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Why didn’t Jeremy Giambi slide? Hindsight is always crystal clear, much to the chagrin of involved parties. The Yankees mystique built upon a century of dominance over major-league baseball. The ill-advised enthusiastic wave by third-base coach Ron Washington, perhaps blind to actions outside his tunnel of vision. The cruel spectacle of a slow runner attempting […]
“I like to think of the world’s greatest athlete coming up to bat against me – Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, I don’t care who it is – and I’m looking at him thinking, ‘You have no chance.’ “1 There was a moment in the third game of the 1996 World Series that felt eerily familiar […]
In many ways George Baumgardner could have become the hero of a kind of baseball fairy tale: He came to the St. Louis Browns in 1912 as a 20-year-old right-handed pitcher after playing only two seasons of Class-D ball in the mountains of his native West Virginia, someone who, the story goes, had honed his […]
“The people in New York are the most sports-oriented people I’ve ever been around. I mean they are geared into it. The game on the field carries over. They hate you so bad and they don’t even know who you are.”1 — Doug Sisk, 1989 On a team of pranksters and cut-ups Doug Sisk, who […]
Three scoreless innings in his first two major-league games followed by one bad inning in his third outing would seem to indicate that a promising 24-year-old right-handed pitcher might get another shot at the big leagues. That chance never came for Willie Ludolph. Later in his career, Ludolph explained his failure to stick longer with […]
Philadelphia A’s star left-hander and future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank had scattered five hits and had not allowed a run as the Boston Braves batted in the top of the ninth in Game Two of the 1914 World Series. Unfortunately for Plank and his mates, Braves starter Bill James was pitching just as well. […]
The elder statesman of the Baby Birds staff that vaulted the Baltimore Orioles into pennant contention in the early 1960s was a mere 22-year-old. He is the only AL pitcher to lead the circuit in wins during a rookie campaign and the only one in either league to do so since Chicago Cubs righty Larry […]
Growing up in the early 1900s, southpaw Joe Giard was a pitching phenom on the sandlots of central Massachusetts. After four successful years with minor-league teams, Giard made his major-league debut in 1925 with the St. Louis Browns. He compiled a middling ERA of 5.04, but won 10 games against five losses, for a commendable […]
Steve Garvey was the epitome of the Southern California cultural icon in baseball spikes. Photogenic, fan-friendly, and media accessible, he projected the image of an All-American success story and devoted family man. As a Los Angeles Dodger in 1974, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award after starting the All-Star Game at first […]
An often overlooked pitcher on successful Chicago Cubs teams of his era, Guy Bush was among the National League’s winningest pitchers from 1928 to 1934 and finished with 176 victories in his 17-year career. Success was far from foretold when the 21-year-old Mississippi Mudcat made an unlikely debut for the North Siders in September 1923. […]
“Steady as a clock,”1 Abner Dalrymple was a fixture in left field for the 1880s Chicago White Stockings, a powerhouse that won five National League pennants over seven years. Together with Mike “King” Kelly and George Gore, he formed what manager Adrian “Cap” Anson called “the greatest trio of outfielders ever gotten together in one […]
By the close of the 1905 season, first baseman Joe Nealon was the most highly coveted minor league prospect on the West Coast. Young (not yet 21), large (at least 6-foot-2, 200-plus pounds),1 and athletically gifted, his services became the object of an intense bidding war among major league clubs ultimately won by the Pittsburgh […]
Four men named Dave Roberts have played major league baseball. David Leonard Roberts, who appeared in 91 games in the 1960s for the Houston Colt .45s and Pittsburgh Pirates, is probably the least known, at least in the United States.1 But across the Pacific in Japan, that Dave Roberts is by far the best known […]
Burgess Urquhart Whitehead was a solid contributor to the success of the Gas House Gang in 1934, appearing in 100 games while spelling Leo Durocher at shortstop, Pepper Martin at third base, and Frankie Frisch at second. In his first full year in the big leagues, Whitehead had 332 official at-bats and hit a solid […]
Who’d have thought that almost a decade after Pete Henning’s final major-league game he could run afoul of none other than Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis? What’s more, he was connected to an obscure aftereffect of the momentous 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Yet Henning didn’t even have American or National League experience; he peaked as […]
“He’s a heck of a guy. He’s enthusiastic and great for the (University of Hartford) program. He’s the reason why a lot of us are here. He is a man with big dreams. His dreams became our dreams. We believed in him.” — University of Hartford player Brian Crowley in the aftermath of Bill Denehy’s […]
In Game Four of the 1932 World Series — the last major league game of his 14-year career — he struck out Babe Ruth two consecutive times. A decade earlier, he won 35 games in one (very long) minor league season. Later a tobacco farmer and the best player to ever hail from Wendell, North […]
The early life of pitcher Tom Johnson, one of the star hurlers for the 1920 Chicago American Giants team that won the inaugural Negro National League pennant, is largely shrouded in mystery. What is known is that he had two outstanding seasons for Rube Foster’s squad, including the 1920 campaign, in which he pitched to […]
The cover of the March 20, 1978, annual baseball preview issue of Sports Illustrated featured a picture of Kansas City Royals rookie Clint Hurdle looking ready for action, with the caption “This Year’s Phenom” in bold yellow letters right next to his smiling face. Keeping with the “phenom” theme, the article described the 20-year-old Hurdle […]
Earl Robinson was a two-sport star at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1950s, leading the Golden Bears to the College World Series and finishing his basketball career among the school’s all-time leading scorers. After becoming the first African American to receive a bonus contract, he spent parts of four seasons between 1958 and […]
Sam Rice broke into the major leagues in August of 1915 as a 25-year-old pitcher with the Washington Nationals. After moving to the outfield midway through the following season, he became one of the leading hitters in the American League. Over the course of a 20-year career, most of which he spent in Washington, Rice […]
One of the premier “bonus babies” of the 1950s, Frank Matt Baumann was born on July 1, 1933, in St. Louis, Missouri. He lived with his parents and younger sister, Rose Ann, on the north side of the city within walking distance of Sportsman’s Park, home field for both the Cardinals and the Browns. Frank’s […]
Federal League Park in Indianapolis, looking in from the right-field fence. (Indianapolis News, January 27, 1917) The city of Indianapolis has been home to four short-lived major-league franchises. The first two — the 1878 Indianapolis Blues of the National League and the 1884 Indianapolis Hoosiers of the American Association — were noncompetitive and disbanded […]
1912 Hilldale Club. Back row: Bill Anderson, Alice Robinson, Lloyd Thompson, Marian Caulk, Devere Thompson, Mark Studevan, Clara Ivory, Ed Bolden, Helen Barrett, Charles Gaskins, Mary Ricketts, Hubert Jackson, Grace Ricketts, Sam Anderson and Leon Brice. Front row: Hulett Strothers, Raymond Garner, Billy Hill, Frank “Chink” Wilson, George Kemp, Hugh “Scrappy” Mason and Clarence Porter. […]