was known as the Silk City, because its mills produced large quantities of the fashionable fabric. Its minor-league baseball team was nicknamed the Silk Weavers. In the spring of 1896, co-owners Ed Barrow and Charles McKee entered the team in the […]

It was just past the midpoint of the 1901 season.1 Pittsburgh had been in first place in the National League since June 11. At the close of play on July 22, the Pirates held a slim, two-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals. The next day, Pittsburgh began a three-game series against the seventh-place Cincinnati […]

“You could see the skyline without the towers. You could see the smoke. Eerie. An eerie feeling,” — Mark Johnson on flying past Manhattan en route to Pittsburgh on September 161   On the morning of September 11, 2001, the early morning calm in western Pennsylvania was shattered when an airplane crashed into the countryside […]

In 2007, the Washington Nationals and Florida Marlins could only be considered “contenders” in the sense that they were contending for last and next-to-last place in the NL East Division. However, those few hardy fans among the original 19,278 who remained to the end of this game were treated to a memorable ending. Rookie Matt […]

Harmon Killebrew was the face of the Minnesota Twins during the team’s first 14 years in the Twin Cities. He hit 475 home runs as a member of the Twins, 244 of which came at Metropolitan Stadium.1 On this day, Killebrew was making his final appearance in Minnesota, wearing an unfamiliar Kansas City Royals uniform. […]

With a 100-54 won-lost record, the Montreal Royals finished the 1946 regular season in first place in the International League, 18½ games ahead of the second-place Syracuse Chiefs. The Royals were affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers and were managed by Clay Hopper. The most sensational player in the league was Jackie Robinson, the Royals second […]

There was bad blood between the second-place Atlanta Braves (51-39) and fourth-place Cincinnati Reds (45-39) as they prepared to open a four-game, three-day series with a doubleheader on Tuesday, July 15, 1969, at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. The teams were fighting it out in a four-team Western Division scramble and beginning their final week of action […]

A recap of the Emil Rothe Chapter meeting on June 21, 2014, from SABR member Matt Mitchell: On a classically hot and humid day to celebrate the summer solstice in Chicago, a small but fervent gathering of seamheads came together at the Lisle Library for an afternoon of baseball chatter. Rich Hansen opened up the […]