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“Major leaguers were our gods. We weren’t worshipful. We knew they were merely men like our brothers and fathers. Yet with a difference. When a father or brother died, he left no record of himself for remembrance. But a major leaguer, even though up for only a season and most of that spent on the […]

Not yet known as “King Carl” or “Meal Ticket,” the New York Giants’ Carl Hubbell tossed the first and only no-hitter in his 16-year big-league career in just his 18th start, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-0, on May 8, 1929. Hubbell joined “that lofty gallery in baseball’s hall of fame,” gushed sportswriter William E. Brandt […]

Willie Stargell’s path to the top of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ home-run charts began from the bench in 1963, his first full major-league season. Filling in for first baseman Donn Clendenon, Stargell hit his first big-league homer, a three-run shot off Chicago Cubs fireman Lindy McDaniel, in a five-run, game-tying eighth-inning rally on May 8 at […]

The September 24, 1920, edition of the Akron Beacon Journal blared the following headline across its sports section: “Ban Johnson Called to Stand Today; Tell Plot Against Chicago.” Johnson, the American League president, was testifying before a Cook County (Chicago) grand jury about a plot to blackmail Chicago White Sox players. Johnson predicted that the […]

A crowd of 25,762 showed up at Ebbets Field on August 20,1947, to see the final game of the Dodgers’ four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Overcast skies delayed the game for 47 minutes. After winning the first two games of the series, Brooklyn had lost the third game, 11-3. The Dodgers still had […]

The 1924 World Series pitted the National League’s New York Giants, a team that had won 10 pennants since the inception of the American League’s Washington Senators in 1901, against a team that had finally won its first pennant after a winning a franchise-best 92 games. Not only was that a mark the Giants had […]

“Play out the string: For a team to continue to play although it is not in contention.”—The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Third Edition1   It happens every season when the calendar turns to September. The chase for a postseason berth reaches the homestretch. A month earlier, some teams are buyers at the trading deadline in hopes […]

“If you’d ever seen me swing, you’d say, ‘No way this guy could hit a home run.’ I step in the bucket. My back side flies up. It’s not a pretty swing.” – Cincinnati Reds pitcher Dave Burba, 1996.1   Rory Glynn, a Cincinnati Reds beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer, jested in 1996 that […]

There was a dark cloud over Comiskey Park in Chicago as the Chicago White Sox hosted the Detroit Tigers in the opening home game of the 1921 American League season. It had nothing to do with the weather. After losing the 1919 World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds, Chicago had finished second in 1920, […]

On June 3, 1956, Richie Ashburn rapped two doubles and three singles in the second game of a Sunday doubleheader to lead the Philadelphia Phillies past the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-3. It was the only game in Ashburn’s 15-year Hall of Fame, career in which he collected five hits. It may be surprising that Ashburn, […]

The July 4 game was played neither in Boston nor in Washington, but in Cincinnati. The Ohio city had been the home of the 1869-1870 Cincinnati Red Stockings, considered the first openly professional club — a team famous for its undefeated 1869 season and national tours. The National Association began play in 1871. With neither […]

Bob Tufts was one of six big-leaguers known to have converted to Judaism during their careers.1 When it came time for Tufts to select his Hebrew name, something meaningful to him, he chose Sandy Koufax. His rabbi laughed but wasn’t impressed. He shook his head and asked Tufts to pick another name. Bob selected Reuven, […]

As of 2022, it’s been nearly 60 years since a 17-year-old took part in a major-league game.1 That was lefty pitcher Jay Dahl, on September 27, 1963, as the Houston Colt .45s fielded a starting lineup consisting entirely of rookies. Less than two years after his cup of coffee, Dahl died in a car crash, […]

Chester “Red” Torkelson, a chipper sorrel-topped spitballer, lived out all his boyhood daydreams in the American League shortly before reporting to the army during World War I. Never recalled to the big tent, he remade his career in several minor leagues as a player, manager, and popular baseball clown. Chet was the eldest of Knute […]

It doesn’t take long to make a lasting impression that sticks with someone throughout his professional baseball career. Some of the things Derek Bell said over the course of his career surprised many and outraged others. This did not seem to faze Bell in the slightest. “What can I say?” Bell would ask. “I just […]

In 1976, Mark Fidrych made his major league debut at the age of 21 and took the city of Detroit by storm in a spectacular rookie season. He started the All-Star Game for the American League, won the Rookie of the Year Award, and finished second for the Cy Young Award. Of course, Mark Fidrych’s […]

As a pitcher, Lary Sorensen handled plenty of challenges over the course of his successful 11-year major-league career with seven teams. But not even the best-hitting opposing lineup—like the one he faced in the 1978 All-Star Game—compared to the opponent he battled after his playing days: alcoholism. His story resembles an amusement park ride, with […]

In the one (and only) year that Bill Wakefield pitched in the major leagues, 1964, he set a Mets team record for game appearances that would stand up for 13 more years, and packed into a single season a full-length career’s worth of excitement and highlights, ending with a nail-biting season-ending game that decided the […]

On October 14, 1976, the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees were locked in the winner-take-all fifth game of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium, going into the bottom of the ninth inning. The Royals had won Game Four the night before to force the deciding game. This evening, Royals third […]

In his prime in the 1940s, Walker Cooper was thought to be the best catcher in baseball and the game’s strongest man. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he was an intimidating presence behind the plate and, in addition, possessed one of the strongest and most accurate arms in the National League. He was destructive at […]

In July 1967, shortly after he assumed the helm of the Minnesota Twins, The Sporting News cheered new skipper Cal Ermer’s fortune following his long minor-league apprenticeship: “If baseball were like the movies, with the hero always getting the girl, Ermer wouldn’t have had to wait 20 years for his ship to come in,” the […]

Tom Butts stood 5-feet-8 and weighed just 142 pounds, but his size was not the reason he acquired the nickname Pee Wee. Rather, the strong-armed shortstop’s defensive prowess reminded observers of his White contemporary, Pee Wee Reese.1 “I’d compare Butts with Reese or [Phil] Rizzuto or anyone I’ve seen in the big leagues,” opined Roy […]

Tacks Latimer was a journeyman catcher during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although his major league career was brief, 27 games and 86 at-bats spread over five different seasons (the writer Bill James has suggested that this might be some sort of record), he played professional baseball for over a decade and a […]

On April 12, 1955, the former Philadelphia Athletics, having moved that winter to Kansas City, opened their first season at Municipal Stadium: A’s 6, Tigers 2, before a standing-room crowd of 32,147. Flanked by franchise progenitor Connie Mack, former President Harry Truman tossed the team’s first ball in Missouri’s first American League (AL) opener since […]