Search Results

David Green was one of baseball’s big “what if” stories. The imposing Nicaraguan was often called “the next Roberto Clemente.” His talent has also been compared to that of Vladimir Guerrero, André Dawson, and Darryl Strawberry — even Willie Mays. Alas, personal troubles and nagging injuries stopped him from realizing this vast potential. Looking back […]

Mike Higgins was a fine player, a successful minor-league manager, a Manager of the Year in his first major-league season, and the face of the Red Sox for several years. But the fortunes of the club deteriorated during his tenure, and for many people Higgins became the face of that failure. While his team continued […]

Phil Morrison’s baseball career is indelibly connected to that of his older brother Johnny, known as Jughandle because of his quick-dropping curveball. Johnny’s glowing recommendation led directly to the professional baseball career of Phil, who was three years younger. Just as Johnny started out with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1920, Phil began pitching for his […]

When the 1959 Milwaukee Braves shuffled eight second basemen in a game of musical gloves, Casey Wise was Mr. June. Wise was born into a baseball family, but his big league career was short and disappointing. His baseball earnings paid his way through dental school, launching a successful second career. Kendall Cole Wise was born […]

A small memorial park is all that remains of Lane Field, home of the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres from 1936 until 1957.1 Wind glyphs fly from three poles in the small park, each depicting a player from Padres history, a fielder, a batter and a pitcher. Ted Williams is both the batter and […]

Thomas Michael McCarthy was a right-handed pitcher who battled his way through a considerable number of injuries and pitched in the major leagues for the Boston Red Sox (1985) and Chicago White Sox (1988 and 1989). He also toiled through 15 years of minor-league baseball, most of them at the Triple-A level. Though he never […]

For many African American males growing up in poverty-stricken households throughout Los Angeles, sports offered a chance to break away from the cultural and economic restraints imposed on them by their surroundings. This was no different for a young Darryl Eugene Strawberry (born March 12, 1962, in Los Angeles). Darryl was the third boy born […]

Switch-hitting shortstop U.L. Washington played eight full major-league seasons and parts of three others from 1977 to 1987, most of them with a toothpick in his mouth. A product of the early-1970s Royals Baseball Academy, he played in three postseasons for Kansas City and started every World Series game for the franchise’s first pennant-winning team […]

Every great city has its own great bar. Elizabethan London had the Mermaid Tavern. Paris has its Deux Magots. In New York City in the 1950s, there was no shortage of options, but for sports fans there was only one choice: Toots Shor’s. Initially located at 51 East 51st Street, across the street from Radio […]

A 13-year veteran catcher, Mike Scioscia has – through 2015 – managed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for 16 seasons, the first major-league manager to reach the playoffs in six of his first 10 seasons. He led the Angels to a world championship in 2002. Michael Lorri Scioscia was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, […]

Harry Walker was born to baseball and spent his life in the game. The son of one major leaguer and the brother of another, he was an All-Star outfielder, the lightning-rod manager of three teams, and a controversial hitting guru. Harry and Dixie Walker are the only brothers to win batting titles. When Harry came […]

John Drebinger once wrote of Eddie Brannick, “He has legions of friends, remembers the birthdays of many of them, yet once couldn’t recall the date of his own. A gourmet of rare taste, he knows how and where to dine and will order a meal of excellence only to touch scarcely any of it because […]

During the 2000s, Carlos Zambrano was a mainstay at the top of the Chicago Cubs’ rotation. Though lacking the renown of teammates like Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Sammy Sosa, the three-time All-Star led the Cubs in wins above replacement during the first decade of the new millennium. Nicknamed El Toro (Spanish for bull) and […]

At the turn of the 20th century, baseball truly was America’s game. The Boston Daily Globe put it this way. “Once more baseball is king. From the National League to the [local] nine purchasing uniforms on the instalment [sic] plan, all is bustle. Never was [sic] there so many leagues and independent teams in existence […]

When asked to make a list of the best hitters of the late 1940s and early 1950s, few would mention left-handed slugger Ferris Fain, but perhaps they should. Fain broke in with the Philadelphia Athletics as a 26-year-old rookie in 1947 and established a reputation as a daring first baseman with a discerning eye at […]

Hank Steinbacher amassed 170 hits in his three-season big-league career. Fully 10 percent of them came in a seven-game flurry in June and July 1938. In that spate, the 25-year-old lefty hitter came to the plate 34 times and pounded out 17 hits, including four doubles, a triple, and a home run. He knocked in […]

The San Diego Padres celebrated their 50th season in Major League Baseball in 2019. (SAN DIEGO PADRES)   San Diego’s quest for major-league baseball began earnestly in the mid- to late 1950s, around the time California’s largest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, ascended to “the bigs.” Home of the Pacific Coast League Padres since […]

For at least a decade, Black baseball fans in the Gateway City and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had called for a showdown between one of the city’s all-White major-league teams and the city’s leading Black squad, the St. Louis Giants. Under the leadership of their business manager, minority owner, and tireless promoter, Charlie Mills, the […]

Change was in the air in the spring of 1969. As the turbulent Sixties came to a close, even staid major-league baseball went through a much-needed transformation. After a severe lack of offense in the “Year of the Pitcher,” baseball lowered the mound and shrank the size of the strike zone to give hitters a […]

The last home game of the 1952 season at Braves Field was played before 8,882 fans and nearly 32,000 empty seats on a Sunday afternoon in late September. Under the circumstances, this wasn’t much of a surprise. There are plenty of numbers one can use to describe the ’52 Braves, most of them bad. Boston’s […]

The unusual 1981 season, torn into halves by a players strike and lengthened by a specially added first round of playoffs, ended on a familiar note – a World Series featuring the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The former New York City neighbors were facing off for the 11th time. The Yankees had […]

In 1889 the Louisville Colonels of the American Association were a woeful baseball team. Over the season, Louisville went 27-111-2, with a record-setting 26-game losing streak. The team churned through four managers – Dude Esterbrook (2-8), Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf (14-51), Dan Shannon (10-46-2), and Jack Chapman (1-6) – with equally dismal results. By July 27, […]

A torrential rainfall postponed the second game of a three-game set between the Brooklyn Superbas and Cincinnati Reds in August 1906. “Such a storm has seldom been seen in these parts,” observed the Cincinnati Enquirer.1 The two clubs decided to reschedule the game for the next day as part of a doubleheader. They agreed in […]

Here are the SABR Bookshelf listings for Spring 2015. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004. An e-book file will also suffice; please send the e-book in PDF, EPUB […]