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“Last year in Newport News, Va., we had the opportunity of watching one of the minor league baseball’s most colorful figures. He’s Chet Covington, a very portly southpaw who this season is serving his 18th year in OB. With Portsmouth last season, Chet had a 10-5 record. During the game that we saw between Newport […]

Rich “Goose” Gossage was “the type of relief pitcher that has become extinct,” as Murray Chass of the New York Times put it in 2008.[1] Today’s closer typically has the mission of pitching one inning. In 1978, when the fearsome, hard-throwing righty was the mainstay of the bullpen for the World Series champion New York […]

Escobar family reunions could pass for baseball clinics. Since patriarch Oscar Santiago Escobar founded a team in 1963, seven descendants have reached the major leagues: José Escobar, Ángel Escobar, Vicente Campos, Alcides Escobar, Kelvim Escobar, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Edwin José Escobar. Others, like Oscar Jr. and Elvis Escobar, enjoyed long careers in the Venezuelan […]

“He’s a heck of a guy. He’s enthusiastic and great for the (University of Hartford) program. He’s the reason why a lot of us are here. He is a man with big dreams. His dreams became our dreams. We believed in him.” — University of Hartford player Brian Crowley in the aftermath of Bill Denehy’s […]

In 1964, a 24-year-old Dominican strongman named Ricardo Adolfo Jacobo (Rico) Carty burst into the major leagues like a tropical storm. After two hitless at-bats in 1963, Carty’s batting average (.330) in his first full season was the second highest in the majors. Only Roberto Clemente hit better, and only a phenomenal year by Philadelphia’s […]

Thrust into a starting role with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a teenager, Aramis Ramírez blossomed after a 2003 trade to the Chicago Cubs, providing the franchise’s best long-term play at third base since Ron Santo. As of 2021, his 386 career home runs, hit over 18 seasons with three National League Central Division teams, lead […]

Bobby Valentine played in the majors for 10 years. After his playing career, he became one of the most colorful managers in baseball during the last decade of the 20th century. Valentine was always candid and outspoken throughout his managerial career. Robert James Valentine was born on May 13, 1950, in Stamford, Connecticut. His parents […]

Curt Schilling’s father, Cliff, served in the United States Army for 22 years, a master sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division who was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base adjacent to Anchorage, Alaska, when his son Curtis Montague Schilling was born on November 14, 1966. Curt was the middle child of Cliff and Mary Schilling. […]

Lenny DiNardo’s baseball career has been diverse, highlighted by a World Series ring, two no-hitters, setting collegiate strikeout records, and playing in the World Baseball Classic twice. DiNardo’s time playing baseball spanned five years in the major leagues and 11 years including college, the minor leagues, the Dominican Republic Winter League, and in the Chinese […]

It was a series between cellar dwellers in the American League’s East Division as fifth-place Washington came to Cleveland for a five-game set starting on July 6, 1970. The Senators had spent their holiday weekend taking three out of four games in New York while the sixth-place Indians were licking their wounds after getting swept in […]

Tony Oliva stands at the forefront of an exceedingly select group – one that also includes Tany (Atanasio) Pérez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso. These are the few unrivaled candidates for recognition as the greatest major-league hitter ever to emigrate to the professional big time from the baseball-rich island nation of Cuba. Palmeiro (with […]

From 1950 to 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies won five National League pennants and two World Series. Only one man was a part of the Phillies organization during each of those five pennant years — Maje McDonnell. McDonnell joined the team in 1947 as a batting-practice pitcher and, except for the period 1966-1973, was with the […]

When Tom Brokaw wrote about the “greatest generation,” he might have easily selected the life of Sid Hudson as one of its shining examples. Although he was never a baseball great, Hudson’s work in the sport spanned seven decades, stretching from the humble beginnings of Depression-era sandlot ball to the multibillion-dollar game of the present […]

After the 1974 season, Pittsburgh’s new general manager, Harding Peterson, approached Ed Ott to inform him that the Pirates would like him to become a catcher. Ott refused; he had spent the past three seasons learning how to be an outfielder. Later that winter he announced to his wife: “You know what, Joanie? I just […]

During the final decade of the 19th century, the right field post on the New York Giants was manned by Mike Tiernan. A quiet, amiable man, Tiernan was well liked by teammates, fans, and the baseball press. But he was not without aspects of a contrary streak. On a team where sporting a prominent moustache […]

Dave Thies (pronounced teace) was a tall righthander who pitched in nine games for the 1963 Kansas City A’s. His career could have been summarized in a headline, “Thies Talent Teases A’s Top Brass.” Arm miseries diminished Thies’ pitching career, but they never dampened his enthusiasm for a life he said has been “blessed.” David […]

Growing up in downstate Illinois, between Chicago and St. Louis, a midcentury youth was blessed by time and place. By radio, born in 1920, and television’s relatively new wonderwork, baseball could be followed through the art of play-by-play. If you grasped the pastime’s rhythm, the Voices often became as arresting as being at the park. […]

Through 2024, over 23,000 players have played baseball in the major leagues; only 152 were born in Mexico. Fernando Valenzuela stands above them all. One of the game’s brightest and most beloved stars over the course of his 17-season MLB pitching career (1980-1991, 1993-1997), Valenzuela’s 173 victories, six All-Star selections, and 41.5 career WAR topped […]

Mention the corner of Michigan and Trumbull to baseball fans in the Motor City, and they will immediately think of Tiger Stadium. While it is true that the Detroit Tigers played in that storied park, at that location, from 1912 to 1999, the history of professional baseball at “The Corner” actually dates back to 1896. […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee’s June 2019 newsletter. By Kevin P. Braig Like many other aspects of the 1919 World Series, reports relating to odds-making and betting on the outcome of the Series are contradictory. On one hand, some accounts claimed the action was hot […]

On September 26, the Washington Nationals travelled to Miami to finish the 2011 season with a three-game series against the Florida Marlins. These were the final games to be played in Sun Life Stadium, described by Dan Le Batard as a “kind of a sad dump for baseball now, truth to be told, too empty […]

Cincinnati and Cleveland were headed in opposite directions as the Reds hosted the Indians for the start of a three-game series on Friday, June 30, 2006. Cincinnati had finished the 2005 season at 73-89, fifth in the National League Central Division, 27 games behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals. The offseason acquisitions of catcher David […]