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By 1907, Opening Day was one of the grand sporting and social events of the year in Cincinnati. It was a festival of music and parades, a day of noisy fun and high fashion, an occasion to skip school or knock off business and go to the ballpark, where the cream of Cincinnati society and […]
In 1972 the Minnesota Twins’ attendance hit a low of 797,901. In late June of 1973, the Twins were on pace to draw less than that of 1972. On June 27 the Twins played the Texas Rangers in Arlington before a crowd of 35,698, far above the average Rangers crowd of 8,470. The stimulus for […]
An Opening Day record crowd of 51,668 saw the Houston Astros take on the visiting Chicago Cubs in the 35th and final home opener to be played in the Astrodome.1 This was the Cubs’ first season opener in Houston since April 10, 1962, when they played at Colt Stadium, losing 11-2 to the Astros.2 Chicago […]
Wednesday, June 12, 1872, was a hot, sultry day at the South End Grounds in Boston, as Harry Wright and his Red Stockings faced their rivals, the Athletics of Philadelphia. Despite the midweek date and the heat, so many Red Stockings fans flocked to the ball park that the 3:30 P.M. game time had to […]
Things weren’t looking that good for the Red Sox heading into the bottom of the ninth. It was the home opener of the 1952 season at Boston’s Fenway Park. Jimmy Dykes and his Philadelphia Athletics held a 4-1 lead. Right-hander Bob Hooper was dealing. He’d allowed seven scattered hits and walked three, but the Red […]
Following a last-place finish by the Orioles in 1902, the city of Baltimore was left without a major-league franchise. The team packed up and relocated to New York, leaving disheartened Charm City fans rooting for a series of minor-league franchises for the next 50 years.1 The Boston Braves’ move to Milwaukee in 1953 began a […]
The events of August 2 in baseball history are quite varied. In 1921 a Chicago jury arrived at a not-guilty verdict in the trial of the Black Sox, accused of participating in a fix of the 1919 World Series.1 In 1979 New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson perished in an airplane crash in Canton, Ohio.2 […]
It took just 10 pitches. The ninth-inning play-by-play line for the Dodgers read: 0 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. After striking out Russell Martin with a runner on third and two outs, San Diego Padres closer extraordinaire Trevor Hoffman earned his 500th career save, preserving a 5-2 win over Los Angeles. A Wednesday […]
The New York Giants played their first game on May 1, 1883, and their last game on September 29, 1957. On August 19, 1957, Horace Stoneham, the Giants owner since 1936, announced that the team would move to San Francisco for the 1958 season. Why leave New York after 75 seasons? “Lack of attendance,” he […]
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 […]
Hall of Famer Don Drysdale won 209 games and hit 154 batters. He won the Cy Young Award in 1962. (SABR-Rucker Archive) Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale was known to inflict fear in batters. At 6-feet-5-inches tall, he was intimidating on the mound, unafraid to plunk a batter with one of his fastballs. […]
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 […]
“No matter how great you were once upon a time – the years go by, and men forget,” wrote W. A. Phelon in Baseball Magazine in 1915. “Ross Barnes, forty years ago, was as great as [Ty] Cobb or [Honus] Wagner ever dared to be. Had scores been kept then as now, he would have […]
Self-effacing and relentlessly confident, Joe McCarthy was a relatively silent yet authoritative force behind the success of the New York Yankees during 1930s and most of the 1940s. McCarthy’s Yankee teams regularly dominated the American League, and in many seasons New York faced little competition for the pennant. Although he was once famously scorned by […]
Through the 2021 season, 29 of the 30 major-league teams have started a shortstop from the Dominican Republic on Opening Day at least once.1 Fifty-two different Dominican-born shortstops have achieved the feat, including 15 who became All-Stars the same year, four Gold Glove winners, and one MVP.2 Only Rafael Robles of the 1969 San Diego […]
At the conclusion of the Boston Red Sox’ disappointing 1993 season, general manager Lou Gorman, manager Butch Hobson, and assistant general manager Mike Port met with a couple of the team’s controlling partners, Haywood Sullivan and John Harrington, to talk about the status of the team and coaching staff. The quintet resolved to make a […]
It was one of the most famous trades in baseball history. On December 11, 1959, the Kansas City Athletics sent Joe DeMaestri, Kent Hadley, and Roger Maris to the New York Yankees for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern, and Marv Throneberry. For Hadley, the trade effectively ended his major-league career. Kent William Hadley was […]
Jack Dunn was a right-handed pitcher who played professionally during the late 19th and early 20th century. His signature pitch was a slow curveball, and he was one of the few pitchers of his era who did not wear a fielder’s glove. Dunn was also a skilled position player, playing equally well in the infield […]
Clyde Sukeforth was a backup catcher who played parts of ten seasons in the Major Leagues for the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers. Over those ten seasons, Sukeforth hit .264 with only two home runs and had ninety-six runs batted in. Although his accomplishments as a player were minimal, Sukeforth’s subsequent years as a minor-league […]
It was April 30, 1957. In his first five innings in the majors, catcher Tom Patton did the following: Threw out one future Hall of Famer (Larry Doby) trying to steal; Exchanged rundown throws with a second Cooperstown-bound player (George Kell) to catch a third (Luis Aparicio); and Reached base against a perennial All-Star (Billy […]
John Donahue played 1,176 known minor-league games from 1914 to 1927. His only time playing in the majors saw him get into just 10 games as a right fielder for the Boston Red Sox at the tail end of their last-place 1923 season. He was one of just 22 Red Sox players, as of 2014, […]
Clarence “Lefty” Heise had an extremely brief major-league career. He opened the 1934 season with the Cardinals but was released to their Columbus farm team on May 1 when major-league rosters had to be cut to 25 players. He pitched in just one major-league game, and he was the only man who played in a […]
On July 7, 1910, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the hometown New Bedford Whalers squared off against the Lowell Tigers in a Class B New England League game. On the mound for the Whalers was 20-year-old Tommy Griffith who, in his second professional season, was on his way to winning 19 games for the pennant-winning New […]