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Long before free agency and specialization promoted frequent player movement between teams, the journeyman tag was most aptly applied to men like Pat Ragan. Ragan played for seven major-league clubs between 1909 and 1923, and as of the end of the 1920s was one of only seven men to play for six or more major-league […]

Tex Hughson was a big right-handed power pitcher out of the University of Texas who principally wore the number 21 during his tenure with the Red Sox (he would also be assigned the numbers 29, 15, and 27) and, like his numerical counterpart and fellow Longhorn Roger Clemens four decades later, was the dominant Red […]

Few Americans had ever seen anything like it — a black man and a white man cheek to cheek. The image greeted readers of many sports pages across the country on the morning after Game Four of the 1948 World Series: the winning pitcher, Steve Gromek, hugging Larry Doby, whose home run was the victory […]

Like many businessmen in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash, legendary Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack took a beating financially and, as a result, he dealt his star outfielder Roger “Doc” Cramer to the Boston Red Sox. Cramer joined other Athletics stars such as Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx in the exodus to Boston, […]

Days after his graduation from college in June 1915, Rupert Mills was signed by the Newark Peppers of the Federal League. A Newark native and a locally renowned schoolboy athlete, Mills was deemed the potential fan magnet desperately sought by Peppers management. Unhappily, the new recruit proved unequal to the task, batting an anemic .201 […]

Mastering the art of the line drive but unable to master his own temper, Heinie Manush burst onto the major league scene with the Detroit Tigers and quickly became one of the fiercest and most feared hitters in the game. Born July 20, 1901, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Henry Emmett Manush was raised in the Deep […]

Alex Remneas, mistakenly considered by some to be the first Montanan to make the big leagues, was born in Minneapolis before moving to Watson Township, Montana (Great Falls), as a baby.1 After three career games with the 1912 Detroit Tigers and 1915 St. Louis Browns that amounted to 7.2 innings pitched, the “Iron Duke” returned […]

During World War II, the Kansas City Monarchs had two middle infielders who hit for average, exhibited extra-base power, and played defense with flair. Born in the winter of 1919, Jackie Robinson not only changed baseball history but altered US history as well. Born in the winter of 1920, Bonnie Serrell toiled in a far […]

In an era when the common impression of a baseball catcher was a sturdy player with bulging shoulders, a husky framework, and brute strength, the 5-foot-7 (many sources say 5-foot-9), 155-pound Ray Schalk did not convey an imposing figure behind the dish. But as John C. Ward wrote in Baseball Magazine in 1920, “Schalk is […]

Mike Pasquella had more names than a viscount and a gift for running in fast company and sharing a good story about it afterward. His best tale revolved around his own Major League career, which was short, colorful, and quirky. Born in Philadelphia seven months after Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders had charged up San Juan […]

What Tommy Davis accomplished as a major leaguer on one good leg, most players would be proud to do on two. Not that this sums up his athletic career, but it is an important backdrop to his improbable baseball odyssey. Davis seemed ready to have his ticket punched for Cooperstown as he entered his ball-playing […]

He was a 21-game winner as a rookie in 1944 and four years later started the deciding game of the World Series, but these feats are not what Bill Voiselle is remembered for today. The right-handed pitcher compiled more than 160 victories in a long career split between the major and minor leagues, but it’s […]

Bob Dillinger brought deadball skills to the longball game that took hold after World War II. A .306 hitter in his six seasons in the majors, he led the American League in stolen bases three straight years, but hit only 10 career home runs. With his lack of power and poor defense, Dillinger never produced […]

“Times of adversity make you stronger. And sometimes those times make you so tired that when your son says to you, ‘Dad, I want to be there at the last game you pitch,’ you tell him, ‘Kid, you might have been there already.’”1 — Bret Saberhagen on August 8, 2001, one day after his last […]

Instead of being the good-hitting second baseman and field leader that the Milwaukee Braves expected him to be – the player who would make enough of a difference to help lead them to the National League pennant in 1954, Danny O’Connell turned out to be a disappointment, compiling just a .248 batting average in four […]

Through the 2021 season, Brady Anderson is the only player in the history of Major League Baseball to amass at least 20 home runs and 50 stolen bases in one season, and at least 50 homers and 20 steals in another. Anderson usually batted leadoff over a 15-year career (1988-2002) spent almost entirely with the […]

Chances are if one were to poll SABR members about the greatest left-hander in the history of the Dodgers franchise, the most frequent response would be, “Sandy Koufax.” But they would be incorrect. Without a doubt, the honor of greatest southpaw in organizational history belongs to Vincent E. Scully. Since the emergence of baseball broadcasts, […]

In this present era of pitch counts, innings limits, and rare complete games, it is difficult to imagine two starting pitchers grinding it out over the course of a 16-inning contest. Yet such was the case on July 8, 1924, when Cincinnati Reds left-hander and future Hall of Famer Eppa Rixey prevailed over Philadelphia Phillies […]

Pumpsie Green holds two places in Boston Red Sox history – one well-known and eternal, the other obscure and perishable. The switch-hitting infielder, born Elijah Jerry Green, is remembered as the Red Sox’ first Black player, integrating the major leagues’ last segregated team on July 21, 1959. He played in 327 games in four seasons […]

The honor roll of great Fenway Park pitching performances would fill a rich leather-bound antique book. It includes rookie Hugh Bedient outdueling the legendary Christy Mathewson in Game Five of the 1912 World Series; Joe Dobson giving the St. Louis Cardinals just two hits in Game Five in 1946; Earl Wilson pitching the first American […]

On May 25, 1951, the New York Giants were in the final stop of a five-city road trip, and although they were in fifth place with a 17-19 record, they were only 4½ games behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers. On the previous day they had held a press conference in New York, announcing that the […]

The National League West-leading Cincinnati Reds hosted division rival Atlanta for a three-game series starting on May 15, 1970. The Reds (24-10) had the NL’s best winning percentage (.706) and enjoyed a four-game lead over the second-place Braves. The Reds’ balanced attack was illustrated by their leading the league in runs scored (173) and fewest […]

In 1990, 26-year-old Randy Johnson was in his third year as a big-league pitcher and his first full season with the Seattle Mariners. He was better known for his lack of control and unprecedented height than as someone who could win multiple Cy Young Awards and become a Hall of Famer. At 6-feet-10, the “Big […]

Federal League Park in Indianapolis, looking in from the right-field fence. (Indianapolis News, January 27, 1917)   The city of Indianapolis has been home to four short-lived major-league franchises. The first two — the 1878 Indianapolis Blues of the National League and the 1884 Indianapolis Hoosiers of the American Association — were noncompetitive and disbanded […]