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During the first seven seasons of the 2000s, no team in the National League won more games or enjoyed more success than the St. Louis Cardinals. Guided by Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, the Cardinals won 658 games, five division titles, and one World Series. During the 2004-2006 seasons, La Russa handed the […]

The Newark Eagles’ May 5, 1946, season-opening game against the Philadelphia Stars, a 2-0 no-hit victory for Eagles pitcher Leon Day, soon spelled opportunity for a multi-talented college player named Oscar Givens. Shortstop Benny Felder made two errors in the game,1 and when the two teams moved from Ruppert Stadium to Delaware’s Wilmington Park the […]

“How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.” – Vin Scully1   Twenty-eight miles south of Pittsburgh, roughly along the Monongahela River (Western Pennsylvanians call it the Mon and the Mon Valley) lies the town of Donora. Donora and the surrounding communities were once a fairly thriving multi-ethnic area […]

When it comes to nicknames, there is no shortage in baseball. While there are plenty of “Kids” and “Rubes” such as Kid Baldwin or Rube Foster, other nicknames are more baseball specific like Home Run Baker or Lefty Williams. Still others are based on the player’s geographic place of birth like “California” William Brown or […]

George Kaiserling was born to a German immigrant couple, Frederick and Johanna (Becker) Kaiserling, on May 12, 1893, in Steubenville, Ohio. He was the sixth born of eight, six sons and two daughters. His father worked as a millhand in the basic steelmaking industry and his mother was a homemaker.1   There is only data […]

William Edward White, from a Brown University team photo   For fans attending the June 21, 1879, game between the Providence Grays and the Cleveland Blues, there didn’t seem anything very special about the day. The only odd note was, perhaps, Providence’s first baseman. Providence’s usual starter, veteran Joe Start, had broken his finger and, […]

Nino Espinosa was a right-handed pitcher with good control whose career ended prematurely because of a shoulder injury. After that, he became a scout in his native Dominican Republic until his tragic death from a heart attack at age 34. Arnulfo Acevedo Espinosa was born on August 15, 1953, in Villa Altagracia, about 30 miles […]

Frank Warfield may be one of the least understood and appreciated stars of the Negro Leagues, and possibly one of the most unjustly maligned. He stood just 5-feet-7-inches tall and was slight in stature, but he was feisty, fast, and, some would say, furious. Yet few player-managers in the Negro Leagues achieved as much as […]

During a 16-year professional baseball career spanning 1959 to 1974, Roberto Peña was a stalwart shortstop in his homeland, the Dominican Republic. He played for two winter league champions and earned posthumous retirement of his uniform number by the Santiago-based Águilas Cibaeñas. Over parts of six big-league seasons (1965-1971), Peña broke in with the Chicago […]

Jerry Cram’s signature moment in the big leagues came on September 11, 1974. He threw eight scoreless innings in relief for the New York Mets — the 17th through the 24th of what became a 25-inning loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. If the Mets could only have scratched across a run, Cram would have […]

On Sunday, October 13, 1946, the St. Louis Cardinals faced the sixth game of the World Series against the Boston Red Sox with their backs, once again, against the wall. They had played that way for the entire bruising 1946 season, and now they needed another win to tie the Series and force a seventh […]