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Both Bob Garbark and his brother Mike played major-league ball, both wrapping up their big-league careers in 1945 when Mike was with the Yankees and Bob was with the Red Sox. Both brothers had the same middle name – Michael. The elder brother was Bob – Robert Michael Garbark – and he was born on […]
Burleigh Arland Grimes, who pitched in four games for the St. Louis Cardinals at the beginning of the 1934 season, was born on August 18, 1893, on his parents’ dairy farm about halfway between the towns of Emerald and Clear Lake in northwestern Wisconsin. (Wisconsin records indicate he was born in Emerald, but he always […]
Hal Kolstad had an unfortunate record as a major-league pitcher, losing four games without a win to his credit. It certainly didn’t help that he pitched for the eighth-place Boston Red Sox in 1962 and the seventh-place Sox in 1963. But he had a very solid 67-67 record in minor-league baseball, mostly at a high […]
He batted .400 for his major-league career, never committed an error, but was 0-1 as a pitcher. He appeared in four games — one in 1950 and three in 1952. His name was James Curtis Atkins, a big 6-foot-3, 205-pouind Alabaman who batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He pitched for 13 years in the minor […]
If William Ellsworth Hoy were playing today, he would not be called “Dummy”–not by players nor by fans nor by the media. He’d be “Bill” or “Billy,” perhaps “Will” or “Willie,” maybe even “Ellie.” He wouldn’t be a deaf mute, either. He’d be “aurally and vocally challenged.” But back when Hoy was playing, nicknames were […]
In 1915, America’s leading syndicated sportswriter, Hugh Fullerton, published a forgettable baseball novel in which a star left-handed pitcher named Williams is bribed and threatened by gamblers to lose the pennant for his team.1 Fullerton, who dedicated the novel to his friend and mentor, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, had been writing about the […]
It is well known among baseball fans that Pete Rose is the major leagues’ “hit king,” with 4,256 hits in 24 seasons.1 But few can name the minor-league hit leader, Spencer Harris. In 26 minor-league seasons from 1921 to 1948, Harris accumulated 3,617 hits. He collected 94 more hits in limited major-league action. If viewed […]
Outfielder Andy Gilbert’s time in the majors was very brief, bracketing the World War II years. He played in six games for the Boston Red Sox in September 1942 and two games in the first few weeks of the 1946 season. In between, he served in the Army Air Corps for three full years. During […]
George Goetz is among those rare pitchers who won his only major-league game. It was in 1889 for Baltimore of the American Association, which existed from 1882 to 1891. In contrast to so many other major leaguers over the decades who played very few games at that level, Goetz had a very short career in […]
Ray Rippelmeyer pitched 39 1/3 innings in 18 games for the 1962 Washington Senators. Over 11 minor-league seasons, the right-hander compiled a .579 winning percentage with a record of 114 wins and 83 losses in 330 games. He also played winter ball in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. After his playing days, Rippelmeyer’s work […]
Left-hander Drake Britton had one win and one loss in his time in the big leagues, but he has a World Championship ring to treasure forever as a member of the 2013 Boston Red Sox. It was a year in which he almost lost the opportunity to pitch. John Drake Britton was born in Waco, […]
Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd starts his autobiography recalling back in 1964 when he was 5 years old, and his uncle Frank Boyd brought three civil-rights workers by the family home. Later that same year, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were discovered murdered. Dennis believes they were killed just after they left the Boyd […]
A nimble catcher before becoming one of the finest defensive third basemen of his era, Lave Cross spent most of his long career with four Philadelphia franchises.1 First came stints with the American Association’s Athletics and Players’ League’s Quakers, before a half-dozen seasons with the talented but underachieving mid-1890s National League Phillies. His fortunes then […]
Bunker Hill Day, commemorating the Revolutionary War battle, arrived in Boston on Monday, June 18, 1894. For those in search of sporting entertainment as the calendar crept toward the first day of summer, two National League contenders would play a morning-afternoon doubleheader at the Congress Street Grounds. The host Boston Beaneaters, winners of the previous […]
What a difference a year makes. In 1979 the California Angels were flying high, winning the AL West Division with an 88-74 record. The Oakland A’s had finished last in the AL West at 54-108. Notwithstanding the records, in spring training Billy Martin declared that his A’s would beat the Angels and win the division. […]
On June 29, 1990, Toronto baseball fans got to witness a bit of history when Dave Stewart of the Oakland A’s threw a no-hitter at SkyDome, beating the Blue Jays 5-0. It was the first major-league no-hitter thrown in Toronto. However, it wasn’t the first professional no-hitter thrown in the city, which has a rich […]
It was a recipe for disaster. Houston’s Mike Cuellar, a native of Cuba, was a fiery, intensely competitive pitcher. The Phillies skipper, Gene Mauch, was known for his abrasive and combative personality. Factor in a tight game in the ninth inning, underachieving teams needing to prove something, and a good dose of bench jockeying, and […]
In 1913 the New York Highlanders were renamed the Yankees and moved from Hilltop Park into the Polo Grounds, the home field of the National League’s New York Giants. Two years later, the franchise was under the new co-ownership of Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston, who initiated the team’s transformation into an American League […]
The final day of the 1892 baseball season in the nation’s capital featured two clubs on the opposite ends of the spectrum. One of four former American Association teams to join the consolidated 12-team National League in 1892 following the former’s economic collapse, the Washington club had changed its nickname from the Statesmen to the […]
“Well, back in 1871, my great-great-grandmother had a boardinghouse in Boston,” recounted a sparkling, white-haired lady speaking with appraiser Leila Dunbar on a PBS episode of Antiques Roadshow. “And she housed the Boston baseball team. Most of them had come from the Cincinnati Red Stockings and were among the first to be paid to play […]
This chapter is not about a single game. Instead, it is about three games, the first post-season interleague series intended to create a baseball “Championship of America” or a “World’s Championship.” Although nearly all baseball fans rattle off 1903 as the first World Series, this 19th-century match-up is recognized among baseball historians as the real […]
The 1912 season was the first for the newly named International League. The eight-team league, formerly known as the Eastern League, the six-team Pacific Coast League, and the eight-team American Association had just been accorded Double-A status, representing the top level of minor-league professional baseball at the time. The Toronto Maple Leafs held their spring […]
July in Chicago can feel like a sweltering, steamy greenhouse, with occasional respite from the heat offered only by stray gusts of cooler air off Lake Michigan. July 14, 1914, by contrast, was a far more pleasant day. By 3 P.M. the temperature sat in the low 80s, and clear, sunny skies were the backdrop […]