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As a 25-year-old Chicago Cubs outfielder and pinch-hitter Babe Twombly hit .377, a figure that usually warrants further employment at the major league level. Instead, it was the last season in the big leagues for the young man, who was shipped out west to the Pacific Coast League and didn’t look back. Clarence Edward Twombly […]

“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 […]

Edmund John Miller was born on August 30, 1894, on a farm in the vicinity of Urbana, Iowa. He was the second of eight children born to Norman and Philomena Miller, both of French and German descent, who had migrated to Iowa from New York City. The family moved to another farm near Vinton when […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]

Dubbed the “father of professional Canadian baseball for his role in the early organization of the game,”1 George Sleeman was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame as a builder in 1999. He was one of the first baseball owner/managers to sign professionals to an amateur team, and as such set a precedent 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 […]

The Cleveland Indians carried a 2-1 series advantage heading into the 1997 American League Championship Series Game Four against the Baltimore Orioles on a warm breezy Sunday night in downtown Cleveland. The Indians were flying high after the previous night’s contest when a missed suicide-squeeze attempt and passed ball led to Marquis Grissom scoring the […]

On the morning of September 4, 1935, longtime Chicago Tribune sportswriter Irving Vaughan wrote an article examining the National League pennant race, specifically, how the Cubs’ prospects looked going into the final weeks of the season.1 From his perspective, the odds did not appear promising for the Wrigley Field squad. Chicago was in third place, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]