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Luther Clifford grew up in an atypical town for the Depression-era United States, a suburban melting pot largely free from racial tensions. What’s more, he could draw inspiration from noteworthy ancestors dating back to the early days of the Civil War. His baseball career may not have been as remarkable, but there’s little reason to […]

Born in Cincinnati on October 5, 1858, John Good Reilly would spend most of his life and nearly all of his baseball career in his native city. He passed his earliest years at his family’s home in the city’s East End, within walking distance of the Ohio River. The family’s circumstances were probably fairly comfortable, […]

In December 2020, the Negro Leagues were recognized as major leagues. The Amaro family might thus have retroactively become the first to send three generations of players to the top level,1 ahead of the Boones, the Bells, the Hairstons, and the Colemans.2 Their worthy heritage started with their big Cuban patriarch, Santos Amaro, who had […]

The knock against Pat Malone, a big, hard-throwing right-hander who debuted for the Chicago Cubs in 1928 after seven years in the minors, was that he enjoyed the night life too much and didn’t take baseball seriously enough. Discarded by New York Giants manager John McGraw for his wayward behavior, Malone found his mentor (and […]

Violent crimes have been charged to professional athletes long before the days of O.J. Simpson. In fact, these cases go back almost to the beginning of professional sports. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, at least three major league baseball players committed murder. Edgar McNabb and Marty Bergen killed themselves before they could […]

Few names in early 20th-century America incited as much animosity and vitriol as Kaiser Wilhelm II, the emperor of Germany. After assuming the throne in 1888, the bombastic and often tactless leader inaugurated an aggressive foreign policy program that antagonized nations and directly led to World War I, in 1914. No wonder Ohio-born Irvin Wilhelm […]

Throughout nine years of professional baseball, Bill Lyons established his reputation as a versatile utilityman, capable of playing in the infield and outfield. He played in 88 games in parts of two seasons (1983-1984) with the St. Louis Cardinals, serving as the 26th man on a 25-man big-league roster and an insurance policy against injury. […]

Few players have exited the major league stage with more unrealized potential than did Jeff Stone in 1990. Nine years before, the lightning-fast outfielder was being compared to future HOF base stealer Rickey Henderson after setting the professional single-season record for stolen bases with the Spartanburg (South Carolina) Phillies in the South Atlantic League. “Get ready […]

Jesse Levan was the last baseball player to be banned for trying to fix games. A two-time minor-league batting champion, he was held back by injuries and was no longer a prospect when he was banished from professional baseball for life in 1959. He always denied conspiring to throw games, but the damning evidence against […]

Harry Coyle taught us how to watch baseball on television. As the director of 36 World Series telecasts, beginning with the first one in 1947, he invented many of the images that shape our view of the game. One of his innovations, the center field shot showing the pitcher, batter, catcher, and umpire, became the […]

In Jim Bouton’s revelatory 1970 book Ball Four, he describes a late September 1969 scene at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. “A group of terrorized pitchers stood around the batting cage watching Willie McCovey belt some tremendous line drives over the right-field fence. Every time a ball bounced into the seats we’d make little whimpering animal […]

The case of 1920s Negro League pitcher Dave Brown provides a classic example of the oft-quoted line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” a maxim that stems from a John Ford-directed film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In that movie, reporter Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young) discovers that his subject, Senator Ransom Stoddard […]

Considering that his professional career almost ended before it started, Joe Sambito made the most of his opportunity. His future in the game teetered several times, but for a period of five years, 1977-1981, the left-hander from Long Island, New York, with a good fastball and a nasty slider was arguably one of the best […]

Ken Bolek spent two seasons as a coach in the major leagues: 1992 and 1993, with the Cleveland Indians. As a player, the outfielder was in the minors from 1976 through 1978, including a three-game stint at Triple-A. Yet for decades, this man contributed to baseball as a minor-league coach and manager, along with teaching […]

To many fans, John Olerud was the player who wore his batting helmet while in the field. But to those who knew him best, he was a player with a gorgeous swing, a reliable glove, and a refusal to ever say anything remotely mean or controversial. After suffering a nearly fatal brain aneurysm in college […]

This article is #1 in a series of three about the Brooklyn clothier-turned-politician and his iconic sign that adorned the right field fence in Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. It remains perhaps the most famous ballpark sign in baseball history. This article is a biography, focusing on Abe Stark’s life and achievements. For a […]

Victor Starffin’s life reads like a Hollywood novel and, in a way, so do his pitching statistics …” — Richard Puff   It is highly probable that no professional baseball player — from any era, country or league — ever lived a more erratic, dramatic, and in the end tragic life than did the pitcher […]

When Chris Jelic was traded from Kansas City to New York in 1987, the Mets picked up a future All-Star. It just wasn’t him. Jelic’s place in baseball history endures as the answer to two trivia questions: He was the other guy the Mets got when they traded for David Cone, and he remains the […]

In the history of Major League Baseball, there are only a handful of players whose abilities have been so unique that they have led to the need for the creation of new rules of the game. Pat Venditte was one of those players, with his unique ability to switch-pitch leading to a new rule unofficially […]

Though his major-league career was limited to parts of four seasons, Rod Gaspar was anything but a footnote player. While he played in only one full year in the majors, it was as a World Champion. Gaspar led National League outfielders in double plays while scoring a pivotal run in the 1969 World Series. Six […]

Twenty-seven miles due south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, lies the town of Woodsboro, Maryland, the lifelong home of Archie Stimmel.[1] At the turn of the twentieth century, he was a tall, wiry right-handed pitcher who briefly made a name for himself with the Cincinnati Reds, crossed paths with many of the game’s earliest superstars, bounced around […]

The Ballpark at Old Orchard Beach, as pictured in 2023. (Courtesy of Kurt Blumenau)   Before there was The Ballpark at Arlington, The Ballpark at Jackson, The Ballpark at Harbor Yard or The Ballpark at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, there was simply The Ballpark, in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.1 The pine-bordered park with the […]

  Baseball only decrees 90 feet between bases and 60 feet 6 inches from home plate to the mound. Elsewhere, look backward, angel.“Thanks to Alexander Cartwright,” said former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, “the outfield distance, fence height, and space between the seats and lines vary. Parks could do as they liked.”1 Some have been liked better. […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 37, in 2008.   When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 1918, it was their fifth triumph in the fifteen years of the modern classic. The club had the best player in baseball, outfielder-pitcher Babe Ruth, another top hitter […]