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From the Class D Southeastern League to a perfect inning in the National League over a three-game five-day span, 20-year-old Harrie “Jack” Reis was a tiny bright September footnote from a lackluster 1911 St. Louis Cardinals season. It marked the beginning and end of his major league career. Harrie C. Reis was born on June […]

Elmer Leifer played in only nine major-league games, being called up to the Chicago White Sox by team owner Charlie Comiskey at the end of the 1921 season. The most remarkable feature of Leifer’s baseball career, and maybe of his entire life, was his comeback from a near-fatal injury on the ballfield that occurred a […]

One of the best pitchers of the 1970s, Dock Ellis feared success nearly as much as he feared failure. He both angered and amused. His antics cut across racial and cultural lines, as he challenged old prejudices and “normal” ways of doing things. Ellis pitched a no-hitter in 1970 and the next year led the […]

A catcher who always seemed to be trying to win a starting spot, Barry Lyons showed occasional signs of power and a solid presence behind the plate. Described once by reporters as “quiet, conservative and even contemplative in appearance,” Lyons often found himself overlooked but still had a major-league career that spanned seven years between […]

The tale is familiar to followers of baseball legend: Young boy growing up in rough-and-tumble circumstances, running roughshod over parents and teachers, unrepentantly scoffing at law and decency, finally ends up in front of the local magistrate who has him declared incorrigible and packed off to the nearest reformatory. There, the lad discovers an outlet […]

Behind the scenes maneuvering resulted in Bud Lally being added to the National League’s staff of umpires for the second half of the 1896 season. In an era of rough and tumble baseball, Lally’s experience as a professional boxer was thought to be an asset. But his lack of knowledge and experience soon became apparent, […]

Outfielder Carroll Hardy played for four major-league baseball teams between 1958 and 1967. Over time he has come to be known largely for one at-bat, in which he hit the ball back to the pitcher in the first inning of a late September game of almost no consequence in the standings, but most of his […]

Rollie Fingers was clearly excited as he caught a leaping Ted Simmons, his catcher, after Fingers struck out Detroit’s Lou Whitaker to nail down the victory and the second-half American League East title for his Milwaukee Brewers in 1981. (The unprecedented split season was devised after the players’ two-month strike was settled.) The Brewers were […]

In 1971 The Sporting News contributor Wayne Minshew submitted a report on the Atlanta Braves’ “bona-fide future ace . . . the pitcher visiting scouts like most when they visit Atlanta Stadium.”1 Minshew was not referring to Phil Niekro, who at the time was just one-third of the way along his path to Hall of […]

Dave “Beauty” Bancroft was Honus Wagner‘s successor as the National League’s premier shortstop. A brainy on-field leader with tremendous defensive range, Bancroft was especially adept at scooping up bad-hop grounders and cutting off outfield throws to hang up runners between bases. He believed that “the business of batting and fielding is a contention between minds,” […]

Bill McGilvray’s major-league career lasted two months and 11 days, but for seven years he was at the top of his game in the minors (1906-12) spanning Denver to Birmingham. He crossed paths with some of the game’s greats – finishing second to Shoeless Joe Jackson in batting in 1910, but leading the league in […]

Bob Gilks devoted more than 40 years to professional baseball, as a player, manager, and scout. As a player, his greatest strengths were his versatility and fielding ability. As a minor-league manager, he schooled youngsters in the right way to play the game. And as a scout, he recognized the potential of future stars like […]

If Pants Rowland had gotten his way, big-league baseball would have reached California more than a decade before the Dodgers and Giants crossed the continent. As president of the Pacific Coast League, Rowland campaigned for recognition as a third major league as early as 1945. Personable and unfailingly optimistic, Rowland punched almost every ticket in […]

One of the most influential figures in the history of the sport, Charles Comiskey had a 55-year odyssey through professional baseball that ran the gamut: captain of one of the greatest teams of the nineteenth century; league-jumper during the 1890 players’ rebellion; one of the chief architects of the American League’s emergence in 1901 as […]

Jimmy Stanley was your classic “good field, no hit” infielder who enjoyed a year in the Federal League, spot starting and backing up at second, short, third, and even the outfield. Born Stanislaus (Stanley) Francis Ciolek, December 1, 1887, in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Wojciech (Albert) and Mary (Walega) Ciolek.1 The father, […]

A season after dropping its first All-Star Game since 1971, the National League returned to its winning ways by beating the American League, 3-1, in the 1984 midsummer classic at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, in a game featuring record-breaking strikeout pitching. Eighty-one-year-old Carl Hubbell, ace of the Giants in their New York incarnation who fanned […]

On May 23, 1976, Minnesota pitcher Bert Blyleven beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1, and won his 99th career game, all with the Twins, for whom he debuted as a 19-year-old on June 5, 1970. He had a solid rookie season, going 10-9 with a 3.18 earned-run average in 27 games, all but two as […]

The champagne was ready in the Astrodome. With a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-five National League Championship Series, the Astros were one win away from their first trip to the World Series. Considering the obstacles that both they and their opponents, the Phillies, had overcome, no one was apt to be counting on an easy […]

The 1918 season did not start well for either the Philadelphia Athletics or the Detroit Tigers. After a month the two teams found themselves at the bottom of the American League standings. On May 20 they met for the first time to play a four-game series.1 For the A’s, the games provided an opportunity to […]

The Chicago Cubs opened 1982 with rookie Ryne Sandberg at third base, months after acquiring him in an offseason trade with the Philadelphia Phillies. Held to one hit in his first 32 at-bats, the 22-year-old Sandberg entered the Cubs’ April 23 game with the Pittsburgh Pirates batting just .140. On a windy day at Wrigley […]

“They’ve called Ty Cobb the Georgia Peach for the last 15 years,” wrote Dean Snyder, nationally syndicated columnist and sporting editor of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, “but at this point in the drama enters Peachy George. It now remains for the world to start calling the Brown star the Great George Sisler.”1 With Cobb temporarily […]

  After losing a tight 2-1 decision in Game One of the 1973 World Series, the New York Mets hoped to salvage a split of the first two games against the Athletics in front of 49,151 spectators on a Sunday afternoon in Oakland. The starters for Game Two, the Mets’ Jerry Koosman and the Athletics’ […]

It was the final All-Star Game of the twentieth century. On a mid-July night at Fenway Park, the greatest living players in baseball history were in the ballpark for the game between the best of the National League and the best of the American League. And, appropriately, two Red Sox legends stole the show. The […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]