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Porter Riley Charleston was born in Mexia, Limestone County, Texas, on January 8, 1904. Charleston’s life story is filled with gaps. His parentage remains obscure; whether or not he played in one of the Negro/Colored Leagues in Texas is not known.1 When Charleston first traveled to Pennsylvania, where his Negro League career began with the […]

David Edwin Duncan’s ascent to becoming the most respected and successful pitching coach of his generation began in Dallas, Texas. He was born on September 26, 1945, to Clarence Edwin and Evelyn Louise (Rabun) Duncan. Clarence was a Dallas firefighter who operated a small plumbing company on the side, and Evelyn was a homemaker who […]

Winner of 158 major-league games, Willis Hudlin was a mainstay of the Cleveland Indians’ pitching staff in the 1920s and 1930s. His best pitches were his fastball and sinker. He was later a team owner, manager, coach and scout, in a professional baseball career that lasted nearly 50 years. George Willis Hudlin was born in […]

“A pitcher can make great use of his tallness when he is as big as me, because when he gets on the hill he can zip ’em through there so fast it’s like tryin’ to hit a ball thrown off the top of the Washington Monument, and you have got a fine chance of hitting […]

Lenny Levy’s career defies conventional logic. A washout in one year of minor-league D-level baseball (years later, Baseball Digest called him “hardly more than a semipro player”), he fashioned a professional career with the Pittsburgh Pirates that began in 1934 and ended in 1964 with only a break for World War II. He was a […]

Frank Grant was one of the best second basemen of the nineteenth century. His name may not sound familiar to most because he was African American. Consequently, he toiled for black clubs and briefly in the white minors before the color line was firmly entrenched. He was dubbed the “Black Dunlap,” a reference to his […]

Over a major-league career that lasted 10 seasons, Elden Auker played for Hall of Fame managers Bucky Harris, Mickey Cochrane (who called him “Mule Ears”), and Joe Cronin (who severely limited Auker’s effectiveness by calling, from his shortstop position, each pitch Auker was to throw). Auker was a teammate of Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg, Charlie […]

Patriarch of a three-generation big-league family, hard-hitting Negro Leaguer Sam Hairston played, coached, and scouted in pro baseball for over half a century. As a scout, Sam brought in at least five men who played for the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared briefly in 1951. Two of Sam’s three sons signed pro contracts […]

Three days before the start of the 1990 season, Omar Vizquel, the Seattle Mariners’ slick-fielding shortstop, sprained his left knee during a collision in a Cactus League exhibition. The injury sidelined him until July. That same day, April 6, the Mariners signed utility infielder Mike Brumley to fill the void. Before the signing, Brumley had […]

The road to the major leagues can be a long haul for some. Others find it much easier and, of course, thousands never make it at all. Certainly, in all cases the player must have more than a modicum of talent. But there’s another important factor that Steve Biras recognized. When asked how he broke […]

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, […]

In 1973, Jason Miller’s angst-enabled play That Championship Season won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. The drama, set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, focused on the 25th-anniversary reunion of the players and the coach of a high-school basketball team that won the state championship. Full of booze, brooding, bigotry, bitterness, betrayal, and bruised feelings, […]

Dustin Moseley didn’t possess a power arm. He did, however, have a 90-mph fastball thrown with precise control, a good curveball, cutter, and changeup, excellent mechanics, a strong work ethic, and a highly competitive nature. These attributes allowed the righty to get the most from his physical ability and spend parts of seven seasons in […]

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 […]

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon By Franklin Pierce Adams   These are the saddest of possible words: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double — Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: “Tinker to […]

On September 13, 1910, the Chicago Tribune announced that James “Red” Bowser would start in that day’s game for the Chicago White Sox. The article – by columnist Ring Lardner, who went on to become one of the most famous writers of the era, in sports and beyond – expressed high praise and expectations for […]

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 […]

The Kansas City Royals were on the threshold of experiencing their greatest franchise moment to date: their first World Series. The year before, the California Angels clinched the American League West Division crown during the season’s last week, outpacing Kansas City by three games. From 1976 to 1978, the Royals lost three consecutive American League […]

“There is a new heroic figure in the Cardinals picture,” gushed St. Louis sportswriter J. Roy Stockton after Roy “Tarzan” Parmelee emerged victorious in an epic 17-inning pitchers’ duel with Carl Hubbell to defeat the New York Giants, 2-1.1 Parmelee, who finished with a six-hitter, “gave a masterful demonstration of his skill,” opined John Drebinger […]

The New York Mets came into existence in 1962 as the National League expanded for the first time.1 Casey Stengel’s ragtag “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game” Mets stumbled to a 40-120 record in their first season, finishing dead last of the league’s 10 teams, 60 games out of first place.2 By 1966 the Mets […]

You’ve heard it before. A batter steps up to the plate in a pressure situation, humbly claims that his solitary goal is to get a bat on the ball, keep the inning alive, and hopefully give his team a chance to win. The prospect of something heroic is just gravy, perhaps even sheer luck. Just […]

Two days and 3,000 miles away from its improbable 11th-inning victory in Game Five of the American League Championship Series, the Boston Red Sox continued their march toward the AL pennant with another elimination-game victory. Back home in Fenway Park, the Red Sox batted around in the third inning, scoring five times off Angels starter […]

In June 1999 the Houston Astros were starting a 10-game homestand against the San Diego Padres. This was the Padres’ first trip to the Astrodome since they had eliminated Houston from the playoffs the previous October. Houston’s record was 36-23 while San Diego stood at 24-36. After the teams split the first two games, 39,773 […]

This article was originally published in the December 2025 edition of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. One of the unsolved puzzles of the Black Sox Scandal is the inclusion of substitute infielder Fred McMullin in the plot to throw the 1919 World Series. Given that there was little prospect that McMullin, a bench […]