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Gene Autry was the kind of man who paid the bills for old friends in their old age, rode in the front seat beside his chauffeur, and showed up in the bar of his resort hotel to lead guests in a sing-along. During his heyday as a singing cowboy, his fans ranged from the obvious […]
When former Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee died on June 4, 1929, Red Sox president Bob Quinn ordered that the American flag at Fenway Park be flown at half-staff in his memory. In the many obituaries that appeared in Boston newspapers at the time, most noted that during Frazee’s tenure the Red Sox won […]
Charles Bernard Lear, a pioneering knuckleballer for the Cincinnati Reds, was born on January 23, 1891, in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. He was Frank and Mary Lear’s first-born child; his sister Mildred followed nine years later. Frank Lear worked in the metal trades, with his census professions indicated as moulder and tinner. Greencastle, a small borough nestled […]
A vital rookie starter for one of the best Pittsburgh Pirates rotations of all time, a PGA-caliber professional, and a recognized expert angler, the “Avondale Blossom” — Charley “Whitey” Glazner — was a talented and multifaceted sportsman in the truest sense of the word. Add in a veteran of the Great War, one who pitched […]
In the late 1940s, Dick Fowler was one of the American League’s top pitchers. He tossed 61 complete games between 1946 and 1949 — only three AL pitchers threw more — and posted back-to-back 15-win seasons despite an aching shoulder.1 He played in an era when sore-armed hurlers were expected to keep throwing.2 That’s exactly […]
Arguably one of the slowest runners in baseball, Edward Frank Burtschy earned the nickname “Molasses Shoe,” or “Moe” for short. The bulky 6’3”, 208-pound hurler may have tarried on the base path but the hard throwing righty, in the vernacular, could bring it. The problem was where. Blessed with a blazing fastball and cursed that […]
Ron Kline is one of a number of professional athletes who entered politics after their professional athletic careers came to a close. The most notable baseball player turned politician is Jim Bunning, US Senator from Kentucky (1999-2011), though others (Vinegar Bend Mizell and Fred Brown, for instance) also served in political office.1 Ron Kline became […]
R C Stevens, said one of his minor-league managers, was “capable of breaking up a game anytime he took his bat in hand.” He hit 191 home runs in 12 minor-league seasons, but didn’t meet the test in the major leagues, and played only briefly in four seasons, three of them (including 1960) with the […]
Baseball pioneer Abraham Gilbert Mills is remembered-if at all-today for heading the “Mills Commission” which concluded that the game of baseball was invented in America by Civil War General Abner Doubleday. However, this actually represents a very small piece of Mills’ fascinating life. Born March 12, 1844, in New York City, Mills lived there until […]
Dick Mills was a 6-foot-3,195-pound right-handed pitcher who appeared twice for the Boston Red Sox in 1970. They were his only two games in major-league baseball. Mills was a hard guy to pin down at first. Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in June 1965, a 13th-round pick, he chose not to sign. Drafted by the […]
Eddie Brown was a great hitter and a superb defender for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, and Boston Braves during the roaring decade of the 1920s. Over the span of 20 seasons in professional baseball, Brown patrolled all three outfield stanchions, covered first base one full season, and handled shortstop another. As a rural […]
Although most people familiar with Jean Cione knew her as a longtime professor of sports medicine and director of women’s athletics at Eastern Michigan University, she also had an earlier career as a standout player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Cione primarily pitched and played first base for five teams between 1945 […]
Don Leppert signed his first professional contract shortly after his 23rd birthday, scouted on Korean War-era military-service teams in a sport he had not intended to play as a pro. He reached the majors a few months before his 30th birthday, when the defending World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates sought to strengthen their bench. He […]
In an era when poetry commonly appeared in sports pages, and these pages themselves were the sole media for sports, few chronicled baseball as William F. Kirk did. Beginning in 1905, his poems, game accounts, and comic pieces graced the New York American. Satire, whimsy, and empathy characterized his work. John McGraw’s Giants and raucous […]
Life isn’t always a fastball down the middle. Sometimes it is unpredictable, with all the ups and downs and erratic sharp curves of a Wiffle Ball thrown into a still breeze. An original Seattle Mariner, Danny Meyer experienced the full gamut of life’s changes both on and off the field. Through it all, Meyer adjusted, […]
For decades, professional baseball players surnamed Weaver were routinely dubbed Buck by the sporting press. The game’s two most prominent Buck Weavers – the Black Sox third baseman and the late-19th-century outfielder also called Farmer Weaver – are already the subject of excellent BioProject portraits. The following is a biography of a lesser-known Buck Weaver, […]
The thing that sticks in the minds of many baseball fans about Greg Harris is that he was ambidextrous. Indeed, he had a glove custom-made for him with an extra thumb, so he could use it either on his left hand or his right hand. Though he long wanted the opportunity, there was only one […]
A consistent and sometimes spectacular player, Bob Elliott was the biggest everyday offensive threat on the 1948 Boston Braves. He led that pennant-winning team in games played, home runs, and runs batted in. He was very selective at the plate, striking out just 57 times while leading the National League with 131 bases on balls. […]
Fern Shollenberger was the third baseman on the All-Star team in six of her nine seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She first evidenced her talents on the family ball field in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. This small town is in a rural area of Berks County, 17 miles north of Reading. Fern’s father, Alvas R. […]
Voted by the Pittsburgh fans as the greatest right-handed pitcher in Pirates history, Deacon Phillippe may have been the greatest control pitcher ever — his 1.25 walks per nine innings is the lower ratio of anyone who hurled after the modern pitching distance was established in 1893. Longtime teammate Honus Wagner recalled that Phillippe “wanted […]
The earliest known connection between dentistry and the Boston Red Sox is Fred Anderson, a pitcher. You’ll find him in the record books, as playing for the Red Sox in 1909 and then again in 1913. It is said that he passed up an opportunity to join the Red Sox until he finished his dentistry […]
The son of a successful Nebraska merchant, Henry Clarke was a well-educated young man who was athletic enough to play a little major-league baseball before the turn of the twentieth century. While on summer break from college and law school, he pitched six games and played three more in the outfield for the Cleveland Spiders […]
It had been a few years; some New York Yankees fans might say it seemed like an eternity. But eight years after the Yankees participated in their last fall classic, they were back in the playoff hunt, as the calendar flipped to September 1972. They entered the final month of the season in third place, […]
When major-league stars head to the minors for injury rehabilitation assignments, they don’t always find the going easy. Giancarlo Stanton furnished one example in August 2022, when the New York Yankees sent the former National League Most Valuable Player to the Somerset (New Jersey) Patriots of the Double-A Eastern League to get back into game […]