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The 1991 Atlanta Braves (94-68) were the surprise of the National League, putting to rest a dreadful six-year stretch of losing at least 89 games each season. Fighting their way back from a 9½-game deficit to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the All-Star break, the Braves clinched the West Division crown on the next-to-last day of […]

Springfield Sallies hurler Erma “Bergie” Bergmann looked in for the sign from her catcher, Sonia Vialat,1 wound up, and delivered the first pitch of the 1948 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) season.2 It’s not known whether the pitch was a ball or a strike, or if it was put in play by Helen Callaghan […]

After a pause in the action that lasted 86 years, the Boston Red Sox resumed winning a number of World Series titles. They had won five world championships from 1903 through 1918, then had not won again until 2004. Since 2004, they have added (as of 2020) titles in 2007, 2013, and 2018. It was […]

The 48,641 fans who attended this Monday twilight-night doubleheader were still reveling in their new venue. SkyDome had opened to great fanfare the previous month and was pulling in sellout crowds. This second game of the doubleheader between the Toronto Blue Jays and California Angels was rescheduled from a May 7 rainout when the Blue […]

On April 28, 1875, the Richmond Daily Dispatch announced to its readership that “the famous Red Stockings of Boston (the champion club of the United States)” would play a championship game against “the celebrated Washingtons of Washington, D.C.” on the next day. This was, the New York Clipper said, the first professional baseball game to […]

Nothing gives a Dodgers fan more joy than defeating the Giants. And vice versa. Courtesy of Johnny Podres’ left arm, Los Angeles’ 8-0 victory over its archrivals on May 25, 1959, was about as close to paradise as one gets in Dodger Nation. Podres did not allow a hit until the eighth inning, finishing the […]

He was such a green recruit that a hometown newspaper did not even know his name. Misidentified as “Nichols” by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Browns’ George Nicol made his major-league debut by holding the visiting Philadelphia Athletics hitless in a wild 21-2 victory called after seven innings because of darkness, though the real reason […]

With the war in Europe two months from the Allies’ victory, the 1918 World Series began. A meager yet patriotic crowd of 19,274 fans was on hand at Comiskey Park, “the smallest that has witnessed the diamond classic in many years.”1 The minds of the spectators were clearly on the overseas conflict, yet they came […]

Among all the ballplayers who served in World War II, Earl Johnson was the real military hero. Unlike some, he had his better years after the long layoff for the war, peaking in 1947, but began to lose his edge just as the Red Sox entered two seasons (1948 and 1949) when one more win […]

The National Baseball Hall of Fame has an extensive library, packed with research materials. Most players have a file at the Hall, whose contents are made available to researchers. Some files are fairly thick. Most contain some basic information about the player, including a certificate of death for a deceased player, and newspaper clippings that […]

Gifted with intellect, musical acumen, and athletic ability, Deadball Era pitcher Eddie Higgins deferred a life in dentistry for the opportunity to play professional baseball. Though he pitched in just 18 big-league games in 1909 and 1910, and he was just 22 when he made his final appearance at the top level, he enjoyed an […]

“Hoot, you’re on your way. Nothing can stop you now.” — From “Ghetto to Glory”   Prophetic words indeed. The 1964 World Series was a coming-out party for Bob “Hoot” Gibson. Pitching complete-game victories in Games Five and Seven, Gibson and his teammates on the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals had just disposed of the vaunted […]

In 1955 Cleveland News sportswriter Ed McAuley noted that “[George] Susce is a man of many admirable qualities, but the ability to hit a baseball frequently was not among his assets.”1 At the time this was offered, Susce was 11 years removed from his last major-league appearance and well along into a coaching career that […]

For those who saw Tim McCarver break in with the St. Louis Cardinals, it was probably a surprise that he became better known for his broadcasting career than for his days as a catcher. Not that he wasn’t always articulate and glib, and that his finding a home in the broadcast booth was a shock; […]

Second baseman George Cornelius Smith played professional baseball for 14 seasons, mostly in the minor leagues, but with two years in the Negro Leagues and four in the major leagues. Smith was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, on July 7, 1937 or 1938.1 He attended David Elementary School and graduated from Gibbs High School, where […]

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 […]

Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker, an African-American, made his major-league debut with Toledo on May 1, 1884, in an American Association game. The contest was staged in Louisville, and not all Kentuckians and game participants appreciated having a black man playing with and against white men. Many let him know that he was not welcome to […]

In retirement, former major leaguer Johnny Romano took up flying radio-controlled model airplanes near his retirement home in Florida. He liked to fly them high and far. There was a time, though, when those terms — high and far — also referred to his ability as a hard-hitting All-Star catcher for the Cleveland Indians and […]

Words cannot contain Mike Burke. A man of boundless courage and matchless charm, by the time he became president of the New York Yankees in 1966, he had already fought the Nazis with the French Resistance, tried to overthrow communist governments for the CIA, served as the model for a movie spy, and run the […]

Was it nature or nurture? Plenty of both figured in the life of Milton Joseph Bolling III, a former Red Sox shortstop who spent 43 years with the organization. He was born on August 9, 1930, in Mississippi City, Mississippi, while his parents were on vacation; but he grew up in a baseball town – […]

Viola Thompson’s contribution to World War II was a rather unusual one. She didn’t do war work in a factory, or enlist in the armed services. Rather, she became a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), and helped to keep the national pastime going during the war years. She was modest about […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 18, in 1998. For additional commentary about this story, read “The Veracity of Veeck,” by Robert D. Warrington and Norman Macht in the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal and Warren Corbett’s SABR biography of Bill Veeck.   Baseball is a game in […]

The Washington Senators played at Griffith Stadium from 1911 to 1960 before leaving for Minnesota. The expansion Senators played one year there in 1961 before moving across town to D.C. Stadium, later called Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. (Library of Congress, Horydczak Collection)   When the National League dropped four cities, including Washington, after the 1899 […]