Search Results

Jimmy Zinn spent 1921 as a swingman on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching staff, contributing occasional starts but more often working from the bullpen. One of his most valuable performances came on August 5 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. Tossing six innings of nearly spotless relief and adding two key hits, Zinn sparked the first-place Pirates to […]

What a difference a year makes. In 1979 the California Angels were flying high, winning the AL West Division with an 88-74 record. The Oakland A’s had finished last in the AL West at 54-108. Notwithstanding the records, in spring training Billy Martin declared that his A’s would beat the Angels and win the division. […]

In an outstanding final season at Auburn University,1 which resulted in a 50-17 record and a trip to the 1997 College World Series, Tim Hudson compiled a record of 15-2 with a 2.97 ERA and 165 strikeouts in 118⅓ innings2 and batted .396 with 18 homers, 21 doubles, and 95 RBIs3 – breaking the school […]

On Saturday night, April 10, 2004, the Boston Red Sox evened their record at 3-3 with a 4-1 win over the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. The win went to Pedro Martínez, his first of the year. The hit that drove in Boston’s first two runs, making it the game-winner, was a two-run homer by David […]

An ugly incident on July 3, 1965, between budding superstar Dick Allen and veteran bench player Frank Thomas threatened to tear the Philadelphia Phillies apart. It began with some verbal sparring during batting practice and quickly escalated. Allen punched Thomas, who responded by striking Allen on the shoulder with his bat.1 It took seven or […]

Hank Aaron quietly and unassumingly approached another significant career milestone. Eighteen seasons into his major-league career in April 1971, the 37-year-old Aaron was one home run shy of joining two fellow sluggers, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, as the only players in baseball history with at least 600 career homers. Ruth topped the leaderboard with […]

As the 1992 National League Championship Series opened, the Pittsburgh Pirates found themselves facing a familiar foe. In 1991, the Bucs had taken the NL’s best record into its NLCS matchup with the upstart Atlanta Braves, but despite a 3-2 lead in games and home field in Games Six and Seven, they ultimately fell short […]

“How good a hitter was Mize? He was Lou Gehrig good. He was Stan Musial good. He was Mel Ott good, Frank Robinson good, Joe DiMaggio good, Albert Pujols good.” — Joe Posnanski1   Johnny Mize loved to hit a baseball, and he wrote about it in his 1953 book, How to Hit, published primarily […]

At 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs, Vean Gregg was a lanky, loose-jointed southpaw who had a world of confidence, a wicked curve ball, and a roller-coaster career hampered by arm injuries. As a 26-year-old rookie for the 1911 Cleveland Naps, Gregg was only three years removed from pitching in the deepest bush of the remote […]

With the muscular physique of a football player, 6-foot-2, 215-pound rookie pitcher Earl Francis was called up in midseason 1960 by the Pittsburgh Pirates to strengthen their bullpen. The 24-year-old right-hander logged 18 innings in seven appearances and sported a nifty 2.00 earned-run average, but came down with shoulder problems and was sent back to […]

Hall of Famer Red Ruffing’s career is a reminder that you can’t judge a pitcher by his wins and losses. The right-hander lost more than 20 games twice while pitching for the last-place Red Sox and won at least 20 for four straight years with the World Series champion Yankees. Charles Herbert Ruffing was born […]

Right-handed pitcher Bennett Flowers worked in 76 major-league games, starting 13 of them, for four different teams over four seasons. He compiled a record of 3-7 with a 4.49 earned run average, earning one win per season in the years 1953, 1955, and 1956. In a lengthy 13-year minor-league career, he was 121-118 (3.51). Flowers […]

Boston president John I. Taylor enjoyed traveling and signing players for the team. In August 1904, he signed up Henry Olmsted, a right-handed pitcher who’d played for Milwaukee in 1902 and Peoria in 1903. We don’t have a record of his height, but he had a playing weight of 147 pounds. The Globe noted that […]

Joe Nelson was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the fourth round of the June 1996 major-league amateur draft. The day after he was drafted, his scout, Mack “Shooty” Babitt, came over to Nelson’s house to discuss a signing bonus with Nelson and his parents. Shooty asked Nelson what he wanted. Nelson had already done […]

Right-handed pitcher Roy Wilkinson reached the pinnacle of his modest baseball career in only his second major-league game. A capable seven-year minor-league veteran, Wilkinson had been acquired by the Chicago White Sox late in the 1919 pennant chase to provide some respite for a strained pitching corps. Given a September start against the Philadelphia A’s, […]

It’s an old story. A player comes on the scene, dazzles in his rookie year, and is gone seemingly as fast as he came. Then there’s Jimmie Hall. Hall burst on the scene with a bang with the Minnesota Twins in 1963. Actually, he had 33 of them, which broke Ted Williams’s AL record for […]

By the time he was 21 years old, George Rettger had established himself as a skilled pitcher at the semipro level in his native Cleveland, Ohio. He yearned for a professional career and earned his first pro experience with Akron in the Ohio State League in 1889. The league was formed in August and featured […]

“For a man who wants to stay in baseball, being a utilityman is the best training he can get. Much better than being a regular. The fellow who’s on the bench, if he applies himself, has an opportunity to study every facet of the game, and to learn more about it than the regular.”1 That […]

“Coming into a game in the eighth or ninth inning is like parachuting behind enemy lines. And sometimes the chutes don’t open. You have to live with that. It’s an unexplained hazard.” – Dan Quisenberry1   The role of a relief pitcher, and more specifically, a closer, is one of the hardest tasks in baseball. […]

Daniel Staub? Who the hell is Daniel Staub? Nobody has ever heard of a ballplayer named Daniel Staub. But everyone has heard of Rusty Staub, and for the French and English fans of a brand-new ball club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he was known — and loved — as Le Grand Orange. Daniel Joseph “Rusty” […]

Andrés Mora was one of Mexico’s greatest sluggers. He could easily have been the all-time home run king south of the border, had he not spent time in the United States. By his own choice, he went back home – still aged just 24 – after four unfulfilling partial seasons in the majors. When he […]

In 2020, SABR’s Baseball Cards Committee established the Jefferson Burdick Award, honoring individuals who have made significant contributions to the baseball card hobby. Eligible candidates include anyone who has made significant contributions to the hobby in such areas as baseball card research/scholarship; baseball card creation/production/innovation; developing/maintaining resources (e.g., publications, websites, communities, events) for collectors; and […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project. Eddie Collins, left, and manager Kid Gleason were left to pick up the pieces after the Chicago White Sox lost most of their championship core following the Black Sox Scandal. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   The 1921 Chicago White […]