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On July 15, 1975, Milwaukee’s County Stadium hosted the All-Star Game for the second time, albeit for the first as an American League park. The midsummer classic had traveled to Milwaukee in 1955 as a guest of the then-Milwaukee Braves before returning to the Cream City in ’75 as a visitant of the Brewers. Fittingly […]

The Sporting News’s headline for the April 29, 1955, game between the Fort Worth Cats and Dallas Eagles was “Cats, Eagles in Long Thriller,”1 but the significance of this game extends beyond the back-and-forth drama in this marathon between longtime minor-league adversaries. It was the last series between the Cats and Eagles before the death […]

The unusual 1981 season, torn into halves by a players strike and lengthened by a specially added first round of playoffs, ended on a familiar note – a World Series featuring the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The former New York City neighbors were facing off for the 11th time. The Yankees had […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers were on a mission in 1955. The Boys of Summer were planting springtime seeds of success and entered this mid-May game in Chicago with a record of 22-2, leading the National League by 9½ games and undefeated in their first 11 road games.1  With Russ Meyer on the hill, the Dodgers had […]

“The greatest invention since the cotton gin”?1 Television or maybe the transistor radio? No, it was a batting helmet that the Brooklyn Dodgers team physician, Dr. Eugene Zorn, was referring to, one that prevented serious injury to Milwaukee Braves infielder Joe Adcock when he was beaned on August 1, 1954, at Ebbets Field. As several […]

In April 1969, with its Opening Day imminent, the Triple-A American Association received permission to implement a dramatic rules change — the “designated pinch-hitter.” This newly created “tenth man” batted and ran the bases in place of the pitcher but stayed on the bench while his team was in the field.1 The American Association was […]

Despite five straight World Series titles, Casey Stengel had yet to manage the American League to an All-Star Game victory when he set his lineup at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on July 13, 1954. Stengel ended his midseason drought this hot afternoon as the AL stopped a four-game NL winning streak in a record-setting slugfest. “They’ll […]

There are other great moments in Mets history, like The Buckner Ball and The Grand Slam Single, but surely any listing of the most significant moments in Mets history, particularly of the Mets’ first two decades, would have to include these three. The common thread for these three incidents is Cleon Jones, the first consistent, […]

A well-traveled catcher, Brent Mayne played with the Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Los Angeles Dodgers. Used primarily in a platooning role against right-handed pitchers or as a late-inning defensive replacement, Mayne was remembered more for his defense than his offense. A strong-armed catcher […]

Ferguson Arthur Jenkins, Jr. was a dominant right-handed pitcher known for strikeouts, eleventh (through 2013) on the all-time leader list with 3,192. He is the only pitcher to have more than 3,000 strikeouts with less than 1,000 walks (997). While he pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox, he is best […]

Jason Andrew Varitek (nickname: Tek) was a major-league baseball catcher who played all 15 seasons of his major-league career for the Boston Red Sox (1997-2011), a switch-hitter who threw right-handed. Varitek was a member of two World Series winners for Boston, in 2004 and 2007. After retiring as a player, he continued to work for […]

In 1970 sportswriter Ted Blackman quipped, “If John Bateman bought a pumpkin farm, they’d cancel Halloween.”[fn]“Hustling Bateman Frets in Hospital Bed,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1970, 24.[/fn] The luckless reference was to the cursed timing of a kidney injury that hospitalized the Montreal Expos starting catcher two days before the start of the 1970 […]

Joseph J. Lannin owned the Boston Red Sox for less than four full years, but in that short span, the team won two world championships in the back-to-back years 1915 and 1916. A native of the Province of Quebec, he came to the United States at a very young age – the story says he […]

The discussions continue to this day. What would have happened if those denied the opportunity had been given the chance to play at the highest level of baseball before 1947? We have had glimpses of such players, often long past their prime. In 1951, in a barnstorming game in Alabama, Jonas Gaines took the mound […]

Jimmy Walsh was among the last natives of Ireland to play in the major leagues. He appeared in 541 games from 1912 to 1917, batting .232 with six homers. He was a member of two American League pennant winners with the Philadelphia Athletics, including the 1913 World Series winners, and he joined the Boston Red […]

He arrived on the big-league scene like a bolt of lightning through the evening sky. Fred Lynn played in his first game on September 5, 1974, and proceeded to smash major-league pitching to the tune of a .419 batting average and a .698 slugging percentage over his first 15 games. He followed that up with […]

A shortstop by trade, Bob Bailor could also play the outfield quite well. In fact, he played every position but first base and catcher during his 11 big-league seasons. Bob Murphy, the late New York Mets radio announcer, said, “He’s not a heavy hitter, but he is a tough competitor.” Like Rex Hudler and Joe […]

Frank Strong Lary, a talented, hard-throwing right hander for the Detroit Tigers, proved to be one of the American League’s best pitchers from 1955 through 1961. An All-Star hurler in 1960 and 1961, he was best known as the “Yankee Killer.” While fashioning a major league lifetime record of 128-116 with an ERA of 3.49, […]

William Harold “Bill” Terry was a superior first baseman in the 1920s and 1930s and one of baseball’s premier managers in the 1930s. Born in Atlanta on October 30, 1898, he had an unsettled childhood. His parents suffered through an unhappy marriage, finally separating when he was in his mid-teens. Terry was essentially on his […]

Mike Paxton, a right-hander for the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians, pitched for parts of four seasons in the major leagues and never had a losing record. Like most pitchers in the 1970s, he began his career as a starter. Once in the majors, he split time as a starter (63) and reliever (36). […]

Star hurler of the Buffalo city leagues, Jim Neher pitched a single, three-pitch, three-out inning for the Cleveland Naps in September of 1912. A teammate of Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie and Shoeless Joe Jackson, Neher moved back to Buffalo when his playing days were done. He worked as an electrician and lived a seemingly […]

On April 16, 1915, an overflow crowd jammed newly constructed Harrison Park to witness a historic event: the home opener of the Newark Peppers of the Federal League, the first major-league club based in New Jersey in more than 40 years. And, sadly to Garden Staters, the last. When the renegade circuit disbanded the following […]