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Henry Frazier Robinson was born on May 30, 1910, in Birmingham, Alabama, to the Rev. Henry and Corrine (Black) Robinson.1 The Robinsons had seven children: Edward, Theophilus, Maybelle, John, Estelle, Henry Frazier, and Norman.2 The family moved to Oklahoma City when Frazier was less than a year old to escape the segregation of the South […]

After breaking into the American Association in 1882 at the age of 28, Leech Maskrey had a run of four-plus seasons in the big leagues. During this time he accumulated more than 1,500 plate appearances in 414 games. Maskrey remained active in baseball until he turned 50, with his post-major-league involvement in the sport including […]

Bob Quinn was a baseball man for more than 60 years. He started as a player in the 1880s, although he never made the majors, and then became a business manager/general manager. At various points from 1917 through 1945, he held this role at the big-league level with the St. Louis Browns, the Brooklyn Dodgers […]

Sportswriter Charles J. Doyle of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described southpaw Emil Yde as a “cyclonic sensation” when he debuted for the Pirates in 1924.1 In his second start, Yde tossed a shutout, the first of eight consecutive winning decisions to commence his big-league career, en route to a 16-3 slate. He went 17-9 the next […]

After hitting .314 to help the Charleston Senators win the Middle Atlantic League title in 1942, Johnny Blatnik was invited to spring training by the Cleveland Indians the next year. But Uncle Sam had different ideas, instructing the 21-year-old to head to basic training with the United States Army. Blatnik, who grew up in the […]

Ty Cobb rounded third and, despite the stop sign from his coach, kept on going. Cleveland catcher Harry Bemis caught the relay and braced himself. Cobb could collide or evade. He chose collision and the ball rolled away from Bemis. Cobb was declared safe. In the heat of the moment Bemis began hitting Cobb in […]

A pitcher whom the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first identified as Charles “Lefty” Bell posted a 3-0 record for the Homestead Grays in 1948. The fact that Bell’s first name was likely James, rather than Charles, is only the first obstacle in attempting to identify this player, whose life and career provide a prime example of the […]

Outside MCU Park in Coney Island, there stands a statue of two baseball players. Both are famed Brooklyn Dodgers. Both are Hall of Famers whose legends transcend batting averages and fielding percentages. One is a white Kentuckian. The other is an African-American from California. They are Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson. The statue depicts […]

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 […]

Hoss Walker was a baseball lifer. He enjoyed a 20-year playing career in Black Baseball and then managed for nearly a decade. Prior to playing a single game in the major Negro Leagues, he was a teenage pioneer playing a small role in growing the game of baseball in the Far East. He played with […]

Left-handed pitcher Ray Dobens graduated as a bachelor of philosophy from Worcester, Massachusetts’ College of the Holy Cross on June 19, 1929 and signed a Boston Red Sox contract that same day. Eighteen days later, he broke in with the Boston Red Sox. College teammate Bots Nekola signed with the Yankees and had to wait nine more days for his first game. They […]

When Mike Sandlock signed his first professional baseball contract, in 1938, he could not have envisioned that he would become a major-league teammate of no fewer than six Hall of Famers – Warren Spahn, Paul Waner, Ernie Lombardi, Pee Wee Reese, Billy Herman, and Ralph Kiner. Nor could he have imagined that during his five […]

Early in his career on the baseball diamond he was a man without a position. Luckily for him, the power emanating from his bat allowed him to hang around the major leagues long enough to settle into the only position he could play reasonably well. He came from Native American – or, in the common […]

Right-hander Milo Candini debuted for the Washington Senators in 1943, after toiling in the New York Yankees farm system for six years. Once hailed as the “sensation of the American League,” Candini won his first seven decisions, including five consecutive starts.1 But he was plagued by arm miseries throughout his 20-year professional career, and his quick […]

During a relatively brief 1880s professional career, pitcher John Fox manned the box for four different major league clubs. Except for catcher, the versatile right-hander also handled every other position on the diamond — a significant capability during an era of limited player rosters. Notwithstanding that, Fox seldom lasted long with the teams that engaged […]

Marty McManus lived a life in baseball, spanning the years 1920 through 1948. He played as a major-league infielder for 15 years and was player-manager for the Boston Red Sox for most of the 1932 and 1933 seasons. When women began to play pro baseball during World War II with the launch of the All-American […]

When you review how professional baseball integrated, it is easy to begin and end with the story of Jackie Robinson’s struggles. Scant attention is given the fact that African Americans faced tremendous resistance to their presence throughout the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the Deep South. One such player who experienced this was Blue Moon […]

It was still early in the 1919 season, one in which the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant. The Boston Red Sox – World Series champions from the year before – were headed for sixth place, percentage points behind the fifth-place St. Louis Browns, 20½ games back. Indeed, a “Sox” team had won […]

In the top of the eighth inning of a game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City1 on April 22, 1957, with his team behind by two runs and runners at second and third with one out, Phillies manager Mayo Smith sent out John Irvin Kennedy to run for […]

Sometimes all of the elements of the story of a ballgame are not known right away. The score is known but quite often the story of the game goes far beyond the score and so it was on April 22, 1947. For the record, the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 in the opener […]

On the morning of July 4, 1940, the St. Paul Saints defeated the Minneapolis Millers, 3-2, in a taut pitchers’ duel. Many of the 5,869 fans in attendance walked the few blocks from St. Paul’s Lexington Park to Selby Avenue and paid 10 cents for an eight-mile streetcar ride to Nicollet Park to catch the […]

The first-place Reds looked to expand a small lead in the NL pennant race against the perennially downtrodden Astros in a doubleheader at Crosley Field. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning of the first game on a double by Vada Pinson and a sacrifice fly by Pete Rose, Cincinnati stopped […]

As the Mutuals of New York prepared to host the Athletics of Philadelphia in a National League championship (regular-season) contest on August 10, 1876, the two clubs seemed to be moving in opposite directions. In fact, they were both headed to oblivion. The Mutuals had won 7 of their last 11 after a disappointing 10-20 […]

In a nod to the organization’s roots in historical research, as well as its commitment to bringing the game’s history alive, in 1984 the annual SABR convention included an abridged reenactment of the 1884 World Series. While the best-two-out-of-three contest between the Providence Grays and the New York Metropolitans is not recognized as the inaugural […]