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For a brief period in the early 1890s, Al Johnson was an influential, if not overly trustworthy, actor on the major league baseball scene. A wealthy young industrialist, he was the first and the most important of the money men attracted to the Players League cause. In the league’s formative days, Johnson recruited other capitalists […]

Certainly there were easier scenarios than facing Bob Gibson for one’s first major-league appearance, but the Milwaukee Braves’ Mack Jones made his debut on July 13, 1961, in St. Louis look like child’s play. His four consecutive hits, including a run-scoring double in his second at-bat, tied a National League record and reinforced the can’t-miss […]

More than 80 years have passed since Lester Sweetland pitched the last game in his five-year big-league career, but baseball enthusiasts still occasionally invoke his name when discussing the pitcher who has the dubious achievement of having posted the highest earned-run average in a major-league season. Breaking in with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1927, Sweetland […]

During an eastern road trip in the middle of the 1912 season, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey made two moves to strengthen his thin pitching staff. One was the purchase of Eddie Cicotte from the Boston Red Sox. The other was the acquisition of a hard-throwing youngster from the Burlington, Iowa club of the […]

In the midst of the 1908 pennant race, Sporting Life declared that “Robert S. Rhoades of Cleveland is one of the most dependable of modern pitchers. … His habits are good, his conduct exemplary, and in all ways is he a credit to his club and profession.”1 Embodied in this passage are two hallmarks of […]

Born on April 5, 1859, in Painesville, Ohio, a small town that lies just east of Cleveland, George Edward Andrews, like many players in his time, went by his middle name. In most other ways, Andrews was a rarity in his or any other time: a model player who later became a model citizen and […]

The talent-starved Washington Senators of the early 1950s recognized Tony Roig’s potential early in his professional career. But after giving the infielder several opportunities in the majors, the Senators eventually gave up on him because of weak hitting at the top level. Roig adjusted his approach at the plate, and the result was increased offensive […]

During the mid- to late 1880s, the St. Louis Browns dominated the major league American Association, capturing four consecutive pennants. Key to the club’s success was the standout pitching of Bob Caruthers and Dave Foutz, and thereafter, Silver King.1 Each of these right-handers was also a capable batsman who doubled as a Browns outfielder when […]

A stonemason from Scotland, Alexander Congalton moved to Canada in the latter half of the 19th century and had seven children with his wife, Janet, also a native of Scotland. Their son William was the middle child, the fourth-born. He was born on January 24, 1875, in Guelph, Ontario, about 60 miles west of Toronto.1 […]

William Henry Wright, better known to the baseball community as “Harry” Wright, today strikes historians as, in the words of Bruce Markusen, an “especially underrated Hall of Famer.”1 Popularly regarded in his time as “The Father of Professional Baseball,” Wright’s modern legacy pales in comparison, though many of his innovations characterize the game that we […]

Sam Nahem was a so-so pitcher who logged a 10–8 won-loss record and a 4.69 ERA in four partial seasons with the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Phillies between 1938 and 1948. Despite this unremarkable record, Nahem was a remarkable major leaguer in many ways. He was the only Syrian and one of the few Jews in […]

The year was 1865, and the Civil War had ended. Northern and Southern states now faced the overwhelming task of rebuilding physical, political, cultural, and emotional infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of human lives had been lost, physical resources depleted, and the ideal of hope challenged. The state of Alabama was not immune to the repercussions […]

Although Ina Eloise Young was not the first female baseball writer, she was quite possibly the first female sports editor at a daily newspaper.1 She was also one of the earliest beat writers, covering both semipro and minor-league baseball for seven years. Ina began writing about a wide range of local sports for her hometown […]

For much of his post-baseball life, Max Flack’s 12-year major-league career was remembered for one thing: his playing for two major-league teams in the same day. In 2011, 35 years after his death, his major-league career faced a renewed interest in his performance in the 1918 World Series. Flack was born Conrad John Flach on […]

Days after his graduation from college in June 1915, Rupert Mills was signed by the Newark Peppers of the Federal League. A Newark native and a locally renowned schoolboy athlete, Mills was deemed the potential fan magnet desperately sought by Peppers management. Unhappily, the new recruit proved unequal to the task, batting an anemic .201 […]

Recounted and savored over generations, four iconic moments share a single connective thread. In each tableau, Chicago Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett was not only present at the moment, but was an active participant in the various scenes.  Even without those brushes with what came to approach mythological status, Gabby Hartnett was a Hall of Fame […]

The late 1940s Boston Red Sox consisted of larger-than-life, highly paid, talented baseball men who could accomplish just about anything “except win pennants,” according to Al Hirshberg in a 1951 Saturday Evening Post article on Billy Goodman. Goodman had made his major-league debut in the spring of 1947 and was “not a glamorous slugger, not […]

The lesser known and less accomplished of the two unrelated Elliotts who played for the Boston Braves in the late 1940s, Glenn “Lefty” Elliott is best remembered because he wore eyeglasses on the ballfield and surrendered Jackie Robinson’s first major-league base hit. A 5’10”, 170-pound soft tosser from Oregon, “Silent Glenn” Elliott spent parts of […]

Entering the twilight of a 12-year major league career, Nelson Potter joined the Boston Braves in midseason of 1948 and became the top relief man and spot starter for the NL champs with an impressive 5-2 record and a 2.33 ERA. This was his second stint with a pennant-winning team; as a nearly full-time starter, […]

“When Mr. Reardon speaks you are under the impression that he has just spit out a hand grenade.” — Harry A. Williams, Los Angeles Times1   Beans Reardon learned a lot about umpiring at the age of 16 when he worked as a riveter’s assistant. “Riveting was good education for umpiring,” he recalled. “If I […]

What Tommy Davis accomplished as a major leaguer on one good leg, most players would be proud to do on two. Not that this sums up his athletic career, but it is an important backdrop to his improbable baseball odyssey. Davis seemed ready to have his ticket punched for Cooperstown as he entered his ball-playing […]

Bill Gleason is the younger of the two Gleason brothers who played on the inaugural St. Louis Browns team (the forerunner of today’s St. Louis Cardinals) in the American Association in 1882. Known as “Brudder Bill,”1 he covered shortstop for the Browns from their first season through their third straight pennant-winning season in 1887 and […]

Venezuela has been a cradle of shortstops since 1950, when Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel made his debut in the majors with the Chicago White Sox. In his steps followed Luis Aparicio, the only Venezuelan in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Dave Concepción, Ozzie Guillén, and then another shortstop who played more games at that position […]

In the early evening of February 28, 1894, former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Pete McNabb and his paramour, actress wannabe Louise Kellogg, retired to the room that they shared in a Pittsburgh hotel. Moments later, three gunshots rang out from inside. Then, a fourth. Those responding to the scene found McNabb lying on the floor, dead […]