Search Results

Late in the Minnesota Twins’ inaugural season of 1961, the team noted that its final Saturday game, on September 30, would be played on the same day as a home game for the Minnesota Gophers football team at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. The Twins changed their game time from the usual 1:30 in the afternoon […]

Today, it would be called an “instant classic.” For the 41,708 fans at Wrigley Field that October afternoon, it was one of the wildest games ever witnessed, an emotional rollercoaster of an affair that never let up until the final, madcap hit. Game Six of the 1945 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the […]

Pirates are swashbuckling types, commanding submission from those they conquer. On April 16, 1971, however, their baseball namesake from Western Pennsylvania suffered a reversal of this paradigm in an effort that proved as ineffective as a clipper with no sails – 14 strikeouts against ace Tom Seaver in 1971’s first matchup between the defending National […]

William Rumler and Eddie Plank roomed together when the 1917 St. Louis Browns traveled for road games.1 It seems like an odd pairing. Rumler was 26 years old, nearly anonymous, and a bench warmer; Plank was 41, well known to sports fans across the country, and – although past his prime – one of the […]

The Philadelphia Phillies were leading the National League East by 4½ games over the Chicago Cubs when they arrived in Houston to play the Astros for the first of a two-game series at the Astrodome. The 48-36 Phillies had their sights set on their third consecutive NL East title, led by future Hall of Famers […]

“There are worse places to open a baseball season than the Astrodome, but no team is based in Death Valley or on Alcatraz. … [Atlanta Braves manager Bobby] Cox counts himself among the game’s traditionalists and thinks the Dome should be torn down and a shopping mall erected in its place. He hates it for […]

When Game Seven of the American League Championship Series began, the temperature at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto was 44 degrees and rapidly dropping as a brisk wind blew across the outfield from left to right. The fading Blue Jays, in the postseason for the first time ever, handed the ball to ace Dave Stieb, the […]

Two weeks before the 1976 All-Star Game, the New York Mets were in a slump. They had opened the season with 18 wins in their first 27 games, occupying first place briefly in late April and early May. A 15-28 slide from May 9 through June 22, however, had dropped them to a distant third […]

Twenty days after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, a special baseball game took place in New York City. The world was focused on the Pacific and European battlefronts, but on the American home front the War Loans Sports Committee was developing a series of events to sell War Bonds. One of these events was baseball’s […]

Two months before the Pittsburgh Pirates made history by winning the 1960 World Series with Bill Mazeroski’s seventh-game, bottom-of-the-ninth, walk-off home run, they hosted the St. Louis Cardinals in a crucial five-game series. On August 11 the Pirates were first in the National League with a record of 65-40, while the second-place Cardinals were aiming […]

The Cincinnati Reds won consecutive pennants in 1939 and 1940 and a World Series championship the latter year thanks in no small part to the stellar play of their little-remembered right fielder, Ival Richard Goodman. Outstanding in the field as well as at bat, he typically hit third a lineup that also featured 1940 National […]

Julio Valdéz, a Dominican infielder, played parts of four seasons with the Boston Red Sox in the early 1980s. As a utilityman who’d played only 65 major-league games, Valdéz made newspaper headlines in the spring of 1983 as the subject of a rape allegation. Although a grand jury refused to indict him, Valdéz never got […]

Marvin Miller, the great labor leader of major-league baseball, shared fond memories of his youth: “One of my biggest thrills was sitting in the old left-field bleachers … at Ebbets Field in the 1920s. We’d watch the Dodgers take fielding practice. When fielding practice was over, Rube Bressler, the Dodger left fielder, would throw a […]

“Can you suggest a single reason why all the baseball umpires should not be women? Of course you can’t. I mean just what I say, seriously, that all the official baseball umpires of the country should be women.”1 A statement that the baseball world has long disagreed with but was stated in 1906 by a […]

When pitcher Jack Warhop “has control he is one of the hardest men in the league to hit. For a little fellow he has a surprising amount of speed, and this, together with that peculiar underhand delivery, baffles most batsmen.”1 — Ed Grillo, Washington Star, 1911   Before the New York Yankees became a perennial […]

Few players have had to overcome more adversity during their major league careers than Lee “Jeep’’ Handley. The 5-foot-7, 160-pound infielder played in 968 games in a 10-year career punctuated by several major injuries, a couple of which nearly cost him his life. Best known for his hustle and defensive acumen, Handley hit only 15 […]

Where the nickname Tony came from is unclear, other than a likely play on his last name. In all the research done for this biography, the nickname never came up once. When any nickname was employed, he was universally called Charley. We’ll call him Charles Tonneman here. He was a right-handed catcher. He had a […]

Bill Lee was one of those rare ballplayers whose off-field persona overshadowed his significant on-field performance. In baseball parlance, Lee is known as a “flake,” a term that includes anyone who doesn’t give pat answers to pat questions or dares to admit to reading a book without pictures. He was an original in a sport […]

“Pinkey Whitney is the greatest third baseman in baseball,” said Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1930. During a 12-year career, Whitney played for two National League doormats, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Braves. “It’s a shame he couldn’t have gotten with a winning club,” Alexander said. “That boy is a wonderful fielder and one of […]

Rodney Lea Nichols was born on December 29, 1964, in Burlington, Iowa. His family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico when Rod was about three years old, but he has always remained an Iowan at heart. Nichols early on adopted Iowa as one of his favorite college teams. “Back in the day, if you got the […]

You won’t find the definition of “baseball lifer” in the American Heritage Dictionary, but if you did, Don Zimmer’s picture would be a suitable choice to accompany it. Over a period of 60 years, Zimmer claimed to have never collected a paycheck anywhere other than baseball, except once from Social Security. “I never dreamed I’d […]

The manager of the Hotel del Comercio in Caracas, Venezuela, summoned George Genovese for a phone call from the San Francisco Giants in November 1963. It sent Genovese’s hopes soaring. “Maybe I’m their new manager,” he said to his wife, June. When the call was completed, Genovese was crestfallen. His career as a manager was […]

Amiable but tough-minded, Frank Miller was a World War I-era pitcher who valued his own worth. At the height of his career, the hard-throwing right-hander sat out two full seasons when the Pittsburgh Pirates would not accede to his salary demands. Even a visit to the pitcher’s dairy farm in Michigan by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain […]

Craig Swan pitched in 12 seasons for the New York Mets, starting with their pennant-winning 1973 club and ending in May 1984. He got little offensive support while playing on some of the worst teams in Mets history. Nonetheless, he managed some strong performances during that time – most notably in 1978, when he won […]