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Byung-Hyun Kim, or BK, as he was known to his teammates, was one of the first and most successful major-league players from South Korea. Although he is most remembered for devastating back-to-back blown saves in Game Four and Game Five of the 2001 World Series, those failures obscure the fact that for several years he […]

In a region noted for its rich baseball history, one of the Philadelphia area’s most precious treasures was surely a man named Whitey Witt, a big leaguer whose career began with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1916. The quiet country street that bears his name provides the only conspicuous testimony to Witt’s his former presence there. […]

4,256. 755. 5,714. 511. .366. As baseball has often been described as a game of numbers, fans, reporters, and students of the game would most certainly recognize the preceding list of significant digits. These were the career accomplishments forever linked to the respective immortals Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Cy Young, and Ty Cobb. To that list, another […]

The story of Jack Lohrke is the type of tale that would be rejected by Hollywood producers and major publishers if you were to make it up. The odds are too long, the events too improbable, the luck a little too good. The fact that a man born in the 1920s lived to be 85 […]

In the first years of Tommy Lasorda’s Hall of Fame career as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he kept several large photographs on the walls of his office at the team’s spring-training complex in Vero Beach, Florida. There was one of himself and Walter Alston, his legendary predecessor, and another with Hall of Fame […]

“I’ve always said Ron Guidry, pound for pound., was the fiercest competitor I ever played with. Nobody wanted to give him a chance when he came up. Too skinny, too small, they all thought. They couldn’t see what he had in heart. He had a big one and a lot of determination.” — Willie Randolph1 […]

It was strawberry fields forever where Kenny Rogers grew up, on a 15-acre strawberry farm in Dover, Florida, in the heart of Hillsborough County, just a bit west of Plant City, home of the annual state Strawberry Festival. Plant City was also where the Cincinnati Reds held spring training for many years, so Rogers grew […]

A baseball lifer, Mel Stottlemyre burst on the scene as a midseason call-up for the New York Yankees in 1964, helping the club win its fifth consecutive pennant and starting three games in the World Series. One of the most underrated and overlooked pitchers of his generation, Stottlemyre won 149 games and averaged 272 innings […]

Romer “Reddy” Grey made his major-league debut on May 28, 1903 at Boston, wearing the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 5’-11’, 175-pounder played left field for a club that included future Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Fred Clarke. Veteran Beaneater southpaw Wiley Piatt faced the Pirates that day, and Pittsburgh was victorious, 7-6. A left-hand batter […]

Roger Craig and “split-finger fastball” will forever be linked in baseball history. It was Craig’s work teaching first Jack Morris and then Mike Scott how to throw the pitch that gave the former right-handed pitcher lasting fame. “People think I invented that,” Craig said. “I did not. Bruce Sutter did. I just found a way […]

A late-inning home run by Willie Mays was the decisive blow in San Francisco’s dramatic 2-1 victory on the last day of the 1962 regular season, clinching a playoff berth for the Giants against their downstate rival Los Angeles Dodgers. Meanwhile, Dick “Turk” Farrell, the right-handed hurler for the Houston Colt .45s who surrendered the […]

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 […]

For Jim Kern, the 1979 season was unlike any other he had experienced in the major leagues. Not only had he established himself as one of the top relief pitchers in baseball, but he was finally on a contending team. After years in Cleveland, where the organization’s perennial mantra was “wait until next year,” Kern […]

Bob “Ziggy” Hasbrook was the first athlete ever to be a member of both a World Series winner and a national basketball champion. The infielder’s big-league baseball career consisted of just 11 games, but two of those came with the 1917 Chicago White Sox, who included him on their postseason roster. In basketball, he was […]

After the Red Sox purchased his contract in the middle of the season, Neal Ball played in only 18 regular-season games for Boston in 1912, collecting nine hits. To the baseball world, Ball is better remembered for a defensive play he made against Boston three years earlier while playing shortstop for the Cleveland Naps: the […]

For 34 years TV broadcaster Jerry Remy was a familiar presence in the living rooms of Red Sox Nation. Genial and relaxed, Remy (rhymes with “hemi”) conveyed his professional expertise without arrogance – the ideal companion for watching baseball. As team chairman Tom Werner described him, “He’s the guy you’d like to have a beer […]

A tall, lanky South Carolinian, Nate Snell didn’t debut in the majors until age 32. “It didn’t come as quickly as I would have liked,” he said. “But the point is that it came.”1 With good control and an outstanding sinker that induced lots of ground balls, the right-hander recorded a 3.29 ERA in 219 […]

Red Barrett made a solid contribution to the 1948 Braves pitching staff, as both a spot starter and reliever. He appeared in 34 games with a 7-8 record and an impressive ERA of 3.65 (although he did not qualify for the ERA title), besting both ace hurler Warren Spahn’s earned run average of 3.73 and […]

Few dates in Pittsburgh’s baseball history were anticipated as enthusiastically as April 9, 2001, when the Pirates opened PNC Park by hosting the Cincinnati Reds. But sad news preceded the celebration: Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, one of the franchise’s signature stars, died that morning at age 61. In the afternoon the biggest bat belonged […]

“A high popup! He’s gonna do it! At shortstop, Jeter. Jeter on the outfield grass … makes the catch! The Yankees win! The Yankees win! And Doc Gooden pitches a no-hitter!” – New York Yankees radio announcer John Sterling, May 14, 19961   Tears emerged in David Cone’s eyes.2 His teammate Dwight Gooden, whom he […]

“You know, we just don’t recognize life’s most significant moments while they’re happening. Back then I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be other days.’ I didn’t realize that that was the only day.” — Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), Field of Dreams   After eight years in the minor leagues and numerous injuries, Ron Wright certainly realized […]

His career curtailed by prejudice, his life by AIDS, Glenn Burke hit just two home runs in four seasons of part-time play with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s, but the circumstances of his first big-league homer made it significant, decades before the major leagues recognized him as the first openly gay player. As […]

Here is a list of all known players to have hit four or more home runs in a single professional game, first published by SABR founding member Bob McConnell in The Minor League Research Journal, Volume 2 (1997), updated in Going for the Fences: The Minor League Home Run Record Book (2009), and now maintained […]

  High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) May 2016, Volume 1, Number 5 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley SABR 46 committee meeting From the Editor From the Director Guest Columns: Rory Costello and Warren Corbett Interview with Bill Nowlin Project Profile: Tom Schott Project Poobahs   […]