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“His hearty ‘glad to see you,’ and the warm grasp of the hand were the same as of old,” wrote the Boston Globe reporter who shook hands with Charlie Bennett. His eyes “twinkled merrily” during the interview at the apartment of Kid Nichols on Tremont Street in Boston.1 But this was not the same Charlie […]

“It’s show time in the National League East,” wrote Charley Feeney of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the Pirates downed the Chicago Cubs in a “must-win” game to stay hot on the trail of the division-leading Montreal Expos.1 The season was coming down to the wire with nine more games to play. While the Pirates were […]

Washington skipper Clark Griffith had reason to be confident. The former star pitcher, seven-time 20-game winner, and successful player-manager for three different franchises had transformed the Senators from laughing stock to baseball’s biggest surprise in his first season in the nation’s capital. A charter member of the AL, the Senators had never posted a winning […]

Of the many talented players involved in the successes of the early 1990s pennants won by the Pittsburgh Pirates, one player who flew under the radar was amateur free-agent signing Orlando Merced. Orlando Luis Villanueva Merced was born on November 2, 1966, to José R. and Sylvia Villanueva. Merced’s parents were both originally from Puerto […]

Massachusetts-based contractors Lou Perini, Joseph Maney, and Guido Rugo became majority owners of the Boston Braves baseball club in 1944. In 1947, through a working relationship with Perini, Massachusetts native Joseph Cairnes shifted his career path from construction engineer, in the private and public sectors, to major league baseball administrator with the Braves. Perini, familiar […]

Nick Young’s baseball career illustrated important aspects of the game’s early development. He was a cricketer who took up baseball during Civil War service; afterward he joined a club of amateurs that grew increasingly competitive and came to include paid players. This evolved into helping organize the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which […]

Super Scout: Thirty-five Years of Scouting was the name of Jim Russo’s 1992 memoir. The title was simple and apt. Russo worked full-time for the Baltimore Orioles franchise from 1951, when it was still the St. Louis Browns, until 1986. As the club rose to prominence in the ’60s, he gained acclaim as one of […]

From 1975 through 1982, Dennis Lewallyn pitched in parts of eight seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and Cleveland Indians. The 6-foot-4 righty totaled a year and a half of major league service time, going 4-4 in 34 games. “I threw a sinker, slider, change-up; did not throw a lot of pitches in […]

A fleet-footed flycatcher with a rifle arm, World War I-era outfielder Walter Mattick had his major-league career abbreviated by a common failing: the inability to hit top-quality pitching. Weakness with the bat limited his big-league time to parts of three seasons. Still, Mattick parlayed other assets into a long association with professional baseball, mostly as […]

  The Pittsburgh Rebels visited Kansas City on May 6, 1914, and routed the Packers thanks in large part to “Eggie” Lennox’s efforts at the plate. With Pittsburgh down 1-0, Lennox doubled to right-center field to lead off the second inning and scored on an error. In the third Lennox sent a ball over the […]

Handsome, well educated, and a gifted athlete, pitcher Carl Lundgren led a life blessed with good fortune. He was born into a prosperous, stable household in northern Illinois and raised in comfortable circumstance. Initially as a schoolboy, and thereafter at the University of Illinois, Carl excelled both in the classroom and on the playing field. […]

What if? Are there any more tragic words in the English language? Helen of Troy’s face is reputed to have launched a thousand ships. Miguel Fuentes’ story may have launched fewer conversations, but the former is a myth while the latter is reality. Or in Shakespearean terms, a tragedy. For the Seattle Pilots’ fans, whose […]

On September 27, 1920, suspicions about the integrity of the previous year’s World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds were given substance by a self-admitted fix insider named Billy Maharg. In an interview first published in the Philadelphia North American and syndicated nationwide immediately thereafter, Maharg maintained that a number of Chicago […]

After his third year in organized baseball, 22-year-old right-handed pitcher Bill Burwell was drafted into the United States Army in 1917 and was assigned to the recently formed 89th Infantry Division, the “Rolling W,” and later deployed to Europe. During one of the last major offensives of the war, the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in northeastern […]

With his one major-league hit, Roger Hornsby McKee never came close to his namesake’s Hall of Fame total. He did, though, channel Rogers Hornsby with an Organized Baseball batting title.1 And while the namesake Hornsby was a player-manager for 12 seasons during an era when such skippers had a penchant for giving themselves a turn […]

Infielder Owen Friend played in parts of five major-league seasons, appearing in 208 total games, with 119 of them for the 1950 St. Louis Browns. Scout Fred Hofmann signed him to the Browns in 1943, and he more or less began playing for his hometown team. Of course, the Cardinals would have qualified on that […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

Joe Burt Scott’s professional baseball career intersected with the emerging opportunities in the sport following Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the waning years of the Negro Leagues. This left-handed first baseman and outfielder was 26 years old in 1947, when he hit .400 for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro […]

When George Brett incurred some nuisance back problems in the late stages of his career with the [Kansas City] Royals, he sought relief from a chiropractor in Overland Park[, Kansas]. On one of his first visits, perhaps the first, Brett lay face down on the table — vulnerable, as he recalls — waiting for treatment, […]

In the early 1920s, the New York Yankees began the assembly of a professional sports dynasty, with many pundits rating the 1927 Yanks the best team in major-league history. Yet during the first half of the decade, the New York Giants outdid their local rival. Piloted by John McGraw and with a lineup featuring future […]

A dapper Bob Brown surveys his domain from the wooden steps of Athletic Park. The 5′ 9″ Brown was a dandy of sorts, wearing vests until the 1950s, long after they had gone out of style. (David Eskenazi Collection)   Bob Brown figured more money was to be made in baseball as an owner than […]

He was born in Ireland during the Potato Famine, named for an American president, and crossed the ocean as an infant to become a star in a game that was unknown in his native land at the time. Eventually, baseball came to flourish in Ireland. In the present Irish Baseball League the most outstanding player […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]