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Right-handed pitcher Henry Ward “Hank” Johnson started his professional baseball career close to home with back-to-back seasons for the Bradenton Growers in the Class-C Florida State League in 1923 and 1924. , Johnson was 2-0 his first season and 10-8 in 1924. Johnson was born in Bradenton on May 21, 1906, the fifth child among […]

In 1970, Tommy Harper became a member of what was once among the most exclusive “clubs” in baseball. That year, his first with the Milwaukee Brewers, he hit 31 homers and stole 38 bases, thereby joining the “30-30 Club.” At the time, the only other members of the club were Hank Aaron, Bobby Bonds, Willie […]

Jim Lindsey made a name for himself pitching for semipro teams in his native Louisiana. Signed first by the Cleveland Indians, he eventually landed with the Cardinals, and pitched for six seasons as a starter and reliever before being released midway through the 1934 season. James Kendrick Lindsey was born in Greensburg, Louisiana, on January […]

On July 1, 1907, the Washington Times ran a photo of .300-hitting Washington center fielder Charlie Jones. The caption read: “One of the Most Valuable Outfielders in the World.” For Jones, it was the pinnacle of a checkered career: streaks and brilliant fielding balanced by vast slumps. Jones shared endless batting theories with anyone who’d […]

There are many types of baseball lifers. Some play, then manage, like Joe Torre. Some play, then move to the front office, like Billy Beane. Some never play but still make a career of the sport, like Roland Hemond or Vin Scully. But perhaps most baseball lifers play, achieving some success but little fame, and […]

If it were not for the San Diego Padres, this biography on the lives of Ray and Joan Kroc would never have to be written. Not that the reader would be bereft of materials on this celebrated billionaire couple. Ray and Joan Kroc were both American celebrities long before they ever became associated with baseball. […]

Solid left fielder Joe Rudi was a core member of the Oakland A’s 1972-74 dynasty. He was the runner-up for the American League Most Valuable Player twice during this period, and he also won three straight Gold Gloves (1974 through 1976). Rudi’s numbers with the bat don’t look dazzling today, but he did lead the […]

Howard Camp was a teenage starter in the inaugural game of the Georgia-Alabama League for the Talladega (Alabama) Indians, later becoming a manager and umpire in multiple Southern leagues, and, finally, a Detroit Tigers scout. He was one of a quartet of New York Yankees to make their debut on the same September 1917 afternoon. […]

Jim Gosger was a hustling, hard-working ballplayer for 13 professional seasons, years that took him all over the baseball map, and to the majors for parts of 10 seasons with five different teams. He played a good center field but never really established himself as a good enough hitter to stay in a lineup long. […]

Maybe it was Leon Wagner’s bad luck to have been born too soon. A major-league outfielder for 12 years, Wagner was a two-time All-Star who averaged 29 home runs and 87 RBIs from 1961 through 1966. Still, because of fielding deficiencies that were either imagined (his opinion) or real (his managers’ views), he always seemed to […]

No less a figure than Connie Mack saw Elmer Myers as a true phenom, someone he thought could become “one of the greatest pitchers of a decade.” Suffering a German poison-gas attack in the First World War may have cost Myers his chance for greatness. Elmer Glenn Myers was born about 15 miles north of […]

In 1986, the New York Mets were the best team in baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates were the worst. Yet after the Pirates finished their season series against the Mets, losing 17 out of 18 games, their feisty manager, Jim Leyland, issued a challenge. “If they were that good, how did they lose that one game […]

A significant event in Nashville’s Black community took place on Tuesday, February 19, 1907: a meeting held at the residence of J.W. White to organize the Standard Giants Base Ball club as reported in the February 22, 1907, edition of the Nashville Globe: “Manager White called the house to order, and Mr. C.B. Reaves was […]

John Young carried an impressive 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame during his baseball playing days. Even more impressive than his physical stature on the field, however, was the stature he later gained as a baseball ambassador for the underprivileged. In founding the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program, Young left an indelible mark on the game that […]

In the annals of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, there aren’t too many players who started with New York, then played for Boston, and then played for New York again. Frank LaPorte wasn’t the only one, but he was the first. He was a stocky man, 5-feet-8 and weighing 175 pounds. LaPorte played second base, third […]

“Whenever he would pull off one of those grand, unexpected plays that were so dazzlingly surprising as to dumfound his opponents, his prominent teeth would gleam and glisten in an array of white molars that would put our own Teddy Roosevelt and his famed dentistry establishment far in the shadow.” — Sam Crane1 Who was […]

Gary Waslewski woke in his Peabody, Massachusetts apartment on the morning of October 11, 1967 as the starting pitcher in Game Six of the World Series. “I was reading the papers that morning, and one guy wrote that Gary Waslewski has as much chance of winning as Custer had of beating the Indians,” Waslewski said. […]

Verdell “Lefty” Mathis, a pitcher for the Memphis Red Sox, was the premier southpaw in the Negro Leagues during the 1940s. His ability and popularity were such that he pitched in three East-West All Star Games, starting the 1944 and 1945 games for the West, and made the all-star roster a total of six times. […]

The 1970 All-Star Game, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, was tied at 4-4 with two out in the bottom of the 12th inning. For the National League, Pete Rose was on second base and Billy Grabarkewitz on first. When Jim Hickman lined pitcher Clyde Wright’s offering to center field, hometown hero Rose broke from second […]

This article was originally published in Ebbets Field: Great, Historic, and Memorable Games in Brooklyn’s Lost Ballpark (SABR, 2023), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.   On July 30, 2006, Effa Manley was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. She and her husband, Abe Manley, had been at the helm of one of the great […]

Near Boston Common and downstairs from Melville’s Seafood Restaurant,1 former Red Sox pitcher, reformed alcoholic, and unreformed ladies’ man Sam “Mayday” Malone ran a sports bar2 at 112½ Beacon Street — Cheers.3 The building that housed Melville’s and Cheers had once been a private home.4 Malone pitched five years for the Red Sox in the […]

The teams that met at Chicago’s Comiskey Park on August 21, 1921, seemed to be heading in opposite directions. The Washington Senators were on the rise, enjoying a winning season and responding well to a new ownership group headed by majority owners Clark Griffith and William Richardson and a new manager, George McBride. The Chicago […]