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During the early 1880s, fireballer Jim Whitney ranked among baseball’s most accomplished pitchers, notching two seasons with 30-plus wins and pitching the Boston Beaneaters to the National League pennant in 1883. But afterwards, events conspired to undermine Whitney’s productivity. After the 1885 season, he was sold by Boston and thereafter consigned to labor for dismal, […]

Right-handed pitcher Ralph Glaze’s father was a silver miner in Georgetown, Clear Creek County, of the Colorado Territory – the town used 100 years later as the site for filming the climactic showdown in Clint Eastwood’s Every Which Way but Loose. Ohio native Daniel Wolf Glaze had made his way across the continent at the […]

Curt Flood was a vital cog in the 1964 Cardinals’ world championship run, but that achievement may have been all but forgotten in light of Flood’s subsequent role in the arrival of free agency for baseball players. Curtis Charles Flood was born in Houston, Texas, on January 18, 1938. His parents, Herman and Laura Flood, […]

When the name Jim Brown is mentioned, most sports fans call to mind the NFL’s Hall of Fame running back who starred for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. There was, however, an earlier Jim Brown – a catcher, first baseman, and, later, a manager – who played for Chicago American Giants squads that […]

On June 22, 1990, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers at Riverfront Stadium. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Reds’ Eric Davis was rounding third base after a base hit to right field—the would-be winning run. Dodgers catcher Mike Scioscia stood at home plate as if he was not expecting a […]

William Rufus Wheaton was born in New York City on May 7, 1814. Part of his education was achieved at the Union Hall Academy, located on the corner of Madison Avenue and Oliver Street. After graduation, Wheaton read law with John Leveridge, a well-known East Side attorney.  Wheaton was later admitted to practice by Chancellor Walworth […]

With a population of just over 10 million, the Dominican Republic has produced approximately 450 big-league pitchers as of May 2021. Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez are easily the most famous, and most successful; however, no hurler from the Caribbean nation had a reputation as a harder thrower than Mario Soto. A […]

Before Ed Bolden began his career in baseball, he was a domestic servant and a clerk in the Philadelphia post office. He stood a scant 5 feet 7 and weighed less than 150 pounds, but his diminutive stature belied his forceful presence. By the time he retired in 1946, he was an accomplished baseball executive […]

Jack Sanford got his start in baseball with a push from his big sister. Sanford was named National League Rookie of the Year, won sixteen straight games one season, and started three times in the World Series, but he never got over being labeled “no prospect” when he was a teenager. John Stanley Sanford was […]

As a 20-year-old rookie, Chet Nichols Jr. led the National League with a 2.88 earned-run average while pitching for the 1951 Boston Braves. He came in second in the Rookie of the Year voting to Willie Mays. Nichols spent the next two years in the United States Army, working as a quartermaster during the Korean […]

As one of the earliest ballpark groundskeepers, John Haggerty1 worked for the Boston ballclub in the National League for 24 years to maintain the South End Grounds. After he was fired in 1907 by the new owners of the ballclub, John worked another 15 years as a gatekeeper for the Boston club in the American […]

Wilbur Wehde was born on November 23, 1906, in the hamlet of Holstein, Iowa. The town, roughly 45 miles east of Sioux City, was at the time home to fewer than 1,000 residents, mostly first- or second-generation German immigrants. Wehde’s father, Gustave, managed a creamery and brokered other farmers’ produce, while his mother, Frieda, managed […]

Leon “Boogie Wolf” Childress is one of many obscure “ghost players” of the Negro Leagues, a player skilled enough to make it onto the rosters and even into group photographs of some very good teams, but never earning regular playing time or appearing in any statistical record. Leon was born on June 23, 1910, in […]

“Beware of robbing a wretch or attacking a cripple. Do not laugh at a blind man, nor tease a dwarf, nor cause hardship for the lame. Don’t tease a man who is in the hand of the god (i.e. ill or insane)…” [Instruction of Amenemope, Ancient Egypt]1 Frank James Burke was born on March 19, […]

On the way to a last-place finish, the 1914 Cincinnati Reds regularly auditioned marginal pitching prospects. Among these hopefuls was Pat Griffin, an inexperienced 21-year-old righthander plucked from a Northeast Ohio semipro team. Assigned ninth-inning relief duty in a lost-cause game against the defending NL champion New York Giants, recruit Griffin turned in a nightmarish […]

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 […]

At the peak of a professional baseball career that spanned 11 major-league seasons, Greg Dobbs was recognized as one of the game’s best pinch-hitters.1 Consequently, it is appropriate that Dobbs’ membership in the first-at-bat home run club was earned as a pinch-hitter. That home run marked the achievement of his dream to play pro ball, […]

After World War II, Frank Jobe followed the proverbial American dream: college, medical school, marriage, and a family. Even though he said he never planned it that way, he pursued a career that helped make the world a better place — particularly the world of baseball, as the developer of the procedure known as Tommy […]

Professional baseball in the 19th century produced many notable firsts and many colorful characters, but rarely were the two combined as they were on July 28, 1875. On that warm midsummer day 21-year-old Joseph Emley Borden, in just his third start for the Athletics of Philadelphia of the National Association, etched his name firmly in […]

Picking sixth overall in the June 2012 amateur draft, the Chicago Cubs passed over left-handed pitcher Max Fried in favor of outfielder Albert Almora. With the next pick, the San Diego Padres selected Fried out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles. As a rookie in 2016, Almora made his mark in Cubs’ lore by […]

The explosive Tigers-Yankees matchup that took place at Tiger Stadium on June 17, 1961, was one of the high points of a season that served as a pivotal one for the Tigers in a number of ways. The team surprised baseball by improving from a 71-83 mark the year before, to battling the iconic yet […]

In September 1883 a key late-season series in Boston pitted perennial powerhouse Chicago against a fine nine from Beantown. The Windy City team blew into the Hub holding first place, riding an 11-game win streak and appearing destined for a fourth consecutive National League title. Boston, however, was knocking on the door, a game and […]

Before a nearly sold-out Anaheim Stadium crowd of 41,805, and with a national television audience tuned in, Nolan Ryan took the mound for the California Angels with four no-hitters under his belt. He shared the record with Sandy Koufax. Might the Ryan Express break the record against the visiting Yankees, the defending world champions? The […]

Early in his career, John Francis Smith was a pitcher of great promise. As a 20-year-old in 1885, the southpaw struck out 147 batters in 11 games for the Newark team of the Eastern League, and he became known as Phenomenal Smith.1 A clever hurler who mastered a variety of deceptive curveballs,2 he pitched for […]