Search Results

When seventh-place teams visit fourth-place teams in the third week of September, they usually hope to play the role of spoiler. As such, the Detroit Tigers hoped to vanquish the Chicago White Sox in at least one game of a scheduled doubleheader. The American League pennant had already been claimed by Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics. The […]

“Cupcake,” a euphemism for a should-be-easy-to-beat opponent, entered the sports lexicon in the 1970s.1 Forty-some years earlier, the New York Yankees would’ve agreed it applied to their September 23, 1932, opponent: the cellar-dwelling, 63 games back2 Boston Red Sox. The hapless 1899 Cleveland Spiders were the last major-league team to face an opponent 60 or […]

The Philadelphia Phillies (35-32) began the day continuing to find themselves in unfamiliar territory – first place.1 On the other hand, the defending National League champion New York Mets (26-39) began the day in last place, eight games behind of the Phillies, and had the major leagues’ worst record.2 Wayne Garrett led off the game […]

The day before Game Six of the 1931 World Series, more than 500 baseball fans crowded into the Union Station Midway to wait for the St. Louis Cardinals’ special train to arrive.1 The gathering was celebratory in manner as their team returned home sporting a three-games-to-two advantage over the favored Philadelphia Athletics. An arrival message […]

In a 21-year career that was honored by his 2024 election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, Adrian Beltré spent one season – 2010 – with the Boston Red Sox. At age 31, it was one of Beltré’s best years, and it reignited the Dominican-born third baseman’s path […]

Pittsburgh’s Chief Wilson set the major league single-season triple records by stroking his 36th three-bagger during the Pirates’ final game of the season, an away contest in Cincinnati. On the same day but in St. Louis, Cleveland’s Shoeless Joe Jackson raced around the diamond for his 26th triple of the season, establishing the American League […]

The Boston Red Sox played only 126 games in 1918, a season abbreviated by World War I. The last games of the regular season were played on September 2. The World Series began three days later, and the Red Sox triumphed over the Chicago Cubs in six games, winning their fifth championship in the first […]

Baseball games are frequently protested by managers and teams on the wrong side of controversial calls, but it’s rare that a protest is upheld and a game’s result is impacted. One such successful protest occurred during the 1924 season, following an umpire’s erroneous ruling after a series of substitutions. The scoreboard read “Boston Red Sox […]

Ryan Garton is an example of a boy who grows up rooting for his hometown big-league team and dreaming of one day playing for it, and then, with the benefit of hard work, talent, and some good fortune, sees that dream come to fruition. Ryan Patrick Garton was born on December 5, 1989, in Clearwater, […]

As a baseball coach at Army, Eric Tipton amassed a record of 234-201-5 during the years 1958 through 1977. Tipton, known in the big leagues as Duke or Blue Devil, debuted on June 9, 1939, for the Philadelphia Athletics, as an outfielder. He played in 501 games for Philadelphia and the Cincinnati Reds from 1939 […]

Baseball was part of the long and varied life of John W. Dickins for only a few years, and it seems to have played no role at all after the 1869 advent of open professionalism. Nevertheless, he made important contributions to the post-Civil War spread of the game in the South, a development that lent credence […]

August G. “Happy” Foreman pitched in three major-league games in 1924 for the Chicago White Sox (allowing three runs), and he pitched in three major-league games in 1926 for the Boston Red Sox (allowing three runs). In neither year did he win a game or lose a game. In 1924, he had two plate appearances […]

Though standing just 5′ 6″ and weighing as little as 135 pounds at the start of his career, “Wee” Tommie Leach was nonetheless one of the better “power” hitters of the first decade of the 20th century. Over the course of a 19-year career in the National League, Leach finished in the top ten six […]

Pitcher Ted Olson played in parts of three seasons for the Boston Red Sox, but recorded only a career record of 1-1 in the 57? innings he worked. Olson was the eldest child of Peter and Esther Olson, Swedish natives who both came to the United States in 1891 when he was about 15 and […]

Right-handed pitcher Chet Nichols Sr. showed tremendous promise early in his baseball career. The undisputed star of his high school’s champion baseball team, Nichols went on to shine in semiprofessional and minor-league ball. As a major-leaguer, however, he struggled. Hampered by injuries, the 5-foot-11, 160-pounder appeared in only 44 games over six seasons, 1926-1928 and […]

Born to a prominent family doctor in central Michigan, this one-game major league pitcher later became more noted as an umpire, thanks to a run-in with a star ballplayer. One of the few men to play and umpire in the major leagues, Charles Ferguson traveled the across the country playing baseball, and after retiring from […]

Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1933, right-handed pitcher Wally Signer quit baseball after five mostly injury-plagued seasons in the minors instead of accepting a demotion in 1938. Over the course of the next five years, the New York City native emerged as one of the best hurlers in the city’s highly competitive semipro leagues. […]

From 1902 through 1911, Walter Schlichter owned the Philadelphia Giants, the finest African American team of the era. Schlichter was white, the Philadelphia Item’s sporting editor, and had previously managed boxers, not ballplayers. Yet with Sol White he formed a persevering, successful partnership. Competition, alignment with more powerful forces, an ill-advised secondary baseball venture, and finally a break […]

Over the course of three decades in the early 20th century, Robert Joseph Connery was a major-league scout and minor-league player, manager, and owner. He was the closest friend of Hall of Fame manager Miller Huggins, and was Huggins’s scout with both the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. Best known as the […]

“Pete Hill was the first great outfielder in black baseball history,” suggests baseball historian Lawrence Hogan.1 The left-handed Hill was a five-tool star with several famed independent African-American teams: the Philadelphia Giants (1904 to 1907), Leland Giants (1908 to 1910), and Chicago American Giants (1911 to 1918). He then slugged his way to Ruthian heights […]

Ulysses Simpson Grant “Stoney” McGlynn pitched one full season in the major leagues at age 35 and lost 25 games for the cellar-dwelling St. Louis Cardinals. But he set National League records for work – innings pitched, batters faced, and complete games – while winning 14 games and completing 33 starts. For more than 30 […]

Even before he turned 18, Bill Lamar’s name was mentioned in discussions of major-league baseball in the Washington Post. He was local to the area, born and raised in Rockville, Maryland, on March 21, 1897, and he was an accomplished high school athlete. He was under agreement to the Nationals’ Clark Griffith, who took him […]

Although he answered to a variety of nicknames – Rub-Dub-Hub, Hurling Hub, the Tennessee Cyclone, the Untamed Son of Sumner County, the Gallatin Squash – his family, friends, and baseball fans simply called him Hub. Herbert Rodney Perdue was one of the most personable and exciting pitching prospects to emerge from the hills of Middle […]

The baseball team known as the Braves makes its home in Atlanta, but traces its diamond ancestry back through Milwaukee and to Boston, where it began in 1871. In fact, the Atlanta Braves are the only baseball team that has played every season consecutively since 1871, outdating even the National League itself. While forgotten by […]