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What does Phil Garner have in common with Sir Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong? The answer is that all three performed feats never before achieved by humankind. Sir Edmund was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. And Phil Garner […]
A tall right-handed twirler from a wealthy family who for financial reasons did not need to play baseball, Roy Witherup won only three games in three partial seasons in the majors but had a surprising impact on the pulsating 1908 American League pennant race. Illness and injury ended his promising career early. Foster Leroy Witherup […]
One of the early relief specialists in the majors, George “Sarge” Connally started just 67 times in 304 games across a 12-year big-league career (1921; 1923-29; 1933-34). Connally never shied away from hard work. In 1933, at the age of 34, he exemplified his other nickname—“Rubber Arm”—by making eight relief appearances for Cleveland from June […]
For every 30-home-run hitter and 20-game winner, there is often a role player who, though contributing less, is embraced by the fans and given nearly unconditional support in return for those elusive attributes scrappiness and hustle. For the pennant-winning White Sox of 1959, that player was Sammy Esposito. Despite spending the majority of his career […]
On a chilly October night, Marquis Grissom gracefully glided to his right from his position in center field at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium and gloved the final out of the 1995 World Series. After three tries, the Atlanta Braves were the champions of professional baseball. The man who gloved that final out was the only […]
Joe Astroth was a model of consistency for 10 years with an Athletics franchise that moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City, an area of the Midwest that had not enjoyed major league baseball since the nineteenth century. As a catcher, he was a solid defensive player who regularly threw out opposing baserunners and was an […]
At first blush, it might appear that a kid growing up in the western Massachusetts area known as the Pioneer Valley wouldn’t be playing baseball in a hotbed of the national pastime. But for those who excel at an early age and persist, there are rewards to be reaped, and this was exactly the case […]
Although his tenure in Baltimore was limited to two good seasons and a comeback year, both of the nicknames for which Don Stanhouse became famous were earned while wearing an Orioles uniform. Manager Earl Weaver, overly apprehensive every time Stanhouse was retrieved from the bullpen, called him “Full Pack” after the number of cigarettes he […]
John Kyle Mitchell’s big-league pitching debut took place exactly where he had hoped it would, in Fenway Park. It was an exhibition game played there between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets on September 4, 1986, to support Boston’s Jimmy Fund and New York amateur baseball.1 But he was not with the Red […]
After Fred Thomas of the Boston Red Sox left for the Navy in July of 1918, third base was a tough position for manager Ed Barrow to fill. Catcher Wally Schang played there on occasion, but the hot corner was mostly played by a succession of career minor leaguers. All had strengths and weaknesses as […]
Jefferson City, Tennessee, is a small farm town at the western foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Clyde Wright was born there on February 20, 1941. During the 1940s and ’50s, when he was a boy, life in Jefferson City revolved around family, friends, chores, and school. For Clyde, family meant mom, dad, his five […]
At the Pirates’ minor-league pitching camp in 1970, Harding Peterson, the team’s minor-league director, told two pitching prospects to abandon their side-arm pitching delivery. Fortunately neither listened, as each would become a Pirate World Series hero, with Bruce Kison starring in 1971 and Kent Tekulve in 1979 with the “We Are Family” champs. During offseason […]
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, César Tovar was a fixture at the top of the Minnesota Twins lineup. The speedy, enthusiastic little Venezuelan (5-feet-9 and 150 pounds) came up as a second baseman, but he could handle just about any spot – he is perhaps best remembered today as one of the four […]
Right-hander Edwin Correa spent parts of three seasons (1985-1987) as a starting pitcher with the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers before suffering a career-ending shoulder injury. Only 19 when he earned his first victory, he was the majors’ youngest player for all but one of his big league appearances.1 Although he pitched some Friday […]
Allan Lewis was baseball’s first “designated runner.” Owner Charles O. Finley, on one of his many whims, put “The Panamanian Express” on his Kansas City and Oakland rosters for parts of six seasons from 1967 to 1973. “Mr. Finley’s called me up every time,” said Lewis in 1973. “No reports, no scouts, no managers —just […]
Only 20 years old when the Washington Senators broke camp in spring 1914, right-hander Jim Shaw was deemed a can’t-miss pitching prodigy. The youngster had impressed the previous September during a brief late-season audition with the club, and his spring work had left some onlookers near-swooning, with favorable comparison to renowned staff ace Walter Johnson […]
It’s been a long and weary waitSince back in 1888,When we last copped the bunting.So having such a rosy chanceThe fans are prone to look askanceAt pessimistic grunting.So if their hopes don’t fructifyAnd from our pole no pennants fly’Twill be, indeed, a pity.But if the boys should make the gradeWe’ll honor them with a paradeAnd […]
Meaningful and meaningless — a combination of both usually characterizes the last game of any regular season, and 2014 was no exception. This game was played with crowded dugouts and bullpens, the result of expanded major-league rosters in September that can often lead to game strategies not otherwise available. The no-hitter is unlike other statistical […]
“Playing like real pennant chasers, the St. Louis Browns swamped the White Sox,” gushed the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.1 The Browns’ 28th victory in their last 40 games moved them into third place, a position the franchise had not experienced so late in the season since 1908, when they engaged in a tight four-team pennant-race. Though […]
In his ninth game as the Chicago Cubs player-manager in 1951, Phil Cavarretta came off the bench on July 29 to smash a pinch-hit grand slam off the Philadelphia Phillies’ Robin Roberts and propel the Chicago Cubs to an 8-6 victory in the second game of a doubleheader at Wrigley Field. Cavarretta had a hand […]
When Cubs fans preview the day’s game, they look at the weather report for Wrigley Field, even before asking, “Who’s pitching?” This afternoon they could expect warm temperatures (upper 70s) with steady winds from the southwest (10 mph gusting over 30 mph, from home plate toward the batter’s eye in center field). If the light […]
The New York Yankees are in town! According to Forbes, they were worth $7.55 billion in 2024, more than any other major-league team.1 Their business reach is international in scope, matched on the playing field with 27 World Series championships, more than any other franchise. That this August evening brought a large crowd (34,334) to […]
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, […]
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 18, in 1998. For additional commentary about this story, read “The Veracity of Veeck,” by Robert D. Warrington and Norman Macht in the Fall 2013 Baseball Research Journal and Warren Corbett’s SABR biography of Bill Veeck. Baseball is a game in […]