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“He is another Vance, another Dazzy, I’m telling you. Hasn’t the best disposition in the world. You know some of those Carolina fellows get funny ideas sometimes, but he certainly can buzz that ball over. Best young pitcher I’ve seen since Rube Marquard. Only he is faster than Rube was. Say, maybe he is another […]

“It’s the starting pitcher’s job to win the game. My job is to save it. Sure the starters make more money. They don’t have as much fun.” — Don “Every Day” Elston1   If a Chicago Cubs skipper picked up the bullpen phone during the late ’50s or early ‘60s, chances are he was calling […]

Bert Thiel pitched four games for the 1952 Boston Braves, the extent of his major-league career. He had a long minor-league pitching career with 145 wins. He pitched two seasons of winter ball with Caguas, in Puerto Rico; managed in the minors; and scouted. His baseball mentors were George Selkirk, his manager with the 1953-55 […]

As of 2013, there had been more than 18,000 members in the major league baseball fraternity. Many of those were outstanding overall athletes who excelled at more than one sport. Some, such as Jim Thorpe and Bo Jackson, attained a mythic status for their athleticism. Others performed in the national limelight such as Dave DeBusschere, […]

In a nine-year career spent with three teams, outfielder Tito Landrum never received more than 205 official at-bats in a season. Yet he earned two World Series rings and was a League Championship Series hero for both the 1983 Orioles and 1985 Cardinals. Terry Lee Landrum was born on October 25, 1954 in Joplin. Missouri. […]

“The rumors are that [rookie] Allen is not returning with the Phillies to Connie Mack Stadium on Wednesday. He’s going directly to the Hall of Fame.”1   The Philadelphia Phillies’ first black superstar, Dick Allen was one of the most feared hitters in baseball in the 1960s. In an era dominated by pitching, he slugged […]

Before Mike Lum came along in 1967, only three men born and raised in Hawaii had played in the majors, and none since 1945.1 Both before and after World War II, quite a few Hawaiian ballplayers had gone to Japan – but for mainland fans, Lum became a longstanding reminder of baseball in the Aloha […]

After a highly successful playing career as both a slick-fielding infielder and a slugger, Davey Johnson went on to an even more decorated career as a manager. His winning percentage of .562 is 10th all-time among managers with 1,000 victories, and is surpassed by only Earl Weaver among pilots who began their career after 1960. […]

This article appears in SABR’s “20-Game Losers” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Emmet R. Nowlin.   Chris Archer took the mound for the Tampa Bay Rays at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field on September 29, 2016, in a meaningless game between two teams slogging to the end of disappointing seasons. But a defeat would make […]

The Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians experienced completely different kickoffs to their 1921 campaigns. The 1920 season ended with Cleveland capturing their first World Series, over the Brooklyn Robins, after a season-long battle with the White Sox and the New York Yankees for the American League pennant. The White Sox were constantly battered by […]

In 1922, the defending American League champion New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns battled for first place all season long. The pennant was at stake when the Yankees came to Sportsman’s Park on a mid-September weekend for a three-game “Little World Series” with only a half-game lead over the Browns. After the teams […]

When Pat Gosney shipped off for US Army duty in the summer of 1952, he left with a good story to tell his buddies: Just before entering military service, he’d pitched a three-hit shutout against a major-league team. The story came with a few caveats, which Gosney no doubt admitted by and by. The shutout […]

Until August 31, 2005, only one major-league baseball career had begun with a grand slam in a player’s first at-bat. That honor belonged to Bill Duggleby, a rookie pitcher making his debut with the Philadelphia Phillies. He hit a grand slam in the second inning in his very first at-bat against the visiting New York […]

The Red Sox were down three games to none in the 2004 American League Championship Series. None of the previous 25 major-league teams that had been down 0-3 had even forced a seventh game, much less won one. After the 19-8 beating they had taken in Game Three, some rabid Red Sox fans had sold […]

By late June 1979, the once-proud Oakland Athletics had fallen into baseball’s basement. After 13 wayward seasons in Kansas City without a winning record, the franchise arrived in Oakland in 1968 with future stars Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, and Catfish Hunter on the roster. The early 1970s saw five straight division titles and […]

In the summer of 1949, preparation was underway for one of the most popular Negro Leagues events: the East-West Classic. The annual all-star game – which had been held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park every year since 1933 – had long been a fan favorite.1 In August 1948, more than 42,000 had turned out to watch […]

An impressive number of intrepid Baltimore Orioles fans were in Veterans Stadium among the Philly faithful for Game Five of the 1983 World Series on October 16, one of them holding a sign reading, “The fat lady sings tonight.” After losing Game One at home, the Orioles took the next three and were looking to […]

The San Diego Padres arrived at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Friday, July 8, 2011, to start a three-game series against the Dodgers. It was a tale of two teams playing to climb out of the bottom of the National League West Division. The Dodgers were mired in last place, 12 games behind the […]

As Roberto Clemente’s career was entering its twilight period, a Puerto Rican prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system was drawing rave reviews from the future Hall of Famer. Though the prospect was traded to the Oakland Athletics in a controversial swap in 1970, he never forgot the lessons Clemente taught him in Pittsburgh, and on […]

Drafted out of high school in the seventh round by the New York Mets in 1985, Monty Fariss opted to play college baseball at Oklahoma State, where he helped the Cowboys to the College World Series in each of his first two years, including a runner-up finish to Stanford in 1987. In his junior year, […]

New York Giants manager John McGraw, left, and team owner Charles Stoneham in the early 1920s. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   INTRODUCTION The New York-San Francisco Giants baseball club is among the most storied franchises in the annals of professional sport. To fans, mention of the club’s name promptly evokes images of Willie […]