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Few if any baseball men have worked harder for longer than Mel Didier. He pitched just two years in Class D, but he spent more than 60 years in professional baseball as a scout and executive. As former Los Angeles Dodgers GM Fred Claire said, “I don’t know of anyone who has been in more […]

During his 18-year professional baseball playing career, Darnell Coles spent complete, consecutive seasons in the same uniform only once. Originally drafted as a shortstop by the Seattle Mariners with the sixth overall pick in June 1980, he played parts of 14 major league seasons (1983-1997) with eight different teams, primarily as a third baseman and […]

Charles Richard “Charlie” Maxwell, the popular outfielder of the Tigers from 1955 to 1962, often called “Paw Paw” by fans, writers, and broadcasters, was one of Detroit’s best power hitters. A lefthanded batter who averaged .264 lifetime, Charlie hit 148 home runs and batted in 532 runs in a major league career lasting from 1950 […]

Floyd Rayford’s soft hands and even softer belly, combined with his underrated athleticism and good nature, made him an Orioles’ fan favorite in the 1980s. With the skills to play six positions — primarily third base and catcher — during his professional career, and what one manager called the “perfect temperament for baseball,” Rayford spent […]

Right-handed pitcher Chuck Hartenstein was a good, solid minor-league pitcher who enjoyed significant success in the National League, but struggled in the American League. He later moved on to work as Toronto’s minor-league pitching instructor and the major-league pitching coach for the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers. Basically, Hartenstein reached the major-league level in three […]

“That crazy kid in Cleveland” is what Rod Carew called Kevin Rhomberg in the early ’80s.[1] Whenever the subject of baseball superstition comes up, this man inevitably stands as the extreme. It’s the main thing for which many people remember him, and that’s too bad. The one-sided portraits call out for balance. The reality is […]

On August 6, 1890, Cy Young made his major-league debut with the Cleveland Spiders and hurled a three-hitter as the Spiders defeated Cap Anson’s Chicago Colts, 8-1. Young’s batterymate was Chief Zimmer. Young was accustomed to minor-league backstops who struggled to catch his blazing fastballs. When Zimmer had no trouble catching them, Young worried that […]

Skip and Pete. Two names forever etched in the history of the Atlanta Braves and in the history of baseball on television. Just the mention of their names brings back warm memories and a smile to many baseball fans, and not just those in Atlanta. Rarely is one of them ever mentioned without the other […]

After winning the American League pennant by 12 games in 1946, the Boston Red Sox had slipped to third in 1947, finishing 14 games behind the champion New York Yankees and two games back of the second-place Detroit Tigers. In an attempt to improve their hitting and pitching, the Red Sox pulled the trigger on […]

“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 […]

Baseball fans attending games today are still experiencing features of the sport that were introduced by Charles Abner Powell, a baseball pioneer of the late 19th century.1 In June 1950 Connie Mack sent a ninetieth birthday message to Powell, adding “You, Abner, have contributed more to the game of baseball than any other man alive […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

  Wahconah Park: an outdated barn or a precious relic? A swamp or a hallowed slab? A money pit or a landmark? After well over a century, the dichotomy persists. Baseball players were facing off there before Babe Ruth was born, before “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was written, before architects sketched the […]

Lexington Park served as the home of the St. Paul Saints from 1897 through 1956, opening one year later and closing one year after its counterpart in Minneapolis, Nicollet Park. It was built by Edward B. Smith, who operated a St. Paul real estate company (and had been a part-owner of a National League team […]