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Baseball card #186 in the 1967 Topps set seems in retrospect like a victory of hope over reality. The card shows New York Mets teammates Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda, hitters known more for their power potential than their actual production, kneeling with bats in a spring-training setting above the headline “METS MAULERS.” First baseman […]
After wins in Games Six and Seven in Cincinnati by scores of 5-4 and 4-1, respectively, it was clear the Chicago White Sox were no longer playing to lose. Dickey Kerr wasn’t as brilliant in Game Six as he was in Game Three, but he went the distance in a 10-inning affair that saw the […]
Thanks to Dickey Kerr serving his teammates a dose of rejuvenating elixir in Game Three, the Chicago White Sox had regained their confidence and were ready to take Game Four of the 1919 World Series at Comiskey Park. “Reassured by yesterday’s shutout of the Reds, the White Sox today declared they were ready to back […]
Baltimore Elite Giants pitchers at Oriole/Terrapin Park, 1940. Left to right: Emery Adams, Satchel Davis, Eddie Dixon, Woody Williams, Willie Hubert, and Bill Barnes. (Courtesy of David Stinson and Bernard McKenna) The 1939 Negro National League Championship Series featured a matchup between the Homestead Grays, in pursuit of their third consecutive league championship, and […]
At the dawn of the 1966 season, 24-year-old Dick Allen was entrenched as a central player on the pennant-hopeful Philadelphia Phillies. Allen burst onto the major-league stage in 1964, winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award with 29 home runs and league-leading stats in runs, triples, and total bases. He supplemented that exceptional […]
Heavy clouds hung over Yankee Stadium before Game Four of the 1978 World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers led the New York Yankees two games to one in the best-of-seven series. Although Graig Nettles’ defensive heroics from the previous night lightened New Yorkers’ moods,1 the afternoon’s forecast for occasional showers and the tarp covering the […]
“There have been few World Series battles in history that carried as much in the way of melodramatic suspense,” gushed syndicated sportswriter Grantland Rice about Carl Hubbell’s 11-inning complete-game victory over the Washington Senators in Game Four of the World Series to give the New York Giants a seemingly insurmountable three-games-to-one lead.1 John Drebinger of […]
It is the most dramatic of baseball plays, the walk-off home run. The exuberance of the hometown fans is immediate as the batter begins to circle the bases. Amid the gathering of an excited and victorious team, the home-plate umpire waits stoically to ensure that all runners have touched the plate. Game over! As noted […]
A Sunday crowd of 19,950 — overflowing into fair territory in left field — flocked to Cleveland’s League Park on May 11, 1913, for the first of four games between the Cleveland Naps and the New York Yankees. The game was promoted as “Frank Chance Day,” to honor New York’s popular player-manager. Chance — in […]
“If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out.” — George Brett It was quite the major-league debut for 27-year-old Roberto Peña. He ended the day with three errors and a .571 fielding average. At the plate, he banged out three hits, including a home […]
When the Chicago White Sox took the field for Opening Day in 1919, no one knew which version of the team would come to play.1 Charles Comiskey’s club had ended the previous season in a disappointing sixth place, following the loss of stars like Eddie Collins to the Marines and Shoeless Joe Jackson to the […]
The Detroit Tigers headed to Cleveland for a three-game, two-day set with the Indians in August 1958. The Tigers were holding down fourth place in the American League. The Indians were right behind them in fifth. Both clubs, as well as the whole league, were double-digit games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Nobody was […]
This article was originally published in the December 2024 edition of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. Judge Hugo M. Friend presided over the Black Sox trial during the summer of 1921, less than a year after he was tabbed to fill a temporary vacancy on the Cook County circuit court bench. (Photo: […]
Tim Murchison was a 23-year old left-hander who went north in the spring of 1920 with the eventual World Champion Cleveland Indians. He had excelled at Guilford College and logged about 600 innings in the minors. The St. Louis Cardinals had given him a brief look in 1917. But he worked only five innings for […]
Rufus “Sonnyman” Jackson was born on May 1, 1900, in Columbus, Georgia, to Rufus Jackson Sr. and Rosa Bell Dixon, both Georgia natives.1 Rosie and her son remained close enough throughout his life that in 1940, when he was already a successful businessman and often-time courthouse visitor, she was still living with her grown son. […]
A catcher’s close proximity to the home plate umpire doesn’t bode well for a receiver with a propensity for umpire baiting and “rowdy tactics.” This was the case for Harry “Spike” LaRoss, whose many fines and suspensions, along with many injuries, necessitated a move to the outfield early in his career. The 5’11”, 170 pound […]
Darrin Jackson has spent more than 40 years in professional baseball, first as a highly respected (and well-traveled) outfielder (1981-99) who overcame cancer and serious illnesses to have a productive career, and then as the longtime analyst for Chicago White Sox television (2000-08) and radio (2009- ) broadcasts. In 2024 Jackson completed his 25th season […]
Dick Hughes had a memorable rookie season in the big leagues in 1967. He led the world champion St. Louis Cardinals with 16 wins, while losing just 6 and posting a 2.67 ERA. At age 29, Hughes was runner-up to Tom Seaver for 1967 National League Rookie of the Year honors. The bespectacled right-hander, who […]
Big Bill James’s involvement, if any, in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal remains curiously unexplored by most baseball historians. Yet the tall right-handed pitcher from Michigan pops up in three different game-fixing incidents during the Deadball Era. As a member of the Chicago White Sox for just two months in 1919, James saw little action […]
A lifelong pursuit toward a ministerial career was put on hold for 21 years while the devoutly religious Lindy McDaniel labored in his temporary gig as a major-league hurler. During the interim employment he alternately became both the “toast of the town … [and] the roast of the town with his ups and downs.”1 Possessor […]
Gary Sheffield was known for a swing so quick “he could turn on a .38-caliber bullet.”1 The menacing way he waggled his bat and the screaming line drives it produced caused a frustrated Cincinnati Reds coach to promise to ban his pitchers from throwing Sheffield a strike.2 Sheffield emerged as a star in 1992, when […]
On September 27, 1920, suspicions about the integrity of the previous year’s World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds were given substance by a self-admitted fix insider named Billy Maharg. In an interview first published in the Philadelphia North American and syndicated nationwide immediately thereafter, Maharg maintained that a number of Chicago […]
Jacob “Jake” Wood Jr., an African American from Elizabeth, New Jersey, starred at shortstop for the baseball team at Thomas Jefferson High, played one season at Delaware State University, and signed with the Detroit Tigers in 1957. Jake was a natural, one of two outstanding athletes in the family. Youngest brother Richard enjoyed a 10-year […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) October 2018 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors From the Editor Update on BioProject Submissions Project Poobahs From Co-Director, Rory Costello Disappearing Images Perhaps you’ve noticed that the pictures accompanying certain biographies have either disappeared or […]