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Steve Crawford was a pitcher who spent most of his 10 major-league seasons fighting for a job on a major-league roster, the majority of them with the Boston Red Sox. He was a once-promising prospect, but became almost a forgotten man by 1986. He would have been left off the Red Sox’ postseason roster that […]

George Scott’s professional baseball career spanned 41 years beginning in Class-D ball at Olean of the New York-Penn League in 1962. His travels were highlighted by his 14 seasons in the majors, starting with the Boston Red Sox in 1966. Scott also played for Milwaukee 1972-1976, Boston 1977-1978, and split his final year between Boston, […]

Professional football or professional baseball? That was the choice for pitcher Steve Renko. At 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, Renko also starred as a basketball player at the University of Kansas. He was the school’s last three-sport letterman. The big right-hander ultimately chose baseball. Renko had an up-and-down career in the major leagues from 1969 to […]

Sometimes the best deals are those that aren’t made. In the spring of 1908, Boston was so impressed by a pitcher they faced in an exhibition game at Toledo they offered the Mud Hens $5,000 for him. Toledo Manager Bill Armour asked a reported $7,000 for the contract of Jack Bushelman – so he remained […]

Outfielder Lou Jackson, once described as a “wrist hitter with extraordinary pull ability,” appeared in 34 games for the Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles between 1958 and 1964.1 In his dozen years in professional ball, the lefty swinger went deep as many as 31 times in a single Triple-A season, and twice ranked among the […]

In the long history of professional baseball, almost 100 major-league players were nicknamed “Doc.” About half of them were medical professionals: physicians, dentists, an optometrist, a pharmacist, and even a veterinarian. Among the physicians was John Lavan, a graduate of the University of Michigan medical school who also earned a doctorate in public health. Lavan […]

Frank Shaughnessy was an outfielder who played nine major-league games in 1905 and 1908, compiling a .281 batting average in 32 at-bats. After more than a quarter-century in the minor leagues as a field manager and then business manager for several clubs, Shaughnessy was elected president of the International League in 1936. He served in […]

Earl Averill, a 5-foot-10 catcher and outfielder, compiled a career .242 batting average and had 44 home runs mostly in part time roles over seven major league seasons (1956, 1958-1963) with the Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, and Philadelphia Phillies. Despite clutch performances, such as walk-off home runs and key […]

A fleet-footed flycatcher with a rifle arm, World War I-era outfielder Walter Mattick had his major-league career abbreviated by a common failing: the inability to hit top-quality pitching. Weakness with the bat limited his big-league time to parts of three seasons. Still, Mattick parlayed other assets into a long association with professional baseball, mostly as […]

Few jobs can match the excitement, adulation, and income that come with a spot on a major-league roster.  Some old ballplayers inevitably seal themselves in amber, forever living vicariously through the men they used to be.  The New York Giants’ Al Corwin was different.  For him the game was “more paycheck than passion,” as one […]

Roger Clemens’ last major-league start, on October 7, 2007 — for the New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians, the very team against which he had made his major-league debut in May 1984 — ended with him limping off the mound after only 2⅓ innings with a hamstring injury. Clemens had already allowed the Indians […]

Born in Bellows Falls, Vermont, on December 26, 1947, Carlton Fisk embodies traditional New England values like pride, ruggedness, and individuality. Those virtues were what the late Boston Red Sox public relations director Dick Bresciani was trying to capture in 1997 when he wrote that Fisk was a “native of Vermont” on his original plaque […]

Ted Ford decided on his career path when he was 8 years old; he told his father he was going to be a baseball player. “Of course my dad didn’t believe me,” said Ford in 2015. “I thought it would be easy but he knew how hard it would be to make that happen.” Born […]

In 1977 the original Star Wars hit theaters; Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president; the first Apple II computers went on sale; and New York City lost power and was blacked out for 25 hours. But what most Oakland A’s fans of a certain age remember about that year — an otherwise dismal time […]

The New York Giants arrived in Indianapolis in August 1889 after winning five straight games – two against the Philadelphia Phillies, followed by a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Stockings. The Indianapolis Hoosiers had won two straight, and eight of their last 10 games, before facing the Giants.1 After the Hoosiers’ 14-4 win in […]

SABR biographer Alan Cohen argues, “The mention of Alex Rodríguez conjures up images favorable and unfavorable. For almost three decades, his image has been in the public eye, often for all the wrong reasons.”1 In spite of the controversy, A-Rod has transcended baseball and landed on the short list of celebrities who are known by […]

Nearly half a century before baseball borrowed the expression “grand slam” from contract bridge,1 and more than a century before someone first referred to a “walk-off” home run2, Roger Connor accomplished both with a single swing of his bat. Troy, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts, were at the time members of the National League, the […]

If the impending departure of the Milwaukee Braves was considered “big news” in their hometown on the morning of September 22, 1965, one might not have known it from reviewing the local newspapers. Both the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel focused on the previous day’s visit of Lady Bird Johnson and her dedication of the […]

The 1970 Cincinnati Reds [102-60] ran away with the National League East by 14½ games before taking three straight from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs. Their opponents in the upcoming fall classic were the Baltimore Orioles who were attempting to rebound from a demoralizing World Series loss to the New York Mets the previous […]

Much of what made Rickey Henderson great on the ballfield was apparent from the start. He made his debut in the Oakland Athletics’ green and gold at 20 years old in June of 1979, got into his patented crouch, and doubled in his first at-bat. His first stolen base came two innings later. Henderson immediately […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers entered Game One of the 1966 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles on October 5 as 8-to-5 favorites.1 They had swept the New York Yankees in 1963 and had defeated the Minnesota Twins in seven games the previous season, so it was understandable that the oddsmakers predicted a third title in […]

The Boston Red Sox had finished 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators in the American League standings. The New York Giants had finished 10 games ahead of second-place Pittsburgh. Though the 1912 Red Sox had won 105 games, the Giants weren’t going to be pushovers. They’d won 103 themselves. They had driven in more […]

From Pittsburgh’s inaugural season in the National League, 1887, when the club was known as the Alleghenys, to 1971, only one pitcher tossed a no-hitter in the Smoky City. Rookie right-hander Nick Maddox, a stout 6-foot 20-year-old, just about three months shy of his 21st birthday, turned the trick on September 20, 1907, in what […]