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In the minors from 1902 to 1914, pitcher Rube Vickers achieved an impressive 217-134 record.1 His numbers were extraordinary in 1906: 517 innings pitched, 409 strikeouts, and 39 wins for Seattle in the Pacific Coast League.2 In 1908, his only full season in the majors, he posted an 18-19 record for the Philadelphia Athletics. Vickers […]

Ese Hombre — That Man — was Willard Brown’s nickname in Puerto Rico. The outfielder was one of the most feared hitters in the Negro Leagues, but he was an absolute wrecking ball in the Puerto Rican Winter League. He won the Triple Crown twice there, in 1947-48 and 1949-50. Unfortunately, he played just 21 […]

Exactly 90 minutes after Chicago White Sox left-hander Dickey1 Kerr fired a strike past Cincinnati’s Morrie Rath to start Game Three of the 1919 World Series, he coaxed the dangerous Heinie Groh to tap an 0-1 pitch harmlessly to third base. Buck Weaver, the White Sox third baseman, fielded the ball effortlessly and threw over […]

He was the first amateur player selected by his expansion franchise and became its first home-run champion, alas, when the parent team was in a different city. In his major-league debut, he dropped the first ball hit to him for an error and got his first hit, a triple, in his second at-bat. Nine days […]

When Sam Parrilla got the chance that every minor-leaguer hopes for, he thought of his father. But more than paternal pride ran through his mind; baseball’s indestructible link between fathers and sons sparked memories for the Puerto Rican native upon joining the Philadelphia Phillies at the beginning of the 1970 season. “My father, he’s a […]

When the Orioles nearly went from worst-to-first in their “Why Not?” 1989 season, Jeff Ballard epitomized their surprising success. Though he struck out fewer than three batters per nine innings, no major league lefty won more games than Ballard in 1989. By the time Baltimore did return to the post-season seven years later, however, Ballard […]

A hard-throwing southpaw and two-time All-Star, Max Lanier won 45 games and posted an impressive 2.47 earned-run average from 1942 to 1944 for the St. Louis Cardinals, who captured three consecutive National League pennants and two World Series championships in those seasons. At the height of his career, in 1946, Lanier stunned baseball by breaking […]

Signed as a shortstop by the New York Giants in 1949, Foster Castleman appeared in 170 games with them in four seasons (1954-57). Finally in 1958 the Baltimore Orioles platooned the right-handed-hitting Castleman with switch-hitter Willy Miranda at shortstop. Castleman had begun his pro career as a heralded fielder, but three knee surgeries had taken […]

Bradley David Ausmus enjoyed a prosperous career in baseball after he took a circuitous road to get to the major leagues. Although it took more than five years for him to reach the majors, his path to being a major-league manager was much shorter. Ausmus became manager of the Detroit Tigers after a brief managing […]

“Pete Hill was the first great outfielder in black baseball history,” suggests baseball historian Lawrence Hogan.1 The left-handed Hill was a five-tool star with several famed independent African-American teams: the Philadelphia Giants (1904 to 1907), Leland Giants (1908 to 1910), and Chicago American Giants (1911 to 1918). He then slugged his way to Ruthian heights […]

Larry Dale Ray was born at King’s Daughter’s Hospital in Madison, Indiana, on March 11, 1958. The youngest of nine children, he was raised with a farming family near Vevay, Indiana. Ray’s parents, William and Dorothy Ray, had a dairy farm and grew tobacco. Larry worked the family fields as well as those of other […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The names of baseball’s most famous lineups are familiar: Murderers’ Row, the Big Red Machine, the Black Sox. The people who make up those lineups are familiar, too: Ruth, Rose, Shoeless Joe. However, even baseball’s most prominent teams include men more or less forgotten to history. Of the nine men in the starting lineup for […]

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 […]

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 […]

Editor’s note: This article was presented at the SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium on September 28, 2019, in Chicago. It also appears in the SABR Business of Baseball Committee Newsletter, “Outside the Lines,” in Fall 2019. The story of the infamous Chicago Black Sox is well known, but less well understood. Groundbreaking research over […]

Nearly half a century before baseball borrowed the expression “grand slam” from contract bridge,1 and more than a century before someone first referred to a “walk-off” home run2, Roger Connor accomplished both with a single swing of his bat. Troy, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts, were at the time members of the National League, the […]

The chance of witnessing a perfect game is quite rare. As of 2025, there have been only 22 tossed in the American and National Leagues since 1901. For many years, the only season with more than one major-league perfect game was 1880, when NL pitchers Lee Richmond and John Montgomery Ward threw perfect games five […]

In an episode of Cheers, former Red Sox relief pitcher Sam Malone, played by actor Ted Danson, appears in a beer commercial to save Luis Tiant after the hurler with a corkscrew windup flubs his lines. Tiant’s subpar performance is part of the script. Malone exclaims, “Another save!”1 Although Malone is a fictional character, the […]

“He is one batter who always knows what he is doing up at the plate and why.”1 — Tommy Henrich   Johnny Mize, Hall of Fame first baseman, could hit a baseball and he wrote about it in How to Hit.2 The 1953 book, co-authored with Murray Kaufman, is an easy read for those of […]