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Starters for the next-to-last game of the 2004 season were Pedro Astacio for the Boston Red Sox and Sidney Ponson for the Baltimore Orioles. The outcome wasn’t going to affect either team’s place in the American League East standings. The Red Sox began the day 3½ games behind the first-place New York Yankees, with two […]

The first National League Division Series in major-league history got underway in Denver on October 3, 1995. Unlike the Conference Series and the World Series, the NLDS was a five-game series.1 The Rockies, in just their third year of existence, were hosting the Braves. Colorado had played hard to the end of the season, finishing […]

It is not always that a star player gets to “come back” to his original team, to finish his career and take his final at-bats to the admiration of his hometown fans. In 2018, after spending six years away from the Seattle Mariners, including the last three with the Florida Marlins, Ichiro Suzuki was unsigned […]

The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves played Game Five of the 1993 National League Championship Series on October 11 in Atlanta after splitting the first four games. The favored Braves, who won 104 games during the regular season to secure their third consecutive NL West Division title, had outscored the Phillies 27-13 during those first […]

“It’s true, ladies, all true. THE game did last almost until dawn’s early light and your old man was not out on the town, even if he may have looked it.”—Morris Siegel1 Open any book about baseball or any page on the SABR website to reveal myriad ways to contemplate the game. Consider that baseball […]

Runs had historically been hard to come by in the Astrodome, but on May 11, 1999 — in the building’s last season — the Astros proved an exception to the rule, blasting the Pirates 19-8 in front of 18,450. The Dome had opened as the modernistic “eighth wonder of the world,”1 but its design made […]

Frank Gabler talked a better game than he pitched. The right-hander’s playing career spanned 23 years from 1930 through 1952, including four seasons in the majors, and his gift of gab helped him to keep working as a scout for the rest of his life. A jokester, storyteller, and tireless party animal, he was nicknamed […]

Boston fans who liked the way Jason Varitek handles the Red Sox pitching staff would have loved Sammy White. Sammy, who was selected as an American League All-Star catcher in 1953, was the team’s number one catcher from 1952 to 1959. White was a credible hitter, averaging .264 during his eight full seasons with the […]

Jason Jennings had what might be the greatest debut in baseball history. His first game at the major-league level was so impressive that no less an authority on greatness than the National Baseball Hall of Fame contacted the Colorado Rockies to inquire about displaying memorabilia from the game. The Rockies promoted pitcher Jennings from Triple-A […]

Game Six of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets will forever be a part of baseball lore. Many fans will say that no matter how many games you may attend, there is always something bound to happen that you may have never seen before. This was certainly […]

“He’s one of the icons of the industry, no question.” – Dan Moushon, President of the Appalachian League (2020)1   In the early 1970s, Miles Wolff raised a concern about having a career befitting a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. That concern was unfounded. Over the course of half a century as a commissioner, executive, […]

Harvard graduate Jeff Musselman pitched parts of five seasons (1986 to 1990) for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets. Primarily a reliever, the lefty was back in the minors when he suffered a career-ending heart attack at age 29. Musselman then went to work for Scott Boras, one of baseball’s leading player agents, […]

Right-hander Claral Gillenwater spent most of the 1920s pitching in mid-level minor leagues without much sustained success. His brief major-league career was no different. Given a late-season tryout by the Chicago White Sox in 1923, Gillenwater lasted barely three weeks on the roster. But before he was released, Gillenwater managed a performance of true artistry: […]

Fred Osborne was a Canadian pitcher and outfielder who won three consecutive minor league batting titles, played for the worst Pittsburgh team in National League history, and had to be institutionalized in his early 40s. His death details were unconfirmed until 2019. Frederick W. Osborne was born in May 1865, in Alberta, Canada. His father […]

Mike Hart was so determined to play in the major leagues that he turned down two lucrative offers to play in Japan. A chance to play outfield for the Yankees was denied when the baseball commissioner nullified his trade to New York. Hart hit over .300 for five teams in Triple-A,1 yet his MLB career […]

When asked to make a list of the best hitters of the late 1940s and early 1950s, few would mention left-handed slugger Ferris Fain, but perhaps they should. Fain broke in with the Philadelphia Athletics as a 26-year-old rookie in 1947 and established a reputation as a daring first baseman with a discerning eye at […]

For someone who always preferred the simple things in life, James Augustus Hunter was a complex man. To most of the world, he was Catfish, the big-game, big-money, right-handed ace who anchored an Oakland A’s pitching staff that won three straight World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. It was Catfish who in May 1968 […]

“The bonus rule will ruin baseball if it isn’t curtailed,” proclaimed Branch Rickey, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager, in August 1952.”1 A revised rule was adopted by the major leagues that winter. Clubs were required to carry any player receiving a signing bonus of more than $4,000 on their major-league roster for a minimum of two […]

“I wish I had my own baseball card,” Chris Singleton remembers Keith Foulke saying to him during a road trip in El Paso while they were playing together in the Giants’ minor-league system. “He wasn’t a guy who was highly touted, but I said, ‘You’re good, man. It’s just a matter of time.’ Now, here […]

It was long believed that on June 19, 1846, the first baseball game was played on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, though this has come into question in more recent years.1 However, back in 1946 the belief persisted, and to commemorate the centennial, the state of New Jersey placed a marker at the […]

This article was published in Dominionball: Baseball Above the 49th (2005), the SABR 35 convention journal.   There have now been approximately 200 major leaguers born in Canada. The necessity of using the word “approximately” would seem to imply a lack of research on the subject. In fact, it is precisely because there has been […]

E ho’omau ’ia ka mo’olelo. “History will continue to be made.” Maehara Stadium, August 2024 (Courtesy of Jake Rinloan)   Since its opening in 1973, Maehara Stadium has been the premier baseball park on the island of Maui. Cherished by communities on Maui, neighboring Hawaiian islands, and beyond, it has hosted countless events – mostly […]