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The well-traveled right-handed pitcher Bobby Locke spent the month of September 1964 on the Phillies roster after a call-up from Little Rock. He pitched in eight games, three of them during the team’s fatal ten-game losing streak, including the one in which Chico Ruiz’s steal of home launched the losing streak. (Art Mahaffey was on […]

By the end of the nineteenth century, the venerable Cap Anson was acclaimed as the “grand old man of base ball” on such a regular basis that the appellation was often shortened to the “G. O. M.” In the years since, the honorary title has been conferred on such éminences grises as Connie Mack and Cy […]

Jimmie Wilson was a two-time All-Star catcher whose major league career spanned 23 years (1923-46) as a player, manager, and coach with four different National League teams. He played on four pennant winners, was a coach on a fifth, and was a member of two World Series championship teams. He is best remembered for his […]

When he made his debut in a mid-August 1923 game against the Philadelphia Athletics, Chicago left-hander Paul Castner secured a line for himself in the record book of the national pastime. That entry, however, would be a slender one, as Castner made only five more big-league appearances before abandoning the game at the close of […]

As a minority-stake member of the Metropolitan Exhibition Company (MEC), Walter S. Appleton played a modest role in the establishment of professional baseball in New York City. Appleton was on the scene shortly after cigar maker John B. Day, the founder and dominant member of the MEC, moved the home games of the Metropolitan Base […]

Although there isn’t a strong correlation between hair color and personality, it’s fair to say that the stereotypical redhead is hot-tempered, fiery and passionate. With his carrot-topped thatch, Wade Killefer personifies this description and was a natural to be called “Red” from birth. Add to the mix a stocky 5’9″ 175-pound frame, a keen intellect, […]

“With a fine disregard of flying regulations here came this big flying machine roaring from behind the center field fence and only a few hundred feet in the air and there were a few panicky seconds. And then George Case [who was waiting to bat] removed his cap and began to wave it violently as […]

Larry Doby is best remembered for becoming the first Black player in the American League and the second in modern history. When Doby made his debut for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, he broke the league’s color barrier less than three months after Jackie Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.1 In the […]

For five years beginning in 1961, no relief pitcher was more important to his team’s success than Jack Baldschun. Starting with a single pitch that the great Stan Musial said often “humiliated”1 the greatest hitters of the day, adding the ability to pitch four, five, and even six games in a row, and underscoring that […]

In a poll of National League sportswriters conducted in April 1964, Larry Bearnarth was tabbed as the New York Mets’ best young pitcher.1 The franchise’s first bonus player and the first hurler to win four consecutive major league decisions, the tall blond right-hander established a club record with 58 appearances during his rookie season. Bearnarth’s […]

Ponchatoula, Louisiana, in the 1930s was a small town that had suffered a number of lumber mills closing in the previous decade. By the 1930s, it was known primarily as a strawberry farming region. It was into this area that on October 2, 1934, Earl Lawrence Wilson was born. He later changed his name to […]

Perseverance and a love for the game guided sure-handed utility infielder John Donaldson through a 12-year career in Organized Baseball (1963-1974), including parts of six seasons with the Kansas City/Oakland A’s and the Seattle Pilots. The hard-nosed North Carolinian played in 405 big-league games and weathered trades, demotions, promotions, and outright releases, but looked back […]

Right-hander Kenny Hill flashed the kind of stuff that made batters think twice before they came to the plate. He had a wicked split-finger fastball which made his low-to-mid-90s heater look even faster, and his hard slider was generally regarded as one of the best in baseball. Three times he won a career-best 16 games, […]

A vital rookie starter for one of the best Pittsburgh Pirates rotations of all time, a PGA-caliber professional, and a recognized expert angler, the “Avondale Blossom” — Charley “Whitey” Glazner — was a talented and multifaceted sportsman in the truest sense of the word. Add in a veteran of the Great War, one who pitched […]

“He is another Vance, another Dazzy, I’m telling you. Hasn’t the best disposition in the world. You know some of those Carolina fellows get funny ideas sometimes, but he certainly can buzz that ball over. Best young pitcher I’ve seen since Rube Marquard. Only he is faster than Rube was. Say, maybe he is another […]

Mike Kreevich was 22 years old before he came out of the Illinois coal country to play his first game of professional baseball. He was 28 before he shed his major-league rookie status in 1936, following two brief trials earlier in that decade. He faced the obstacles of small stature, a teenage injury to his […]

The split-finger fastball became a popular weapon for pitchers in the 1980s. Few if any used it better than righty Mike Scott. With the splitter, he went from mediocrity to ace. Though many believed he was doing something else to make the ball move so much — namely, scuffing it — that was never proven […]

A rookie in his first training camp must do something to make the manager notice him. It certainly does not hurt his cause if he can get the newspaper writers to write favorably. Bernie Neis was invited to spring training with the Dodgers in 1920. He came from Class C ball in Canada with the […]

Jackie Robinson was the trailblazer who integrated major-league baseball in the 20th century. However, many other pioneering players were the first to integrate particular states or teams, and their proper acknowledgement took much longer. Bill Greason, a right-hander who began his baseball career with the Nashville Black Vols in 1947, is a case in point. […]

Billy Jurges, a star shortstop for the Chicago Cubs (1931-1938, 1946-1947) and the New York Giants (1939-1945), played a part in Babe Ruth’s called home run during the 1932 World Series, and perhaps provided some of the inspiration behind Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural and the movie by the same name. He helped prompt the […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project. Federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired as baseball’s first commissioner in November 1920. He served in that role for nearly a quarter-century until his death in 1944. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   Only in the face of extreme […]

This article appears in SABR’s Baltimore Baseball (2021), edited by Bill Nowlin.   1. Flat Rock (a/k/a Druid Hill Park) 1858-1859 When Baltimore grocer, George F. Beam, formed the Excelsior Base Ball Club in the summer of 1858, the choice for a practice space was imperative since ball playing within city borders was often impractical, […]

“A colleague and I were discussing whether there has been a modern-era athlete who meant more to his city than Gwynn. Some might say John Elway in Denver, or Cal Ripken in Baltimore, or Michael Jordan in Chicago. But were any of those legends their city’s sole source of greatness? No. … Were any of […]

In the spring of 1975, the Texas Rangers finally did with David Clyde what they should have done from the start: They sent the young pitcher to the minor leagues for seasoning. The Rangers, hungry for a box-office draw, had rushed the hard-throwing Houston-bred lefty to the big leagues just two weeks out of high […]