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As they navigated the 1921 season, the New York Yankees club that was positioning itself to become an American League juggernaut had never won a pennant. But by late September, they were getting close. When the St. Louis Browns arrived in New York on Tuesday, September 27, for a makeup game scheduled due to rainouts, […]

The expression “wait ’til next year” permeates baseball. But for fans waiting for the White Sox to entertain the Seattle Mariners on July 1, 1985, the past was very much part of the program as Comiskey Park’s message board noted: “CELEBRATING 75 YEARS THE PALACE OF BASEBALL.”1 The oldest ballpark in the majors at the […]

Already a history-making All-Star and National League rookie RBI record-holder, Albert Pujols added another milestone to his 2001 breakout season on September 21 at PNC Park. Pujols’ first big-league grand slam snapped a ninth-inning tie and gave the surging St. Louis Cardinals a 9-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Less than five years after leaving […]

“It was not a contest to contribute to the peace of mind and self-approval of pitchers.”1 In a game featuring an absence of pitching talent by the home team in the ninth inning, the New York Giants came from behind, scoring nine runs on 11 hits, nine of them in a row, in their last […]

The San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies launched their 2005 seasons with vastly differing sets of expectations. The Padres were coming off of an 87-75 record during the previous season and had aspirations of winning the National League West championship and advancing to the playoffs for the first time since 1998. The Rockies, on the […]

The Chicago White Sox’ bespectacled 27-year-old right-hander Bill Dietrich’s five-year big-league career was at a crossroads when he took the mound against the St. Louis Browns on June 1, 1937, in the Windy City. In his last start, just two days earlier, Dietrich was “battered almost beyond recognition,” opined Chicago Tribune sportswriter Irving Vaughn, surrendering […]

After a pause in the action that lasted 86 years, the Boston Red Sox resumed winning a number of World Series titles. They had won five world championships from 1903 through 1918, then had not won again until 2004. Since 2004, they have added (as of 2020) titles in 2007, 2013, and 2018. It was […]

Chick Gandil and Tris Speaker were cut from the same cloth. They were both intense, loud, hard-nosed players who weren’t interested in making friends on the baseball field. They also weren’t shy about expressing their opinions and, when challenged, neither backed down from a fight. So it seemed almost inevitable that the two veterans would […]

Earl Hamilton, Sad Sam Jones, and Ken Holtzman. What do these three pitchers have in common? Hamilton, Jones, and Holtzman are the only three major-league pitchers to pitch a no-hitter without striking out a single batter. Hamilton was the first to achieve the feat when he no-hit Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers on August […]

He grew up in a small Nebraska town with a high school that did not field a baseball team. He signed professionally with an organization that notoriously signed hundreds of prospects with the expectation that such quantity would yield quality. Yet Johnny Hopp diligently overcame these obstacles to carve out a successful 14-year career in […]

Following a promising rookie year in 1989, pitcher Kevin Ritz found his career on shaky ground after struggling with extreme control problems for the Detroit Tigers over his next couple of seasons. This was exacerbated by a serious elbow injury suffered at the end of his tenure in Detroit that sidelined him for a full […]

Native Philadelphian Monte Cross played short for the Phillies and Athletics during a particularly successful era in his city’s baseball history. After several earlier major-league stops, he manned the position for the slugging, first-division Phillies from 1898 to 1901. Then, jumping to the American League in 1902, Cross helped the Athletics to two pennants over […]

At 15 Victor Rodriguez started playing competitive adult baseball against men twice his age. Before the season was over, he was a minor leaguer with the Baltimore Orioles. He spent parts of two seasons in the major leagues and played in Organized Baseball for 19 years. Victor Manuel Rodriguez was born on July 14, 1961, […]

Mike Balenti was often overshadowed by teammate Jim Thorpe on the powerful Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team. Playing quarterback in the backfield, he combined with Thorpe to give Carlisle a one-two punch that often overwhelmed opponents with their incredible speed. But it was Thorpe who captured most of the headlines with his staggering athleticism. […]

For a brief period in the mid-1920s, Nip Winters was the best southpaw not just in the Negro Leagues, but perhaps in all of professional baseball. Armed with a bracing curveball, the lanky lefty baffled batters for 11 seasons before fading into seeming obscurity. James Henry “Nip” Winters Jr. was born on April 29, 1899, […]

Miller Huggins was the Hall of Fame manager who led the New York Yankees to their first six American League pennants and three world championships, in the 1920s. He forged unique relationships with both Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert and their star outfielder, Babe Ruth. One newspaperman wrote, “Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert saw in Huggins a […]

The flake – “an odd or eccentric player; a kidder or comic”1 – is an all-but-vanished species in major-league baseball these days. In 2003, writer Dave Joseph lamented, “Sadly, there are fewer creative thinkers these days in baseball. There are fewer flakes, if you will, who break up the monotony of an endless season played, […]

Monongahela Cemetery in North Braddock, Pennsylvania offers some of the most spectacular views in the Pittsburgh area. Overlooking the Monongahela River Valley, the cemetery has its origins in a charter issued on February 24, 1893, by “the Hon. John H. Barley, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the establishment of a cemetery in […]

Gary Kroll, a hard-throwing right-hander who once pitched 20 consecutive hitless innings in the minors, made his big-league debut for the Philadelphia Phillies on July 26, 1964. Less than two weeks later, the 22-year-old pitcher was gone, traded to the New York Mets for 35-year-old slugger Frank Thomas. Kroll had been regarded as a tremendous […]

Four-time All-Star Paul Lo Duca was a consistently productive hitter and reliable defensive catcher over parts of 11 seasons (1998 through 2008) with the Dodgers, Marlins, Mets, and Nationals. He caught 932 games and produced a lifetime .286 batting average, hitting as many as 25 homers in a single year. Paul Anthony Lo Duca Jr. […]

Although he was a catcher in 527 of his 922 major league games, Mike Grady is best known as a third baseman who made a record number of errors on one ground ball, a play that never happened. At 5’ 11” and a muscular 190 pounds, Grady was a versatile player for the Phillies, Browns, Giants, […]

“You can’t win ’em all.” It’s said with a shrug, a human acknowledgement that nobody goes undefeated, that nobody is perfect, that even if you do everything possible sometimes you will lose. The origin of this phrase could be Connie Mack after the 1916 Philadelphia A’s went 36-117. But it could also be from Cliff […]

Syd Smith got around. In 1915 alone he played for two minor league teams (the Atlanta Crackers and the Shreveport Gassers) and one major league team (the Pittsburgh Pirates), and coached the baseball team at the University of South Carolina. It was not uncommon for players to start out in the South’s textile leagues, and […]