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The maxim “nothing succeeds like success” is as applicable to baseball as to any other endeavor. Its truth is especially evident in the case of ballplayers who have attempted to introduce new strategies and techniques. Those who excel while doing so are hailed as embodiments of American ingenuity and earn a measure of immortality. But […]

Playing on a squad that featured such top-rank stars as Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez made it challenging for other players to gain notoriety in their own right. During the 1970s it was easy to overlook the contributions of “other” Reds who made up the roster of the Cincinnati’s Big Red […]

“It’s too bad,” John Roseboro said, “because a ballplayer would like to be remembered for something better than a bloody brawl, but that’s what everyone always remembers.”1 What everyone remembers is August 22, 1965: the day Juan Marichal bashed Roseboro in the head with a bat. He was so quiet, he was nicknamed “Gabby.” Roseboro […]

During an interview with Ted Barrett and his crew during their July 2015 visit to officiate a series between the Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox, it came out that Barrett was one of a select number of umpires who have earned advanced degrees. Dan Bellino is another; he is a Doctor of Jurisprudence, a […]

The initial third baseman enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Jimmy Collins was an outstanding fielder and above-average hitter during his 14-year major-league career in the Deadball Era. As the first manager of the Boston franchise in the American League, Collins gained widespread acclaim when he led the team to consecutive pennants in 1903 […]

One day in the mid-1930s, in the New York City borough of Staten Island, teenager Karl Drews anxiously watched as older boys of his small community of Eltingville climbed into a truck to go to a baseball team tryout. As the truck was about to depart, Drews pleaded with the older boys to take him […]

Mary Driscoll was born in Milwaukee and was a member of the baby boom generation. While media descriptions of her would later give an approximate birth year of 1948, based upon a Social Security death index listing and certain inconsistencies in these accounts, it appears that she was actually born on May 17, 1945. Her […]

Decades before Michael Jordan stepped away from the National Basketball Association to play minor league baseball, another former first-round draft pick made a similar decision. Dick Ricketts was a two-sport athlete in high school and college, excelling at baseball and basketball. Taken number one overall in the 1955 NBA draft, Ricketts spent three seasons in […]

Carlos Beltrán jump-started his terrific career in 1999 by winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award. He rose to national stardom in 2004, when he turned in one of the greatest postseason performances ever, batting .435 with eight home runs in 12 games. Possessing a rare combination of power and speed, Beltrán is one […]

When thinking of multi-sport athletes from Toronto, the first name to come to mind is likely Lionel Conacher. Conacher was voted Canada’s top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, and excelled in hockey, baseball, and football. He also played lacrosse, wrestled, and boxed. However, another versatile athlete was unjustly lost in his […]

In April 1954, as Philadelphia Athletics third baseman Jim Finigan was launching his major-league career, The Sporting News contributor Art Morrow characterized him “as a fellow who could not miss major league stardom.”1 Earle Mack, a son of future Hall of Fame skipper Connie Mack, echoed the sentiment five months later: “[Finigan] played good, steady […]

It could be a good question in a serious trivia contest: “Who was the first African-American ballplayer honored by the Hall of Fame?” Rather few people would correctly guess Grover Jones. “My real name is Grover William Jones, Junior,” Deacon Jones explained in a 2008 interview. “Everybody started calling me Deacon because my father was […]

Paul Richards was one of the most celebrated managers who never won a pennant. He took on seemingly hopeless building jobs in Chicago, Baltimore, and Houston and succeeded every time in laying a foundation for the club’s future success. He developed young stars, including Brooks Robinson, Joe Morgan, Rusty Staub, Billy Pierce, Nellie Fox, and […]

An often overlooked pitcher on successful Chicago Cubs teams of his era, Guy Bush was among the National League’s winningest pitchers from 1928 to 1934 and finished with 176 victories in his 17-year career. Success was far from foretold when the 21-year-old Mississippi Mudcat made an unlikely debut for the North Siders in September 1923. […]

The third player selected in the June 1966 amateur draft, Wayne Twitchell pitched for five big-league clubs, mainly with Philadelphia. At 6-feet-6, he possessed velocity, but he lacked control and couldn’t develop an out pitch to become a dominant hurler. Then, when he finally put together an All-Star season, a knee injury clouded the remainder […]

When the Baltimore Orioles won four American League pennants in six seasons (1966-1971), no Baltimore pitcher earned more saves or appeared in more games than right-hander Eddie Watt. A short, chunky Midwesterner, usually with a pronounced wad of Red Man chewing tobacco bulging in his left cheek, Watt held right-handed hitters to a .200 batting […]

“Carmen Fanzone always led a double life.” That’s how Jerry Crowe led a story about the former ballplayer and trumpeter that ran in the Los Angeles Times.1 Primarily a third baseman on the diamond, Fanzone played in parts of five seasons (1970-1974) for two major-league teams that suffered nearly century-long droughts between World Series wins: […]

In his second big-league season, young Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Jimmy Viox hit .317, good for third place in the 1913 National League batting race. In the eyes of many observers, including Sporting Life, Viox had supplanted Johnny Evers as the senior circuit’s top second baseman, and great things were expected of Viox in coming seasons. […]

The doormats of the American League, also known as the St. Louis Browns, were making their way northward in the AL standings. In 1918 and 1919 they finished in fifth place. In 1920 they inched up to fourth. And when the curtain came down on the 1921 season the Browns were looking up at only […]

On the day after it hosted its 1,750th and final major-league game in October 1993,1 Arlington Stadium was described by the Dallas metropolitan “hometown” Fort Worth Star Telegram as “a child playing dress-up in a grown-up’s clothes” and “a minor-leaguer masquerading as a major-league ballpark.”2 In fact, Arlington Stadium was a converted minor-league park. Known […]

Two years after Sports Illustrated published his spoof on the adventures of Hayden (Siddhartha, Sidd) Finch in the New York Mets’ 1985 spring-training camp, the ever-creative George Plimpton1 expanded the April 1, 1985, classic into a 275-page novel, also titled The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.2 SABR revisited the April foolery with a 30-year retrospective […]

“The opening night against the Yankees was one of the most electrifying nights I’ve spent in baseball. The excitement was everywhere. It was incredible to see that place filled. It was hard not to look up and be just as awed as any fan.”1 That was Rusty Staub in 1985, 20 years after professional baseball’s […]

This article appears in SABR’s “20-Game Losers” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Emmet R. Nowlin.   Chris Archer took the mound for the Tampa Bay Rays at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field on September 29, 2016, in a meaningless game between two teams slogging to the end of disappointing seasons. But a defeat would make […]

Petco Park has been home to the San Diego Padres since 2004. It has proved to be popular with fans and is largely credited with stimulating significant development of the East Village neighborhood in which it is located, development that was necessary to generate tax revenues necessary for the City of San Diego to meet […]