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“I always hope he hits the ball to left so I can watch him run, because I’ve never seen anything like him turning second.” — Dwight Evans of the Red Sox, talking about Willie Wilson in 19801 “Having Willie Wilson in center field is like having four outfielders.” — Billy Scripture (Wilson’s first minor-league manager) […]

As a big leaguer, Ed Charles was perhaps the most accomplished player in the brief history of the ill-fated Kansas City Athletics, and he achieved fame as a baseball poet, reciting his poetry on television a few times per year and mailing verse to young fans with requested autographs. But he is best remembered today […]

“They can do whatever they want. I’ll still be eating steak every night,” Von Hayes said after one of the many times he faced the boo-birds of Philadelphia.1 His quote about sums up the career of a stoic but confident kid from the West Coast who rocketed to the majors and unwittingly moved east in […]

In the American League’s first-ever season-ending tiebreaker, the Cleveland Indians’ rookie sensation, Gene Bearden, faced the Boston Red Sox on October 4, 1948 at Fenway Park. At stake was who would face the Boston Braves in the World Series. Bearden’s last two starts had been shutout victories, giving him a 19-7 won-lost record for the […]

From Babe Ruth in 1920, through Reggie Jackson in 1977, and down to Alex Rodriguez in 2004, when the New York Yankees announce a player transaction it usually involves a big-name player coming to New York, with large amounts of money going elsewhere. But it was quite the reverse on July 27, 1945, when the […]

William Cornelius Bryan, Jr. was a minor league player and manager from 1884 to 1888 in the Southern, Northwestern, and Western Leagues, and the Western Association. He was also a war hero, world-class sprinter, a coach and athletic director at various universities, and a promoter of baseball in both the United States and Great Britain. […]

Rudolph Ash played in eight league games for the 1920 NNL champion Chicago American Giants, though he also may have participated in a few exhibition games. Subsequently, it took another three years before Ash’s name again was mentioned in association with baseball in the press. At that time, he was enrolled in the University of […]

Catcher Billy Colgan appeared in 48 big-league games in the summer of 1884 for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys of the American Association before moving to the Pacific Northwest. Later, after his tragic death, he became the first former major leaguer buried in the state of Montana. According to baseball historian Jim Price, William H. Colgan was […]

Lyle Bigbee was an imposing figure. Six feet tall, 180 pounds with red hair, he was a three-sport star at the University of Oregon and went on to play both major-league baseball and professional football. But by August 4, 1942, the 48-year-old Bigbee had lost his way. Sitting in a room in a Portland, Oregon, […]

The resume accumulated by the investor was something less than the model envisioned by Ban Johnson for club ownership in the fledgling American League. Nor was a bankroll amassed via saloon ownership, bookmaking, horse racing stables, casino operation, and service to Tammany Hall the preferred source of the financial wherewithal needed for relocation of the […]

Al Gardella usually wore uniform number 29, but 32 could have been more appropriate.  That was the total of his 16 major-league games with the 1945 Giants and his 16 years in the minors.  A 5-foot-10, 160-pound left-handed batter and thrower, he was 2-for-26 (.077) during his 51 days with New York, and he posted […]

Solid left fielder Joe Rudi was a core member of the Oakland A’s 1972-74 dynasty. He was the runner-up for the American League Most Valuable Player twice during this period, and he also won three straight Gold Gloves (1974 through 1976). Rudi’s numbers with the bat don’t look dazzling today, but he did lead the […]

There have been two Nick Cullops in major-league baseball; one a left-handed pitcher, the other primarily an outfielder. Despite a 13-year age difference, they faced each other in the American Association in 1926. Nick the outfielder had recently joined the St. Paul Saints from the New York Yankees. His first weekend series with the Saints […]

Hal Keller was 12 years old in 1939 when his brother Charlie became a hitting sensation for the New York Yankees. “I was in sixth grade when he played in his first World Series,” Hal remembered 71 years later. “I was proud as a peacock. They were all day games, and the teacher brought a […]

Among the newcomers on the Brooklyn Superbas roster for the 1903 season was right-handed pitcher Henry Schmidt. At almost 30, he was getting a rather late shot at a major-league career, but had earned a look as a 35-game winner in the California League the season before. Soon Schmidt discovered that getting out National League […]

Right-hander Claral Gillenwater spent most of the 1920s pitching in mid-level minor leagues without much sustained success. His brief major-league career was no different. Given a late-season tryout by the Chicago White Sox in 1923, Gillenwater lasted barely three weeks on the roster. But before he was released, Gillenwater managed a performance of true artistry: […]

In the summer of 1919, the year the Black Sox threw the World Series, 30-year-old sportswriter Irving Vaughan joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune. It wasn’t his first newspaper job, but it would be his last. When he retired 38 years later, having covered more than 7,000 baseball games during a career that spanned […]

After several years in the military, Long Jim Gilmore spent his life as a successful, if conventional, businessman. For two years in the middle of his life, however, Gilmore was at the center of the baseball world as one of the most visible and quoted men in the industry. As president of short-lived Federal League, […]

Some music is so well known that you can listen to it in a dark room and immediately associate it with an event. The tooting of a calliope immediately brings to mind the circus or a merry-go-round. “The Wedding March” lets passersby outside a church know that some guy’s bachelorhood just bit the dust. And […]

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” This remark has been credited (dubiously) to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, a contemporary of Boston pitcher Jim Sullivan. This saying could apply to Sullivan starting in the mid-1890s, when he experienced deep sorrow repeatedly. At least […]

Larry Lintz was built like a whippet — 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds — and ran like one. He came up as a middle infielder with the Montreal Expos in 1973 and stole 50 bases the following season, his most active year in the majors. In addition to being an exciting baserunner, he was a good […]

Infielder Larry Wolfe spent two full seasons in the major leagues, 1978 with the Minnesota Twins and 1979 with the Boston Red Sox, and a partial season for each team, too. He attracted enough interest in high school and college that he had been drafted by both the Dodgers (in 1971) and the Yankees (in […]

Gary Wagner threw a no-hitter in the first game he ever pitched — for his college team. Wagner was a right-handed pitcher who worked in 162 major-league games over six years in the majors for two teams, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. Four of his games were starts; primarily he worked as […]

After three seasons as a Cleveland Indians coach, former big-league catcher Wally Schang was looking for a challenge. It had been almost eight years since his last major-league game, and he was itching to get back into active duty.1 The 49-year-old Schang made an unorthodox move. He signed on to become the player-manager of the […]