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Donning the uniforms of the Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn Dodgers for the better part of his career, along with playing short stints for the Reds, Giants, and Athletics, Augie Galan (pronounced “guh-LANN”) put together a lifetime .287 batting average in 16 major-league seasons. He reached the .300 plateau six times, played in three World Series, […]
There’s a saying that if you play a game in the major leagues, you can live on that fame for the rest of your life. To some extent, Regis Leheny may have done just that. He appeared in two major-league ballgames, with the 1932 Boston Red Sox, and played – apparently – but a handful […]
A two-out, seventh inning single by New York Mets’ right fielder Ron Swoboda was the margin between a 21-year-old left-hander and a no-hitter – a feat that would otherwise have capped the youngster’s fine, 16-win, 1965 season. Possessing one of the greatest curveballs of his time, his immediate splash in the major leagues had the […]
Coming off consecutive 20-win seasons in the Class A Eastern League, big things were expected of 1904 Detroit Tigers pitching prospect Cy Ferry. But wildness and arm problems derailed the club’s hopes for Ferry and he was farmed out after making only three regular season appearances for the Tigers. A one-game audition for the 1905 […]
Pitcher Vicente Romo won well over 400 games as a professional player from 1961 through 1986.1 Just 32 of those wins came in the majors, where he played during eight seasons (1968-74; 1982) for five teams. Yet many experts in his homeland consider this man the finest right-handed pitcher that Mexico has ever produced — […]
When Andy Piercy reported for duty with the vaunted Chicago White Stockings in early April 1881, “the weather was intensely cold, the ground frozen hard, and the ball-field covered with ice and snow.”1 It signaled an ominous beginning to an abortive major-league baseball career for the 24-year-old rookie. He came to the club as the […]
Player, coach, manager, scout – such was the lot of a baseball lifer in the first half of the twentieth century. Dutch Zwilling, with more than 60 years in baseball, filled all of those roles and many more. From the early days of the nascent American League to the cusp of free agency, Zwilling was […]
Carl Boles is perhaps best known for being Willie Mays’s doppelganger – a dead ringer for the celebrated superstar. To teammates and opponents, Boles was a fleet center fielder, a solid hitter, and a player whose big-league career with the San Francisco Giants was derailed by a bad break. Boles played on in Japan and […]
Cub Stricker was a nineteenth-century second baseman who played for seven different clubs over an 11-year major-league career (1882-1885, 1887-1893). Affectionately referred to as Cub because of his diminutive stature – he was 5-feet-3 inches tall and weighed between 135 and 140 pounds – the right-handed-hitting and -throwing Stricker was considered an average hitter with […]
Who’d have thought that almost a decade after Pete Henning’s final major-league game he could run afoul of none other than Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis? What’s more, he was connected to an obscure aftereffect of the momentous 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Yet Henning didn’t even have American or National League experience; he peaked as […]
Even if he had never gone on to own the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner would have had a proud legacy in his hometown of Cleveland. By the early 1970s, he was one of the city’s captains of industry, having taken his family shipping firm to new heights and used it to leverage a purchase […]
“I can play this game,” said Lee Lacy confidently. “For hustle and determination, I won’t take a back seat to anyone.”1 An All-Star at three different infield positions in the minors, the right-handed-hitting Lacy broke in with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1972 and fashioned a 16-year big-league career spent primarily as a versatile utilityman […]
Whispering Bill Barrett was a Cambridge, Massachusetts, man through and through: born in Cambridge (May 28, 1900), died in Cambridge (January 26, 1951), and buried in Cambridge (Cambridge Cemetery, 7113 Chapel section). He’s also one of four Cantabrigians who played major league ball for the Boston Red Sox; the other three are Fred Mitchell, Carl […]
On March 9, 1914, youthful pitching prospect Harry Juul1 took two giant strides toward adulthood. Within hours, he signed a major-league playing contract with the Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League, and he married former high school classmate Hilda Marie Johnson. Shortly thereafter, Harry informed his doubtful father, “Yes, Pop. It’s true. Hilda and I […]
With his spectacles and quiet demeanor, Vic Sorrell gave the impression of a professor or preacher instead of a baseball lifer. After a standout career as a high-school and collegiate star in North Carolina in the early 1920s, right-handed pitcher Sorrell debuted for the Detroit Tigers in 1928. Toiling during some of the team’s leanest […]
Right-handed pitcher Bill Evans had a very brief major-league career, with a total of one decision (sadly, for him, a loss) in the 13 games he pitched over two seasons of big-league baseball. He worked in four games in 1949 for the White Sox, and in nine games in 1951 for the Red Sox. He […]
John Lyston was a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher from Baltimore, Maryland, who played professionally in the late 19th century. The talented tosser possessed an outstanding curveball that complemented his powerful fastball. Early on, John was a standout hurler in the amateur and semi-pro ranks in and around the Baltimore area. Word of his pitching prowess soon […]
July 15, 1933, should have been the greatest day in Jim McCloskey’s sporting life – or, perhaps, the first in a string of great days. The 23-year-old lefty was in Buffalo, New York, where he’d grown up, pitching for the visiting Jersey City Skeeters of the International League. July 15 was Jim McCloskey Day at […]
Residents of Wampum, Pennsylvania, and neighboring towns cheered hometown hero Dick Allen at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field during his 1964 National League Rookie of the Year season with the Philadelphia Phillies, even honoring him in on-field ceremonies before three games against the host Pittsburgh Pirates. But Allen scuffled in Pittsburgh in ’64, batting .182 in nine […]
Detroit’s Briggs Stadium, renamed after 1935 for new owner Walter Briggs, was a roomy ballpark by 1939 standards. Taking over 23,000-seat Navin Field, which had opened in 1912, Briggs had expanded capacity to over 50,000 in 1938. In response, the Tigers drew 10,121 per game, second in the American League, as the country climbed out […]
The Potomac Nationals and Lynchburg Hillcats met on Saturday, August 25, 2018, occupying first and second place respectively in the High-A Carolina League’s Northern Division. On the mound for the Nationals was Matthew Crownover, a 25-year-old left-hander in his fourth professional season. The Georgia native had won 2015 Atlantic Coast Conference Pitcher of the Year […]
Under the leadership of manager George Stallings, the Buffalo Bisons won the Eastern League championship in 1904 but fell to fifth place in the eight-team league in 1905. Entering the 1906 season, fans were enthused about the Bisons’ chances after Stallings procured new talent for the team. Among his acquisitions were William Thomas, a pitcher […]
Several themes were evident for All-Star games played in the 1960s. First was the National League’s crushing superiority during the midsummer classics. Of the 13 games played (two games were played from 1960 through 1962) the National League took 11; the American League won only once (the second game in 1962 was a tie). Toward […]
East Tennessee SABR Chapter Meeting recap Meeting: Saturday, November 21, 2015 Location: Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville, TN Time: 2:30-4:30pm Attendees: Mark Aubrey, George Aubrey, Joe Gallagher, Marshall Adesman, Brad Ridenour, Lucas Hobbs, Bryan Steverson Next Meeting: 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Saturday, January 30, 2016 (SABR Day), Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville, TN Discussion: Mark Aubrey led a […]