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Pittsburgh’s Roberto Clemente was no stranger to baseball’s big stage when he was selected for the National League’s starting lineup in the 1961 All-Star Game. He had previously participated as a substitute outfielder with one at-bat in the 1960 All-Star classic and was a key contributor to the Pirates’ dramatic win over the New York […]

By the dawn of the 1955 season, the New York Yankees were one of only four teams that had yet to integrate.1 Jackie Robinson had debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers eight years earlier, and several Black players had established themselves as stars with teams in the American and National Leagues – particularly Larry Doby in […]

“He is one batter who always knows what he is doing up at the plate and why.”1 — Tommy Henrich   Johnny Mize, Hall of Fame first baseman, could hit a baseball and he wrote about it in How to Hit.2 The 1953 book, co-authored with Murray Kaufman, is an easy read for those of […]

“It was not a tidy game, but an exciting one,” declared New York Times sports editor Arthur Daley about the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 8-5 victory over the New York Yankees in Game Four to even the World Series at two games each.1 Described by Times sportswriter John Drebinger as a “bruising contest of power hitting,” the […]

Willie Mays hit 20 home runs and won NL Rookie of the Year honors in 1951. Promoted May 24, he batted .274 with 68 RBIs for New York. (1951 Bowman card, courtesy of Topps)   If you begin your National League career going hitless in three road games, you may as well go for broke and […]

The year 1971 was a good time to be a sports fan in Baltimore. The Baltimore Colts had won Super Bowl V earlier in the year, defeating Dallas 16-13. It was the Colts’ third NFL championship. Earlier in the spring, the Baltimore Bullets made it to the NBA finals before getting swept by Milwaukee. And […]

On a dreary Monday night at Cleveland Stadium, 22,456 fans “shivered through 3 hours and 1 minute of action,”1 including errors, arguments, ejections, a rain delay, poor pitching, and, finally, great pitching. On May 10, 1954, the Indians prevailed over the New York Yankees, 8-7. The game began with an explosion of runs in the […]

Tim McCarver’s major-league baseball life spanned 60 years, from his debut at age 17, through 21 seasons as a player, and into a broadcasting career covering 24 World Series and 20 All-Star Games.1 McCarver played on three World Series champions, made two All-Star teams, finished as runner-up for the 1967 National League MVP Award,2 and […]

The Baltimore Orioles entered the 1983 World Series on an absolute roll. They took the AL East by six games and dispatched the Chicago White Sox four games to one in the ALCS. The White Sox were a very good team — they had won the AL West by a margin of 20 games — […]

In late December 1959, it was widely published that Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith “had looked one million dollars in the eye and expressed no interest.” It was an offer not for his Washington franchise but for just two of his ballplayers, first baseman Harmon Killebrew and pitcher Camilo Pascual. One of those published reports […]

Baseball fans throughout the country in 1976 had been hearing the scattered chatter, ever since mid-May. Talk of something new and exciting happening in Detroit. Some rookie pitcher with long hair. Didn’t they say he talked to the baseball? Got on his knees before each inning and groomed the mound? Stomped around the field like […]

Stories about Art Quirk’s golden arm and Ivy League degree accompanied the left-handed pitcher on his rise to the major leagues. There were double-digit strikeout games and a no-hitter. Most newspaper profiles mentioned the rarified source of his college diploma. But the excitement of his 1962 debut was short-lived when he was bumped from the […]

Frank Strong Lary, a talented, hard-throwing right hander for the Detroit Tigers, proved to be one of the American League’s best pitchers from 1955 through 1961. An All-Star hurler in 1960 and 1961, he was best known as the “Yankee Killer.” While fashioning a major league lifetime record of 128-116 with an ERA of 3.49, […]

On a summer afternoon in 1935, 17-year-old Ed Head was on a bus to Mer Rouge, Louisiana. Head, a left-handed pitcher for the semipro Pioneer (Louisiana) team, was on his way to play a game against the Mer Rouge team. He and his girlfriend were seated on the left side of the bus (facing forward), […]

Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Prince was a man of paradox. He was often brash and loud, but tender and caring around the disabled children who meant so much to him; a carefree playboy who enjoyed a drink or two (or three), but a devoted family man who raised two children with his wife of […]

Bob Bruce was a promising prospect with the Detroit Tigers in the 1950s, but his progress was delayed because he missed most of 1957 and 1958 while serving in the Army. The 6-foot-3 righty pitched in just 50 games for the Tigers as a swingman from 1959 through 1961. He got a chance to become […]

Baseball fans everywhere can picture the scene. In 1945, the Cleveland Buckeyes stood in first place after the first half of the season with fans hoping that the momentum would continue in the second half. Then their leading hitter—Lloyd “Ducky” Davenport who was batting .264—left the team to play in Mexico. Just the fans’ rotten […]

Across the decades, baseball players from the celebrated to the obscure have traded in their spikes for movie or TV scripts. Some — Chuck Connors, Bob Uecker, and Greg Goossen come to mind — enjoyed careers in the entertainment industry as, respectively, the star of TV’s The Rifleman, a sometime film and TV actor and […]

Baseball history was made at Boston’s Fenway Park on Friday afternoon, September 14, 1951. In the top of the second inning, in his first major-league at-bat, Bob Nieman of the visiting St. Louis Browns hit Mickey McDermott’s low-and-away 1-2 pitch into the screen above Fenway’s Green Monster. An inning later, in his next trip to […]

Right fielder Hank Bauer was a mainstay of the Casey Stengel–Yogi Berra Yankee dynasty who sparkled in the World Series spotlight. In the final game of the 1951 Series his bases-loaded triple broke a tie and gave the Yankees a 4-1 lead. After the Giants narrowed the margin to 4-3 in the ninth, with the […]

He describes himself as a very easy-going guy, but in the next breath he’ll tell you he’s a full-blooded German with a hot temper that sometimes explodes.” — Earl Lawson, The Sporting News1 The Kansas City Royals gathered in February 2008 at their spring facility in Surprise, Arizona. One coach, rumbling around on a golf […]

Outside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, a statue depicting southpaw Johnny Podres after a pitch release stands 60 feet, six inches from a statue of catcher Roy Campanella. They commemorate the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series over the New York Yankees, their traditional autumn foe at […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project.   What was the greatest season by a hitter in major-league history? In his book with the provocative title The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs, Bill Jenkinson argues the case for the Babe’s 1921 season. The […]

Editor’s note: This article was first published in the Fall 2012 edition of “Outside The Lines,” SABR’s Business of Baseball Research Committee newsletter. The salary chart at the bottom has been updated since the original article was published. Perusing the list of annual leaders in various statistical categories is a favorite pastime of baseball fans. […]