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Bill Shettsline must have been delighted. Peering through a knothole in a fence around a baseball park, the Philadelphia Phillies business manager was getting a chance to scout a left-handed pitcher who was making headlines in the semipro leagues around Philadelphia. And he was doing it without leaving the confines of the city. The only […]

Andy Coakley is remembered most as “Lou Gehrig’s coach” in his 37 years as head of Columbia University’s baseball program. But this overlooks his extensive influence on the game. Once a promising right-hander with Connie Mack’s Athletics in the early 20th century, Coakley was also a labor pioneer, a forward-thinking league organizer, a team owner, […]

During the first decade of the Deadball Era, the Chicago Cubs boasted eight different pitchers who posted 20-win seasons for the club.1 Perhaps the least known of them is Bob Wicker, a strapping 26-year-old right-hander who went 20-9 in 1903. Unhappily for Wicker, he was traded to Cincinnati early in the 1906 campaign, thus missing […]

Any pitcher who strikes out more than 450 batters in a single season is going to attract attention. Left-hander Bill Kennedy is credited as having struck out 456 in 280 innings of work for the Rocky Mount Rocks in 1946.1 Yes, it was Class-D baseball, but it was still quite an accomplishment. He was the […]

The year 1959 was Jerry Mallett’s best year in baseball. He had his best year in minor-league baseball and he also had the opportunity to play four games of major-league ball for the Boston Red Sox. Mallett later earned a doctorate and became a successful educator and school administrator, and worked his way up to […]

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Hal King defined the moniker of journeyman catcher. A left-handed hitter with some pop in his bat, King played for the Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, and Cincinnati Reds for parts of seven seasons. Never quite consistent enough with either bat or glove to keep a starting […]

Right-hander Jimmie LeRoy “Hot Rod” McDonald was undefeated (1-0) as a pitcher for the team that first signed him. He won the only postseason game he ever pitched, Game Five of the 1953 World Series. He had a successful baseball career that ran from 1945 to 1960. McDonald was born in Grants Pass, Oregon, on […]

America loves an underdog. It favors stories of players who weren’t given a chance because they were too small or didn’t have a traditional background, but they pushed and persevered and in the end made the team. Wayne LaMaster’s baseball career isn’t widely remembered today, but it is the classic underdog story of a player […]

Although his playing days were not without accomplishment, Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Len Koenecke is remembered only for his bizarre and violent death late in the 1935 season. While aloft in midnight skies, he was beaten to death by the pilot of the six-passenger airplane that a berserk Koenecke had attempted to commandeer in mid-flight. The […]

Outside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, a statue depicting southpaw Johnny Podres after a pitch release stands 60 feet, six inches from a statue of catcher Roy Campanella. They commemorate the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series over the New York Yankees, their traditional autumn foe at […]

Herbert “Babe” Barna was a star football player in college, an end who excelled as a receiver. He had “mercury in his shoes and glue on his finger tips.”1 He starred at football, basketball, and baseball at West Virginia University and received an offer by Bert Bell of the Philadelphia Eagles to play professional football […]

William “Gunner” McGunnigle had a flair for fashion on a baseball field that likely will never be matched. McGunnigle managed and coached the bases wearing black patent-leather shoes, a cutaway suit coat, lavender trousers, a silk tie and a derby hat. “It’s only a good looking man like yours truly who could wear patent leathers […]

Em Lindbeck’s big-league career spanned only two plate appearances. Although unsuccessful in the major leagues, he achieved success in nearly all other areas of his life. Lindbeck was a high school class president, a decorated multisport collegiate athlete, an all-star minor leaguer, an esteemed professional educator, and a public servant. A series of poor decisions […]

An adept base stealer known for taking unusually large leads from first base, Wid Conroy used his raw speed and acrobatic skills to earn a reputation as one of the most versatile defensive players of the Deadball Era. During his eleven-year major league career, Conroy played a significant number of games at third base, shortstop, […]

By the time he was 21 years old, George Rettger had established himself as a skilled pitcher at the semipro level in his native Cleveland, Ohio. He yearned for a professional career and earned his first pro experience with Akron in the Ohio State League in 1889. The league was formed in August and featured […]

“I’m sure God never meant me to be a ball player,” Taft Wright said. “If he had, I wouldn’t be built so close to the ground and always worrying about my weight and being muscle bound.”1 Sportswriters called him “Fat Wright” and “Round Man.”2 Wright was a born designated hitter — born decades too soon. […]

Willie Smith is best remembered for his game-winning pinch-homer on Opening Day for the 1969 Chicago Cubs, but he surely deserves to be recalled for a much more enduring achievement: He was the last major leaguer — and the only African-American player ever — to have pitched and played different positions in the field in […]

Al Leiter spent 18 years in the majors and enjoyed pitching success in both leagues. During his career, he managed to earn two World Series rings and play on three different teams in the fall classic. Although Leiter never became one of the star pitchers of his day, he made important contributions to his teams’ […]

Once upon a time decades ago, girls played professional baseball. To quote from the opening paragraph of our book, The South Bend Blue Sox (McFarland, 2012), written by Robert M. Gorman and myself, “The unique circuit immortalized by the 1992 movie, A League of Their Own, resulted from talented women undertaking nontraditional roles and occupations […]

Tim Murchison was a 23-year old left-hander who went north in the spring of 1920 with the eventual World Champion Cleveland Indians. He had excelled at Guilford College and logged about 600 innings in the minors. The St. Louis Cardinals had given him a brief look in 1917. But he worked only five innings for […]

On a muggy July day with intermittent showers looming in the forecast, the fifth-place Brooklyn Tip-Tops took the field against the cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Rebels at Washington Park. This was the last game of a nearly two-week-long homestand for the Tip-Tops. Brooklyn, like many Federal League teams, had been having trouble drawing fans but fortunately for […]

After a nine-year career in Japan, where he won an unprecedented seven consecutive batting titles, seven consecutive Gold Glove awards, and three consecutive MVP awards, Ichiro Suzuki became the first position player from Nippon Professional Baseball in the major leagues in 2001. Over the next 12 seasons with the Seattle Mariners, he amassed 2,533 hits, […]

For the first time in six World Series appearances, the Dodgers reached Game Six with a chance to capture their first title in franchise history. Coming off a dramatic 6-5 victory in 11 innings over the New York Yankees in the Bronx to take the Series lead, “Dem Bums” returned to Brooklyn and Ebbets Field, […]

Many minor leagues folded after Pearl Harbor. Most of the rest went under during or after the 1942 season. By 1943, the American Association, the Eastern, International and Pacific Coast leagues and the Southern Association were still operating, providing a reserve source of talent for the major leagues. Below those levels there was a problem. […]