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In 1890 a record seven batters in the major leagues hit for the cycle. They were Mike Tiernan of the National League’s New York Giants (June 28), Bill Van Dyke of the American Association’s Toledo Maumees (July 5), Jumbo Davis of the AA’s Brooklyn Gladiators (July 18), Roger Connor of the Players’ League’s New York […]

As the Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins prepared to square off at Metropolitan Stadium on Sunday, June 20, 1976, neither team had particularly distinguished itself to that point in the season. The Tigers, at 26-33, were at least so far staying out of the American League East basement, where they had finished every year […]

When Boston Red Sox catcher Rick Ferrell hit a home run off his younger brother Wes on July 19, 1933, he was an unlikely batter to homer off the Cleveland Indians ace, since he had hit only nine home runs in five major-league seasons. In fact, Wes was more of a home-run threat than Rick, […]

It is the most dramatic of baseball plays, the walk-off home run. The exuberance of the hometown fans is immediate as the batter begins to circle the bases. Amid the gathering of an excited and victorious team, the home-plate umpire waits stoically to ensure that all runners have touched the plate. Game over! As noted […]

On the evening of September 16, 1988, in Cincinnati, a relatively sparse crowd endured a rainy night, moving the evening’s game between the Dodgers and the Reds well into the night hours. The scheduled 7:35 P.M. start was washed out, and for the fans in the stands and the players in the clubhouse, a lengthy […]

Until 2021 — the franchise’s 53rd season — no San Diego Padres pitcher had thrown a no-hitter. The Padres were the last major-league team to hold that dubious distinction. Yet they might have gotten one as early as their second year in the National League. On July 21, 1970, righty Clay Kirby held the New York […]

A combination of fine weather, a state holiday,1 the largest recorded crowd at the South End Grounds to date, and serious Boston batting made the Beaneaters’ 1896 home opener an event to be remembered for some time, although not for the quality of the baseball. In 1896 the South End Grounds in its third iteration […]

The Chicago Inter Ocean described it as the “greatest pitchers’ battle that has been seen” in the Polo Grounds.1 The Chicago Colts’ Bob Wicker emerged victorious, 1-0, in a grueling 12-inning battle with the New York Giants and Joe McGinnity. Sportswriters across the country praised Wicker’s performance and his string of 9⅓ hitless innings, apparently […]

He was such a green recruit that a hometown newspaper did not even know his name. Misidentified as “Nichols” by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Browns’ George Nicol made his major-league debut by holding the visiting Philadelphia Athletics hitless in a wild 21-2 victory called after seven innings because of darkness, though the real reason […]

During the 1889 season, rookie right-hander Alex Ferson parlayed pitching intelligence and an excellent curveball into a commendable record for a last-place team, the National League’s Washington Senators. He was 17-17 (.500) for a club that was hapless otherwise (24-56, .300). But a promising start went unfulfilled. It soon became apparent that the 5-foot-9, 165-pound […]

Long before Babe Ruth revolutionized the game with the home run, during a period when hitting a baseball was likened by some to swatting a cabbage, Harry Davis was one of the country’s most feared sluggers. Known today primarily for leading the American League in home runs four consecutive seasons, the right-handed Davis was as […]

Outfielder Al Shaw played from 1907 to 1909 with the St. Louis Cardinals, for nine end-of-season games in 1907 and for more than 100 games in each of the following two years. For the next four years he played in Single A and Double A, until he came back to the majors for the two […]

“Nature formed but one such batsman as [Dan] Brouthers and then destroyed the die.”1 — Boston Globe, June 3, 1889 Brouthers “is the best batter that ever faced a pitcher—bar nobody. He is the daddy of all hitters.”2 — Cincinnati Enquirer, October 15, 1893   One of the greatest hitters in baseball history, first baseman […]

Tom Hanks made sure we all know “there’s no crying in baseball.” In addition to “crying,” the words “forgiveness” and “compassion” seldom are used regarding the game. Yet those two words are central to the career of Win Clark. As manager of the South Atlantic League Columbia (South Carolina) Gamecocks in 1908, he was tasked […]

For nearly a quarter century, Gussie Busch simultaneously led a nationwide brewing company and the St. Louis Cardinal franchise. Nicknamed “The Big Eagle”, Gussie lived life to its fullest. His enemies called him profane, tyrannical, hot-tempered, a philanderer, and a huckster. His friends saw him as soft-hearted, congenial, open, personable, philanthropic, and loyal. In 1953, […]

Frank Meek was a six-game catcher for the 1889-1890 St. Louis Browns of the American Association. Although his major league stay was brief, it was not without distinction. Meek was the opening day catcher for the Browns in 1890, is one of only four players in big leagues history born in Bohemia, and the only […]

With his trademark dark glasses and red socks, Bob Addie, the son of a New York City butcher, was a respected and popular fixture on the Washington sports and social scene for almost 40 years. A columnist and Senators beat writer for the Washington Times-Herald and the Washington Post, Addie served as president of the […]

In 2019 Justin Verlander led the major leagues with 223 innings pitched. His workload was less than half of the post-1900 major league record 464 innings by Ed Walsh in 1908. And it was less than one-third of the all-time mark — 680 innings by Will White in 1879. It is hard to imagine a […]

Bespectacled right-hander John Podgajny jumped from a Class C league to the Philadelphia Phillies as a 20-year-old September call-up in 1940. He completed three of his four starts and issued only one walk in 35 innings, suggesting a bright future. The Phillies, however, were at the nadir of their long history, in the midst of […]

It sounds like a parody of Popeye, but the doctor was deadly serious when he told Oscar Melillo in 1926 that if he wanted to live he could eat nothing but spinach. Facing a potentially fatal kidney problem (Bright’s Disease), the 27-year-old Melillo wisely followed the doctor’s remedy and recovered from the disease, enabling him […]

A ballplayer can practice his swing, his curveball, or how he charges a bunt. Nobody practices an unassisted triple play. It’s a fluke, rarer than a perfect game. “That was one of the easiest plays I ever made,” Glenn Wright said. “I couldn’t help it.” Wright’s fluke came on May 7, 1925, when he was […]

The leading member of the 1947 Yankees’ catchers-by-committee group, Aaron Robinson was behind the plate in seventy-four games, more than any of his fellow backstops. But perhaps his most important role that season was helping groom his eventual successor, future Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. Aaron Andrew Robinson was born on June 23, 1915, in […]

No one confused portly right-hander Jim Tobin with hard-throwing contemporaries like Bob Feller, Johnny Vander Meer, or Hal Newhouser. “Tobin’s fast ball could not break a pane of glass,” opined sportswriter Arthur Daley in the New York Times. “He has two pitches — slow and slower. … He is the most tantalizing gent on the […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   The Pittsburgh Crawfords franchise, one of the most famous in the history of black baseball, was started in 1926 by a group of youths connected to one of Pittsburgh’s neighborhood recreation clubs. For […]