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Amidst the wealth of pitching talent developed by the New York Mets in the 1960s, few hurlers arrived in the organization with as much promise as Les Rohr. But the big left-hander—the second player ever selected in baseball’s amateur draft—would have only fleeting success in the big leagues. Leslie Norvin Rohr was born on March […]

Right-handed pitcher Cory Bailey was a 15th-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1991 at the age of 20. His lengthy career ran through 2008 and featured stints in both the American League and National League, as well as Japan’s Central League, Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League, and Venezuela’s winter league. In the […]

“This guy is a natural. He’s got ideas about what he wants to do and does it. He amazes me.” — Carl Hubbell “No pitcher has made such magnificent use of his God-given equipment.” — Branch Rickey “If you placed all the pitchers in the history of the game behind a transparent curtain, where only […]

Looking back more than a century, the high regard in which contemporaries held pitcher Al Maul is somewhat puzzling. The stats that he compiled during his 15-season major league tenure are far from eye-catching, and his record is dotted with extended periods of inactivity. Characteristically, his career highlights – a National League ERA crown in […]

After an early professional career filled with numerous false starts, position changes, injuries, and demotions, Jeff Blauser carved out 13 seasons in the major leagues, primarily as an offense-first shortstop. In 11 years with the Atlanta Braves (1987-97) and two with the Chicago Cubs (1998-99), he was a two-time All-Star and played on four World […]

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 […]

Todd Frohwirth was a high school senior with no future in professional baseball until he saw Kent Tekulve on television and tried pitching like the unorthodox right-hander. Eight years later, he was Tekulve’s teammate in the major leagues. Exclusively a reliever, Frohwirth spent parts of nine seasons (1987-1994, 1996) with the Phillies, Orioles, Red Sox, […]

Before it came to a premature halt, the career of 1870s pitcher-turned-outfielder George Bechtel was not without distinction. Bechtel was a member of major league baseball’s first championship team, the 1871 Philadelphia Athletics of the National Association. Four seasons later, he and teammate Bill Craver became the first players to have their contracts transferred by […]

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 […]

It was early in the evening on March 9, 1934, as the City Light truck made its way down Fourth Avenue South in downtown Seattle. The driver saw a rotund older man step from the curb to cross the street a short distance ahead. The truck slowed to allow him to cross, but when he […]

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 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 […]

Any time a young minor-league player is called up to the major leagues for the first time, it’s surely a nerve-wracking experience. So as Cleveland Indians farmhand Kevin Kouzmanoff sat on an airplane that was sitting on the runway in Cincinnati waiting for more fuel, the “what-if” scenarios about what might play out that evening […]

Five days before the 1979 All-Star Game, two fifth-place teams in the American League had a twi-night doubleheader scheduled, as the Detroit Tigers visited the Chicago White Sox. Mike Veeck, son of White Sox owner Bill Veeck, was the director of promotions for the White Sox. He had conspired with Steve Dahl, a Chicago disc […]

Cincinnati’s roots in professional baseball date to 1876, and the Queen City has seen a lot of baseball history—including the first major-league game to feature three members of the 500-home-run club. It happened on June 10, 2005, when Ken Griffey Jr. and the Cincinnati Reds hosted Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and the Baltimore Orioles in […]

The San Francisco Giants were one win from the franchise’s first World Series title in 48 years after thrashing the Anaheim Angels, 16-4, in Game Five of the 2002 World Series at Pacific Bell Park. In addition to the 16-hit, three-homer battering the Giants delivered, the game was remembered for a close call involving Giants […]

The day Robin Roberts, the pride of Philadelphia, was elected to the Hall of Fame in January 1976, sportswriter Bob Gross penned an article detailing Roberts’ collegiate feats at Michigan State University and memories from his major-league career.1 Gross recounted Roberts’ bittersweet memory of a conversation he had with his father after a game in […]

After a standout career at Sharyland High School in Mission, Texas, Jaime García – born in Reynosa, Mexico, on July 8, 1986 – was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 30th round of the 2004 June Amateur Draft. As was their policy at the time, the Orioles required each of their draftees to pass a […]

The 1994 season was one of the darkest in baseball history. A players strike in August led to the first season in 90 years without a World Series, and fans were not happy. Average game attendance dropped by 6,000 fans from 1994 to 1995.1 Yet, in the two years between 1996 and 1998, total attendance […]

The Baltimore Orioles were flying high as June 1997 approached. The 34-15 Orioles carried the AL’s best record, and a 7½-game lead over the New York Yankees in the AL East Division, into a two-game weekend showdown against the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians. Baltimore opened the 1997 season with a four-game winning streak and maintained […]

On a Mother’s Day afternoon one month into the 2016 season, the Chicago Cubs hosted the Washington Nationals “in front of 41,233 at pink-splashed Wrigley Field.”1 The two teams were playing the final game of a four-game series. After Washington had won five of six coming into Chicago, the Cubs had beaten them in three straight […]

When Seattle visited Cleveland on July 29, 2014, for the start of a three-game series, both teams were in third place in their respective divisions. The Mariners had lost five of their last six games and trailed AL Western Division leader Oakland by 11½ games. The Indians had lost six of seven games before winning […]

1912 Hilldale Club. Back row: Bill Anderson, Alice Robinson, Lloyd Thompson, Marian Caulk, Devere Thompson, Mark Studevan, Clara Ivory, Ed Bolden, Helen Barrett, Charles Gaskins, Mary Ricketts, Hubert Jackson, Grace Ricketts, Sam Anderson and Leon Brice. Front row: Hulett Strothers, Raymond Garner, Billy Hill, Frank “Chink” Wilson, George Kemp, Hugh “Scrappy” Mason and Clarence Porter. […]