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Bob Broeg (rhymes with “egg”) was a titan of sports writing and knowledge in St. Louis for six decades. He was a local boy through and through, growing up in south city, attending the University of Missouri, and working in St. Louis (aside from a very brief time early in his career in Boston), from […]

A lineup regular for the 1909 world champion Pittsburgh Pirates, long-forgotten first baseman Bill Abstein retains one unhappy distinction. Of all the unfortunates branded a World Series goat, Abstein is likely the only one who played for the winning side. That our subject played poorly in that year’s seven-game Series against the Detroit Tigers is […]

On April 26, 1969, pitcher Al Raffo of the Triple-A Eugene Emeralds received the good news from his manager, Frank Lucchesi, that he was moving up to the parent Philadelphia Phillies. In his eighth season and eighth team in the Phillies organization, Raffo was asked shortly before he was called up if he thought he […]

In rural counties from the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes basin, super-scout Gene Bennett became the face of the Cincinnati Reds organization during more than a half-century of evaluating talent for the franchise.  The team changed ownership seven times since he began scouting in 1958. Thus far 11 different general managers have deemed Gene […]

Ray Herbert entered professional baseball at the age of 19 with the sinking fastball that major-league franchises dream of, but lacked the knowledge and skill to convert his great “stuff” into immediate success. For 11 years he toiled with mostly second-division teams, both in the majors and minors, rarely winning more than he lost, surrounded […]

Bert Blyleven’s career statistics speak for themselves: 287 victories, 4,970 innings pitched, 3,701 strikeouts, and 60 shutouts accumulated over the course of 22 seasons in the big leagues (1970-1990, 1992). However, some sportswriters questioned whether the Dutch-born right-hander, whose curveball was regarded as the era’s finest, was Hall of Fame material when he retired. In […]

When the Baltimore Orioles announced their 2015 Hall of Fame class, it seemed fitting that Gary Roenicke and John Lowenstein would be inducted together. The two previously shared left field duties for the Orioles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, not an ideal situation for Roenicke – a former first-round pick still in the […]

John Thomas Winsett was the son of a farming couple, John D. and Ida M. Winsett, in McKenzie, Tennessee – a small community of just over 1,300 people, 120 miles due west of Nashville. He was born on November 24, 1909, the fifth child in the Winsett family. Jack (the nickname he himself reported, and […]

Alvin O’Neal McBean – for decades, the only big-league pitcher from the Virgin Islands – was a good one. His hard sinker and limber, resilient arm made him valuable as a starter and even more as a reliever. Throwing from various arm angles as the spirit moved him, McBean was somewhat reminiscent of Orlando “El […]

Al Sothoron was a spitball pitcher and a master of trick deliveries. When the moist pitch was outlawed, Sothoron was one of 17 practitioners of the art who were exempted from the ban under a grandfather clause. Whether he continued to use other trick pitches, some of which were now illegal, is a matter of […]

Jim Derrington’s major-league career was brief, but historic. When Derrington took the mound for the Chicago White Sox at the age of 16 years, 306 days on the final day of the 1956 season, he became the youngest pitcher since Willie McGill in 1890 to start a major-league game. Derrington, who singled off Kansas City […]

After the landmark Messersmith-McNally decision was handed down by arbitrator Peter Seitz in December 1975, the California Angels quickly engaged in what some pundits referred to as “checkbook baseball,” a process in which financially well-off teams like the Angels and the New York Yankees sought to bolster their rosters by bidding for the best free […]

Chris Hartje’s fleeting big-league career consisted of nine games with the 1939 Brooklyn Dodgers. In 16 at-bats, the right-handed hitting catcher recorded five hits and just as many runs batted in. Hartje, who served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II, was attempting to resurrect his professional baseball career with the Spokane […]

In the 21st century, it’s become rare for whole teams to post 10 complete games in a single season – let alone a single pitcher. Only two men since the year 2000 have done so: C.C. Sabathia (2008) and James Shields (2011). Seasons with double-digit shutouts are an even more compelling feat. Over the half […]

Shortstop Dud Lee played one game for the St. Louis Browns in 1920, under one name, and two games for the 1926 Boston Red Sox under another. In between, he appeared in another 251 big-league games, compiling a .223 batting average and 60 RBIs. He never hit a home run, under either name. The shortstop […]

In his first at-bat after three years of military service during World War II, Ted Williams grounded out to first base unassisted on April 16. More befitting his legend was his second time up after returning to civilian life and the Red Sox lineup: a homer off Roger Wolff of the Washington Senators in the […]

On August 18, 1957, came an anticipated yet numbing announcement. After 75 years in New York at various incarnations of the Polo Grounds, the Giants were moving to San Francisco. New York was without National League baseball for four long seasons. Four seasons of listening to radio re-creations of day games by Les Keiter on […]

As players warmed up for a National League game between the visiting Louisville Colonels and the first-place Baltimore Orioles at Union Park on September 8, 1897, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun approached Louisville player-manager Fred Clarke because he was unfamiliar with the Colonels’ battery. When pressed for details, Clarke seemed almost as confused as […]

Coming off a last-place finish in 2012, the 2013 Boston Red Sox held first place for the first three dozen games of the 2013 season. They lost a few games and dropped in the standings but reclaimed the top spot on May 26 and held it for the next two months before falling a half-game […]

Surely, preparation would not be an issue for Pittsburgh’s 1891 National League campaign. The club spent two months training in the South, getting in shape for the new season. The new manager was also familiar to the squad. Still an active player, Ned Hanlon was in the nascent stages of a managerial career that would […]

The seventh-place Chicago White Sox generated some welcome excitement for 25,000 fans at Comiskey Park on July 9, 1921. The White Sox weren’t doing much against the American League in general, but they had a handle on the New York Yankees, with six wins in nine head-to-head games so far in 1921. Eventually they were […]

From early July 1889 until the removal of the franchise to the West Coast following the 1957 season, the New York Giants played baseball – often exciting and sometimes championship-caliber – at the northern Manhattan ballpark known as the Polo Grounds. Inexorably over the decades, Giants players, managers, club owners, front office personnel, sportswriters, and […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Kansas City Royals: A Royal Tradition” (2019), edited by Bill Nowlin.   At Kauffman Stadium a few years ago, someone introduced Shannon Manning to a fan and his young son. The boy had never heard of Manning and couldn’t understand why he was supposed to be so impressed. The father […]