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When Bud Parmelee was pitching for Double-A Columbus in 1932, his good-luck charm was a blind boy, Charlie Medick. “He would root for me and pray for me when I pitched and I never lost a game there.” It worked: Parmelee went 14-1 for Columbus with a 2.80 ERA. Two years later, Parmelee was with […]
Dave Leonhard had a mediocre high-school and college pitching career. He refused a scout’s first offer to sign him, then changed his mind and signed for a $9 bonus. From that humble start, he carved out a six-year career as a pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles. David Paul Leonhard was born on January 22, 1941, […]
Bob Watson of the Houston Astros touches home plate to score what was widely reported as the 1 millionth run in Major League Baseball history on May 4, 1975. (COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS) Like many youngsters growing up in urban America in the 1950s, Bob Watson’s first at bat was in a game […]
“The integrity of the game is the umpires. Nobody else. The entire integrity of the game is the umpires.” — Doug Harvey1 It was the late 1980s. The Cincinnati Reds had replaced the Big Red Machine with the Nasty Boys, and the Nastiest of the Nasty Boys was Rob Dibble. In the beginning of […]
Back when being a character could keep you locked in the minor leagues and being a reliever was considered a career demotion, Tug McGraw excelled in both roles like few before or since. As a rookie starter for Casey Stengel, McGraw ended the Mets’ long losing streak against Sandy Koufax; converted to a reliever by […]
Joe Hietpas caught the last half-inning of the season’s finale for the New York Mets in 2004. That was his entire major-league experience. He never came to the plate in The Show, an oddity for a position player. “At the time, you don’t look at it as your one missed opportunity for an at-bat. It’s […]
The Cincinnati general manager had seen enough. Sitting at home on April 24, 1960, Gabe Paul watched on TV as his club’s reliever coughed up a lead in the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. Worse was the manner in which it was done: an eighth-inning grand slam to light-hitting Phillies catcher Jimmie Coker. […]
Although he didn’t enjoy the prominence of many players of his era, Alfred Armour posted a solid professional baseball career, including three all-star appearances and a Negro League World Series championship in 1945. Because the peak years of his career predated talks of integrating the White major leagues, he never attained enduring fame on the […]
When baseball fans first encountered Ed “Peanuts” Davis, also known as “Peanuts Nyasses,” they knew right away that he was not the typical athlete. He wore his baseball cap sideways, and when he was pitching, his windup sometimes featured “flapping of the arms and jerking of the legs.”1 In addition, he was a member of […]
Sammy Hughes’ name will almost certainly appear on any list of the top players of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 1940s. Hughes didn’t draw the attention of some of the bigger personalities of the day like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, but it is generally agreed that he was one of the most […]
Maynard Faye Throneberry was the decidedly less-colorful — and less-celebrated — of the major leagues’ two Throneberry brothers. His younger brother was dubbed “Marvelous Marv”, a player who gained infamy as a symbol of baseball ineptitude, particularly in the field and on the base paths. Faye (he was never referred to by his first name) […]
After capturing the American League pennant in 1954, the Cleveland Indians finished in second place to the New York Yankees the next two seasons. They sank to the middle of the pack in 1957 and 1958 but, led by a newcomer from Detroit, were back in the pennant chase in 1959. The newcomer was Tito […]
The first player born in the western Canadian province of Manitoba to reach the major leagues, Russ Ford burst into the spotlight in 1910, winning 26 games for the New York Highlanders with a baffling new pitch never before seen in professional baseball. Using a piece of emery board hidden in his glove, Ford roughed […]
Eddie Dyer was one of the “Rickey men” who built baseball’s first farm system. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals to their last World Series championship of the Branch Rickey era. Edwin Hawley Dyer was born October 11, 1899, in Morgan City, Louisiana, the fourth of seven children of Joseph M. and Alice Natalie Dyer. […]
Jason Kubel of the Minnesota Twins entered spring training in 2009 with a two-year contract that guaranteed he wouldn’t face arbitration. He had an air of calm confidence. “This is the first year I don’t have any pressure,” he said in late February.1 Drafted out of high school in 2000, Kubel showed promise at each […]
In 1946, for the first time in history, a major-league pennant race ended in a tie when the Brooklyn Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals ended the 154-game season with identical 96-58 records. National League rules specified a best-of-three playoff; the winner of a coin toss could choose to either open the series at home, which […]
In late January of 1901, American League President Ban Johnson convened a series of organizational meetings at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago. The purpose of the gatherings was to iron out the final details in preparation for the launching of his new major league. Seven years earlier, Johnson, a Cincinnati sportswriter, had become president […]
As much as the All-Star Game is a celebration of baseball’s history and a recognition of its current and future stars, it is also a celebration of place, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards played its role perfectly in 1993. The ballpark opened in 1992 as a reminder of classic ballparks of an earlier era, […]
Times were tough in June 1934. It was in the midst of the Great Depression. A Dust Bowl drought ravished the Midwest during one of the hottest summers on record. Rogue bank robbers pervaded the heartland. But with the World’s Fair under way on the lakefront, Chicago was a happening place to be. A place […]
After splitting the first two contests of the 1935 World Series in Detroit, the Tigers and Cubs trekked westward to Wrigley Field for Game Three. With no travel day scheduled, the players struggled to catch up on their rest, with a few of them dozing off as their trains caromed around the southern shore of […]
Veteran New York sportswriters were impressed with 21-year-old Sandy Koufax’s overpowering four-hitter with 11 punchouts at Wrigley Field in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ one-sided win over the Chicago Cubs on August 1, 1957. “Sandy’s strikeout record against the Cubs is remarkable,” declared New York Times scribe Roscoe McGowen.1 Dick Young of the Daily News quipped, “Koufax, […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) May 2019 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors Guest Columnist: Bill Nowlin From the Editor Update on BioProject Submissions Project Poobahs From Co-Directors Rory Costello and Gregory H. Wolf Change to BioProject Workflow As part of […]
This article is the third and last in a series about the most famous sign in any baseball stadium and the man behind it. From 1931 until 1957, the Dodgers’ last season in Brooklyn, clothier Abe Stark’s sign, which offered a free suit to a batter who hit in on a fly, adorned the right […]