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“Joey is extremely smart. He’s great with figures and crossword puzzles. He could spell backwards when he was five. Did you know my Joey was an Eagle Scout? He took French in high school, finished sixth in his class of 266. I brought him up to excel in everything. He wants to be perfect.” — […]

From 1993 through 2010, Trevor Hoffman recorded 601 career saves. That was briefly a major-league record until Mariano Rivera surpassed him in 2011. Through the 2017 season, nobody else had as many as 500 — or will get there soon. It was enough to get Hoffman into the Hall of Fame in 2018, when he […]

“In my mind’s eye, I can still see Joe Torre – he was playing third base for the Cardinals – jumping and the ball going over his glove. Jerry Reuss was pitching. He threw me a slow curve. It was a clean hit. A single down the left-field line. When you get only one hit, […]

Jesse Orosco appeared in 1,252 regular-season games during his career, the most of any major-league pitcher. As of Opening Day 2015, the active hurler with the most appearances was LaTroy Hawkins with an even 1,000, so Orosco’s record endured for at least some time. The lefty spent most of his 24 seasons in the majors […]

Who’d have thought that almost a decade after Pete Henning’s final major-league game he could run afoul of none other than Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis? What’s more, he was connected to an obscure aftereffect of the momentous 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Yet Henning didn’t even have American or National League experience; he peaked as […]

A potential championship baseball team should possess both a strong cleanup hitter and catcher to provide stability for the long season. One player left his mark on the 1984 Detroit Tigers by demonstrating to the blue-collar Detroit faithful that he had the strength and versatility to put on the so-called tools of ignorance and swing […]

Vida Blue burst onto the scene in major-league baseball as a fire-balling left-hander for the Oakland A’s and served as one of the primary characters in the A’s streak of five division championships and three World Series championships. His career, which spanned from 1969 to 1986, would see high points, including the multiple World Series […]

The Cleveland Indians’ return to prominence in the mid-1990s is well known. So is the plan that general manager John Hart used to orchestrate it. The plan focused on developing young players and signing them to long-term contracts before they became eligible for arbitration and free agency.  What perhaps is not so well known is […]

Hard-throwing right-hander Dave Boswell debuted with the Minnesota Twins in 1964 at the age of 19, and was a valuable contributor to the Twins’ pennant-winning team the following season. Despite chronic blisters on his pitching hand, and arm, shoulder, and back miseries, Boswell averaged 14 wins and 210 innings over a four-year stretch with the […]

When Jeff Montgomery took the mound for the Cincinnati Reds on August 1, 1987, he was living out the storybook baseball tale. A three-sport athlete from small Wellston, Ohio, Montgomery grew up a couple of hours down the road from Riverfront Stadium in the era of the Big Red Machine. His idol, Reds manager Pete […]

Sheriff Blake, was not really a sheriff, but rather a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher whose best days came during a six-year period for the Chicago Cubs, from 1925 to 1930, when he averaged 12 wins and 216 innings per season as a dependable starter and occasional reliever. After winning a career-high 17 games and tying for […]

“It’s an unbelievable feeling to be able to contribute to a team like this. I see how hard these guys work, and when I come up here from Triple A it’s not a vacation.” — Andy Dominique, after his first major-league hit with the 2004 Red Sox1   Andy Dominique played nine games in the […]

Thanks to Giacomo Girolamo’s lecherous lifestyle, “Casanova” has become shorthand for a lothario prone to incorrigible womanizing. The term, however, literally translates “new house” or “new home” in Italian. This meaning is much more adequate for Raúl Casanova, whose 21-year professional career included stints with nearly 30 teams in the major, minor, Puerto Rican, Dominican, […]

Right-handed knuckleballer Charlie Zink put in his time, rising through the Boston Red Sox organization. He pitched for seven-plus years in the minors before finally getting the call to the big leagues. He was with the Boston team for only one day and got into just one game, but he did accomplish something that tens […]

 Purchased by the Chicago White Sox from the Pacific Coast League near Labor Day of 1959, Joe Stanka was a 28-year-old journeyman in his 10th minor-league campaign. He appeared in just two games for the Go Go Sox, winning one, losing none, and compiling a 3.78 earned run average in 5⅓ innings of pitching. He […]

Pat Gillick served four different stints as a general manager, and during each his task was different. That he succeeded at all four marks Gillick among the very best in the history of the game. In Toronto, he built an expansion team into one of baseball’s best organizations (winning 86 or more games for 11 […]

Reliever Brad Lesley was big — 6-feet-6 and 230 pounds — and hyper-intense on the field. His good-natured screaming and stomping got him nicknamed “The Animal.” Lesley’s self-motivational antics, size, and power pitching drew many comparisons, namely with Mark Fidrych, Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, Goose Gossage, and Dick “The Monster” Radatz. Yet as Lesley […]

Jay Tessmer pitched in parts of four seasons in his major-league career. Although he won only a single game, he was a member of three World Series championship teams, playing for the New York Yankees in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Appearing in 22 games during his major-league career, Tessmer pitched 23⅓ innings and finished with […]

Sophie Mary Kurys, born into a Ukrainian-Polish family in Flint, Michigan, on May 14, 1925, grew up during the Great Depression and developed a lifelong love of sports, especially baseball and golf. Starting in 1943 and playing through 1950 (and briefly in 1952), she became one of the all-time great players of the All-American Girls […]

Clara Díaz Chacón was a little girl who lived on a street in the fishing village of Puerto Caimito in Panama. A few houses up the road was an elementary school classmate. That boy’s studies ended in the ninth grade, but their paths crossed again when they were teenagers. They became boyfriend and girlfriend, and […]

On June 17, 1994, the nation was glued to the live broadcast of police chasing a white Ford Bronco on Los Angeles’ Interstate 405. In the home clubhouse 2,300 miles away, the Cleveland Indians were no less riveted as they prepared for a match against the Boston Red Sox. Never confused for an intellectual titan, […]

Ryan Lavarnway probably had more than 1,000 teammates across 27 teams during his 16 seasons in professional baseball. Primarily a catcher with seven games at first base and 28 as a designated hitter, he played for eight different major-league teams and has one World Series ring, from his time with the Boston Red Sox in […]

A standout on the sandlots of Detroit, Willie Horton became the first black superstar for his hometown Tigers and spent parts of 15 seasons with the team. A tremendously powerful right-handed slugger, Horton was one of the strongest men in the game and launched 325 homers in his career. Extremely popular in Detroit, Horton worked […]

Fans cheer on their favorite team on June 29, 2021, at Dodger Stadium. (Copyright: Steven Cukrov / dreamstime.com)   On October 8, 1957, the stockholders and directors of the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced that the franchise would move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season.1 A welcoming parade jammed downtown LA streets.2 On the steps […]