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Tippy Martinez hadn’t pitched in 13 days as the Orioles headed into the second game of a two-game series with Oakland. Before the game the lefty reliever went up to Memorial Stadium’s legendary public-address announcer Rex Barney and told him, “Next time I come in to pitch, you’d better explain to the fans who I […]

Enthusiasm reigned among Washington’s baseball fans after the Senators beat the New York Americans to kick off the 1903 season at American League Park in the nation’s capital. It diminished with the second game, played a day later, which New York won 7-2 for the first victory in franchise history. Three of the visiting squad’s […]

A two-time All-Star, Silver Slugger Award winner, and the 1988 American League MVP runner-up, Mike Greenwell spent his entire 12-season major-league career with the Boston Red Sox. He was the Red Sox’ starting left fielder for 10 years, from 1987 through 1996. Injuries limited Greenwell considerably in 1996, his final big-league season, but he did […]

Twenty-four-year-old pitcher Dave “Boo” Ferriss completed one of the most spectacular seasons in Boston Red Sox history when he won 25 games against only six losses in 1946. He was the beneficiary of a potent Red Sox offense that lost only 50 games during the regular season. They captured their first American League pennant since […]

The most dramatic event of Ollie Welf’s baseball career came as an amateur. He had his Kirk Gibson moment more than eight decades before that celebrated blast off Dennis Eckersley. Cleveland amateur championships drew crowds the size of World Series games in the early 1900s. That was certainly true on September 12, 1915, when the […]

For generations, many American fathers have raised their sons with dreams of emulating their baseball hero, Mickey Mantle. Chipper Jones’s father was no different. From an early age, his son reminded him of The Mick: a small-town country boy with charming good looks, a Southern drawl, and a preternatural ability to hit a baseball from […]

“I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, ever since I was a little kid,” he told author Jack Lautier. “My family grew up in Cranston, and Fenway Park was less than an hour away by rail. I remember going to games to see Smoky Joe Wood pitch.”1 Jimmy Cooney came from a baseball family. He […]

Harvey Shank was a tall right-handed pitcher who appeared in a single game with the California Angels in May 1970, throwing three scoreless innings against a talented Oakland A’s lineup. After one more pro season, he walked away from baseball at age 25 to join the front office of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and never […]

The St. Louis Cardinals captured three National League pennants during the 1980s. The team’s stalwart second baseman during the successful run was Tom Herr, a line-drive hitter who played outstanding defense and had a knack for getting on base. In his All-Star season of 1985, Herr hit .302 with career bests in home runs (8) […]

Jack Phillips spent almost a decade on Major League rosters and never got into more than seventy games in a season. But that less-than-stellar playing career was followed by an all-star second act: twenty-four seasons as a baseball coach and athletic administrator at his alma mater, Clarkson University. Jack Dorn Phillips, the second son of […]

From the 1890s through the 1950s, textile-league baseball was a fixture in many upstate South Carolina mill towns. Each mill had its team, and rivalries were keen. Teams sometimes recruited men just for the summer baseball season, working them little if at all in the mills themselves, and paying them much more than the average mill […]

“A big, hard thrower with a ton of guts, `Sut’ was never mistaken for a wallflower. He had one thing going for him right away too: He wasn’t afraid to challenge hitters and didn’t back away, even if he made a mistake with a pitch. He was a very quick learner.” — Rick Monday, Dodgers […]

During his career sportswriters hinted that Sumpter Clarke had his quirks. Finally, in 1962 a story about Clarke’s antics emerged. While with New Orleans in a meaningless game, as a joke the other team all sat down when Clarke came to bat. The pitcher laid one down the middle and Clarke swung. He hit “a […]

Many people can go through an entire life without a lifelong friend and even if they have one, at some point they will be separated for many years. The friendship of Jim Frey and Don Zimmer not only has endured for many decades since childhood, but the two spent the bulk of their friendship in […]

Jack Ryan was actually born as Jack Ryan; his first name was not a nickname. He did acquire some colorful nicknames in baseball, however: “Gulfport” was one, but he was also known as “Coffee Grounds” and “Mud Artist.”1 And the Red Sox once traded Cy Young to get him. Later in his career, he was […]

The mere mention of Edgar “Blue” Washington evokes thought and a curious smile, as he is undoubtedly one of the rarest of all Negro League treasures. During the early part of the twentieth century, Edgar flaunted his athleticism as a gallant young prizefighter in open-air boxing arenas in Southern California and on weekend afternoons could […]

Gary Wagner threw a no-hitter in the first game he ever pitched — for his college team. Wagner was a right-handed pitcher who worked in 162 major-league games over six years in the majors for two teams, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox. Four of his games were starts; primarily he worked as […]

“His rise from the ‘bushes’ to the big show has been phenomenal,” gushed one report about Big Bill Steele.1 Two years removed from the sandlots, Steele jumped from a Class B league to the majors, debuting with the St. Louis Cardinals as a September call-up in 1910. That fall the spitballer won his first three […]

Hugh High’s brother, Andy, himself a 13-year big leaguer, once succinctly summarized big brother Hughie’s career: “He played center field in place of Ty [Cobb] for about six weeks one year when Ty held out,” then “he went to New York to help the Yankees out, but the Yankees got to the point where they […]

Dick Williams’s intense competitiveness and versatility earned him 13 years as a major league utility player. He parlayed those strengths into one of baseball’s most successful managerial careers, though not one of the winningest, and the record suggests that he was probably one of the two finest managerial turnaround artists1 between Joe McCarthy and Lou […]

A major-league ballplayer gets called a lot of things during his career, and a manager probably more so. In the case of Edgar Frederick Yost III, some of those things include taxidermist, catcher, grinder, idiot, app developer, survivor, twitter hashtag (#yosted), clothier, pot scrubber, and hunter. Oh, and one more thing — World Series champion […]

Steve Gromek, left and Larry Doby celebrate after Cleveland’s win in Game Four of the 1948 World Series. Cleveland would go on to win the championship in six games, and the franchise is still looking for its first World Series title since. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   Introduction Cleveland had a history of […]

New Orleans’ first professional baseball team was the Pelicans, which began participating in Organized Baseball in 1887 in the Southern League.1 The team played at Sportsman’s Park and Athletic Park before moving to its namesake, Pelican Park, in 1908. That park was ultimately dismantled and relocated to its final destination in 1915, where it became […]