Search Results

Explorer Juan Ponce de León was way off. More than five centuries before Global Positioning Systems became commonplace, his obsession with the mythical fountain of youth took him from the Spanish Caribbean colonies to the still unexplored Floridian peninsula, where he met his demise when the natives did not take kindly to his quest. In […]

Boileryard Clarke was known throughout the major leagues for his booming voice that could be heard clearly all over the field. It served him well as both a catcher – a coach on the field – and as a college coach from the dugout. Clarke spent 55 years in baseball as both a professional player […]

Carlos May was called “Tank” for his burly stature. At 5-feet-11 and 200 pounds, he had the physique of someone who carried a pigskin on a football field. However, May was also a talented baseball player, adept at hitting the horsehide. He reached the big leagues in 1968 at the age of 20. His career […]

With almost a century having passed since the end of his fitful professional career, right-handed pitcher Hi Jasper is an elusive subject, a hard man to pin down. But two Jasper characteristics are unmistakable. He had ability — such astute talent evaluators as Jimmy Callahan, Frank Chance, and Pants Rowland recognized his merits. Yet Jasper’s […]

He pitched 18 seasons in the major leagues but for Grant Jackson, it all came down to one inning in the final game ever played in the 1970s. It was familiar territory for the left-hander. Eight years before, the Baltimore Orioles took a lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1971 World Series, which culminated with […]

August 27, 1968. Yankee Stadium. Bottom of the sixth. Angels 1, Yankees 0. Bases loaded, two out.  The crowd of 21,419 lets out a tremendous roar as Mickey Mantle is called upon to pinch hit. Although it was the last year of The Mick’s career, he’d already hit 16 homers and was still a threat […]

Soon after the 1967 World Series ended, Fleetwood Recording Co. released a long-playing phonograph record, The Impossible Dream, a reprise of the Boston Red Sox magical same-year pennant. Narrating, Sox announcer Ken Coleman hailed “an affair twixt a town and a team,” telling how the Boston American League Baseball Company used wonderwork to wave 1967’s […]

If you take a close look at some of the iconic Boston baseball photographs created at the turn of the 20th century by Elmer Chickering, you might see him. He’s the mustached chap in the bowler cap holding his Brownie camera with Hi-Hi Dixwell at the groundbreaking for the Huntington Avenue Grounds; he’s the guy […]

Frank Grant was one of the best second basemen of the nineteenth century. His name may not sound familiar to most because he was African American. Consequently, he toiled for black clubs and briefly in the white minors before the color line was firmly entrenched. He was dubbed the “Black Dunlap,” a reference to his […]

A major-league ballplayer gets called a lot of things during his career, and a manager probably more so. In the case of Edgar Frederick Yost III, some of those things include taxidermist, catcher, grinder, idiot, app developer, survivor, twitter hashtag (#yosted), clothier, pot scrubber, and hunter. Oh, and one more thing — World Series champion […]

Like many successful owners, longtime Kansas City Royals magnate Ewing Kauffman could be highly demanding, both publicly and privately. Yet he was one of the few also celebrated by the community and his players for his generosity and obvious caring for their wellbeing. Kauffman made his fortune as a pharmaceutical entrepreneur in the decades after […]

His nickname says it all: The Human Rain Delay. In the years before seemingly every big-league ballplayer stepped out of the box after every pitch to go through a routine of incessant equipment adjusting, Mike Hargrove was an anomaly and drove pitchers, managers, fans, and even broadcasters mad. “With machine-like precision,” wrote Bob Sudyk, “Hargrove […]

The train pulled out of South Station in Boston on February 18, 1911, heading for Los Angeles and the new location for Red Sox spring training (Redondo Beach, California). Several stops were made along the way as the party picked up players from Western League teams as well as returning veteran players. Manager Patsy Donovan […]

To many who saw Al Luplow dive over the right-center field fence at Fenway Park on June 27, 1963 to glove a potential game-winning home run, it was the greatest catch they’d ever seen. An outfielder with the Cleveland Indians, Luplow was instinctively doing something he’d done as a Michigan State running back — launching […]

Richard Joseph “Trixie” Tracewski was an average-hitting, good-fielding shortstop whose career in baseball spanned both the National and American Leagues, four World Series rings, and a Detroit Tigers record span as both a base and bench coach. Also known as “Dick Tracy” by many fans in Los Angeles during his four years with the Dodgers […]

Who was the fastest man ever to step on a major league diamond?  This question would surely provoke a heated debate among diehard baseball fans, with many names surfacing.  It is a safe assumption that Billy Stage’s name would not come up, yet he is almost certainly the only man to hold world records in […]

Aspects of the life story of obscure mid-1880s pitcher Fleury Sullivan have doubtless been lost to time. But the surviving historical record militates that any profile of the brawny Sullivan focus on his relatively brief ballplaying career; his involvement in the political affairs of East St. Louis, Illinois; and his proclivity for resolving differences via […]

Drafted as a shortstop, Mark Eichhorn was initially a starting pitcher in the minors, but an injured arm led to the development of a submarine style that featured a release point so low to the ground that it became a nightmare for right-handed batters. His new delivery would lead to him becoming the set-up man […]

The first player from “The Big Island” of Hawaii to make it to the major leagues was pitcher Onan Masaoka. The lefty’s 1999 Bowman baseball card aptly described his ability and his nemesis, command: “Pure power southpaw . . . Lively low-to-mid 90s heater . . . Gets outs with breaking stuff, too, when mechanics […]

Dave Jolly was 28 years old when he made his major-league debut as a member of the Milwaukee Braves. Both he and the team arrived in Milwaukee the same year, 1953. Over the ensuing five seasons the soft-tossing, durable right-handed pitcher became an integral member of the Braves bullpen, throwing 291 innings over that span, […]

In the summer of 1919, the year the Black Sox threw the World Series, 30-year-old sportswriter Irving Vaughan joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune. It wasn’t his first newspaper job, but it would be his last. When he retired 38 years later, having covered more than 7,000 baseball games during a career that spanned […]

There has never been a sports icon linked to a city quite like Tony Gwynn is to San Diego. The eight-time batting champion went to college at San Diego State, spent his entire Hall of Fame career with the San Diego Padres then returned to his alma mater to become a collegiate baseball coach for […]

The Polo Grounds, an odd name for an odd stadium, was home to several baseball teams, most notably the New York Giants until the team moved to San Francisco following the 1957 season. Its horseshoe-shaped grandstand and elongated playing area provided for ridiculously short distances down the foul lines and equally ridiculous long distances to […]

This multi-purpose facility has been called “The Madison Square Garden of Puerto Rico.”1 Its use in boxing and basketball is a big reason, but the parallel extends to track and field, as well as political conventions. Baseball, however, forms an especially rich chapter in the history of Estadio Sixto Escobar (as it is known to […]