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The St. Louis Cardinals were surging. On June 30 St. Louis had trailed the first-place and defending World Series champion New York Giants by 5½ games, but the Cardinals had won three of four games against the Giants at Sportsman’s Park from July 15 to July 18 to cut the lead to a half-game. St. […]

One of the more exciting days on the baseball calendar is the trade deadline on July 31.1 Networks and sports talk shows fuel the speculation and rumor mill about who could be on the move. Team officials must determine if their club is a pretender or a contender, a buyer or a seller. With the […]

During the 2017 baseball season, the Chicago Cubs surpassed 8,000 regular-season games played at Wrigley Field. The season included the raising of the team’s first World Series championship gained while calling Wrigley Field home. A century earlier, the Cubs played their first game at Wrigley (then called Weeghman Park), to a packed Chicago crowd that […]

The Chicago Whales were in a three-way battle for the Federal League title during the second half of September 1915, when one of their victories involved a triple play involving their improbable rookie first baseman, Joe Weiss. Before one of the largest home crowds of the season, the Whales defeated the Buffalo Blues in a […]

The Federal League Kansas City Packers and Chicago Chi-Feds played the first game ever at Weeghman Park on April 23, 1914, to an overflow crowd of 21,000, much fanfare, and chilly weather. “Chicago took the Federal League to its bosom yesterday,” wrote Sam Weller in the Chicago Tribune, “and claimed it as a mother would […]

When Chicago Cubs hurler George “Lefty” Tyler arrived at Weeghman Park for the final game of a four-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies, the 28-year-old New Hampshirite probably expected a day off — and for good reason. Acquired in the offseason from the Boston Braves, where he had amassed a 92-92 record in parts of […]

“The Buccaneers turned impending defeat into a glorious victory snatched from the very jaws of disaster” gushed the Pittsburgh Press about the Pirates’ six-run ninth inning to beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-7, in the Windy City.1 The Pittsburgh Post called the Deadball Era offensive explosion a “sensational slugfest,”2 while sportswriter J.J. Alcock of Chicago Tribune […]

Chicago was saturated with rain. Newspaper boys peddled local dailies announcing eight White Sox acquitted on nine counts of conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series.1 Cubs manager Johnny Evers was ill, “absent from the ball park,” giving “rise to reports that he had resigned.”2 Team President William Veeck “denied that [Evers] was to be […]

July in Chicago can feel like a sweltering, steamy greenhouse, with occasional respite from the heat offered only by stray gusts of cooler air off Lake Michigan. July 14, 1914, by contrast, was a far more pleasant day. By 3 P.M. the temperature sat in the low 80s, and clear, sunny skies were the backdrop […]

The Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies, two teams firmly entrenched at the bottom of the National League standings, squared off in an unlikely pitchers’ duel at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia on August 22, 1921. Fans who attended were treated to a “herculean pitching battle”1 fought by two unlikely mound combatants, journeymen slingers Elmer Ponder […]

Hard-throwing Dazzy Vance was in agony. Brooklyn sportswriter Thomas W. Meany reported that Vance suffered from serious inflammation in his right shoulder caused by warming up too quickly six days earlier against the Pittsburgh Pirates.1 According to Robins beat reporter Thomas S. Rice, Vance’s right arm was “blue from the rupturing of a blood vessel,” […]

After winning the 1919 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds had slipped to a third-place finish in 1920. One of the moves the team made to bolster its hopes for 1921 was the acquisition of 29-year-old left-hander Eppa Rixey from the Philadelphia Phillies in a November 1920 trade for right-hander Jimmy Ring and right fielder Greasy […]

Chicago Cubs ace James “Hippo” Vaughn had a dream regular season in 1918. Vaughn led the National League in numerous categories, including wins, ERA, and strikeouts.1 But Vaughn’s postseason was not going as well. Despite pitching spectacularly in Game One of the World Series, he lost to young left-hander Babe Ruth and the Boston Red […]

The St. Louis Cardinals had their most exemplary offensive performance of the 1921 season on June 21. Mother Nature had provided a brief hiatus for the team; this game was initially scheduled for a day earlier, but “[a] terrific rain, hail, and wind storm hit the town just before game time”1 and forced rescheduling of […]

June 1914 had seen the Indianapolis Hoosiers go on the longest winning streak in the history of the Federal League, winning 15 games in a row from the 11th through the 24th, which propelled them to a half-game lead over the ChiFeds going into July 2, 1914. The winning streak had moved the once lowly […]

It was “a baseball burlesque … a wild slugfest with a flock of pitchers being rushed in and out of the box.” — James M. Gould, St. Louis Star, May 11, 1923   The Philadelphia Phillies hosted the St. Louis Cardinals at Baker Bowl on Friday, May 11, 1923. It was the final game of […]

Norman “Bobby” Robinson was the starting center fielder on the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons team that played in the last Negro League World Series. At least he was until an injury sidelined him. By the time he returned to action, he was moved to left field because a rookie and future baseball legend had replaced […]

Cliff Heathcote spent 14 of the 40 years of his life in the major leagues, and is largely remembered as half of one of the more memorable trades in baseball history; He was swapped for Max Flack between games of a 1922 doubleheader between the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. That sliver of  memory […]

The year was 1865, and the Civil War had ended. Northern and Southern states now faced the overwhelming task of rebuilding physical, political, cultural, and emotional infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of human lives had been lost, physical resources depleted, and the ideal of hope challenged. The state of Alabama was not immune to the repercussions […]

In the final month of the 1909 National League season, Elmer Knetzer of the Brooklyn Superbas took the mound for his first major-league game. His opponents were John McGraw’s mighty New York Giants. Before 10,000 Giants rooters at the Polo Grounds, the rookie right-hander could not have been matched with a more formidable opponent than […]

Lloyd Pepper Bassett made his name in Negro League baseball as the “Rocking-Chair Catcher.” If calling a game and receiving pitches while sitting in a rocking chair seems like a gimmick, the reason is that it was one. Bassett began his professional career with the New Orleans Crescent Stars, and low attendance led him to […]

Who was George Whiteman? This is oversimplifying things, but in some ways he was a cross between Roy Hobbs and Crash Davis. Eleven years after having a cup of coffee with Boston and five years after having another one with the Yankees, he became an unlikely World Series hero for the 1918 Red Sox. Then he went back […]

Pitcher Mike Prendergast toiled over 600 innings in back-to-back seasons with Peoria in the Illinois-Iowa-Indiana League. He followed that up with a 180-game major-league career. His work ethic earned him the nickname “Iron Mike,” but he would likely be long forgotten had he not been included in the Chicago Cubs-Philadelphia Phillies trade that sent Pete […]

Albert Wickland was born in Chicago on January 27, 1888, the son of Lars and Charlotte Wickland. He had two older brothers — August, a lawyer, and Henry, a bank clerk. At the time of the 1910 Census, Al himself was working as a stationery salesman. Al played most of his professional career as an […]