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On April 10, 1963, the US nuclear submarine USS Thresher sank in the Atlantic Ocean during a test dive about 220 miles east of Boston, with a loss of 112 sailors and 17 civilian technicians, scientists, and observers. Eighty-six of those lost were reportedly New England residents.1 The men aboard the Thresher left behind 187 […]

It was meant to happen. At least, it seemed that way. Triggering a standing ovation from a Fenway Park crowd slightly exceeding 10,000, Theodore Samuel Williams, as he had done 519 times before, smacked a ball into the outfield seats (he also hit an inside-the-park home run in 1946.) It was the Red Sox slugger’s […]

Brooks Robinson, the Baltimore Orioles’ Hall of Fame/Gold Glove third baseman, almost single-handedly defeated Chicago with a 5-for-5 performance at the plate, driving in three runs and hitting for the cycle as the Orioles beat the White Sox, 5-2, on July 15, 1960. A crowd of 43,704 at Comiskey Park in Chicago saw the Orioles […]

At the end of his 23-year career, Henry Aaron wanted to play a little longer. Aaron’s sixth-inning infield single off Detroit Tigers left-hander Dave Roberts drove in a run – his major-league record 2,297th RBI – in the Milwaukee Brewers’ 1976 season finale. Milwaukee manager Alex Grammas promptly sent a pinch-runner, rookie Jim Gantner, to […]

Heading into the 1961 season, the National League pennant race looked to be a five-team battle. Only three teams, the Cubs, Phillies and Reds, appeared to have no chance to challenge for first place.1 However, Cincinnati manager Fred Hutchinson was optimistic about the team’s prospects. “I don’t care about anyone’s pick,” he said on the […]

As the New York Yankees gathered for spring training in February 1968, manager Ralph Houk shared his take on the team’s outlook. “The strength of our club is the pitching staff,” he told New York Daily News columnist Gene Ward. Later in the interview he admitted that hitting was the club’s greatest weakness.1 As if […]

A strong, quiet, and athletic 205-pounder who stood 6-feet-2, wore glasses, batted from the left side, and threw right-handed, Norm Siebern split time between first base and the outfield for six major-league teams. Originally a Yankee, he played in two World Series for New York, and was part of the package the Yankees sent to […]

June 15, 1977 is a black day in the history of the New York Mets. On that date, in what came to be known as The Midnight Massacre, M. Donald Grant, the team’s chairman of the board, traded away Tom Seaver, a/k/a “The Franchise,” to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Dan Norman, […]

Any list of the greatest players ever to don a Milwaukee Brewers uniform has to include Don Money. He is a four-time All-Star and a Brewers’ Walk of Fame member who holds major-league records as a third baseman. Money was an infield specialist who amassed a .975 fielding percentage over 16 seasons from 1968 to […]

A vital part of the Boston Red Sox teams of the 1950s and early 1960s, Ivan Martin “Ike” Delock, a gritty right-handed pitcher, was born, in Highland Park, Michigan. A Marine Corps veteran, he compiled an 84-75 record in a career which, with the exception of a one-month stint with the Baltimore Orioles in 1963, […]

The children of the elite often will have difficulty establishing their own identities and achieving success, particularly if their interests parallel those of a parent. Such was not the case with Joe L. Brown, whose father was Joe E. Brown, the popular comic actor, film star, and baseball aficionado who (unlike practically all celebrated sports […]

Tommy Umphlett had a superb rookie year in 1953, finishing second to the Detroit Tigers’ Harvey Kuenn, in American League Rookie of the Year voting. It wasn’t close. Kuenn received 23 first-place votes and Umphlett received the other one. Umphlett drove in more runs (59 in 137 games, compared to Kuenn’s 48 RBIs in 155 […]

Perhaps the greatest example of the old baseball cliché “good field, no hit,” Raymond Francis Oyler was the regular shortstop for two late-1960s Detroit Tigers teams, including the world champion 1968 squad, as well as the original Seattle Pilots the following season. Ray compiled a sub-”Mendoza line” .175 career batting average—the lowest of any player […]

One of the rarest things in baseball is a shut-down righty-lefty bullpen. Players, managers, and – let’s face it – agents, like relief roles defined. Today you have eighth-inning guys and ninth-inning guys. And if you’re lucky, you have hurlers who can form a human bridge from the starters to those players. Having two closers—one […]

In major-league baseball when a team dominates its opponents for several years, it’s usually because it has a solid nucleus of players. For instance, in the early 1970s in the American League the Oakland Athletics captured three successive World Series. In the National League the Cincinnati Reds were a powerhouse. Both clubs had a strong […]

If Andy Kosco’s baseball career could be described in a song, it might be the old Hank Snow classic “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Australian country music artist Geoff Mack wrote the song; in the original version a man hitches a ride with a truck driver and proceeds to tell him that he has visited every town, […]

“You automatically go all out, regardless of pain or what.”1 This was the guiding principle of New York Yankees pitcher Bill Stafford’s baseball career. Never had his philosophy been more tested than on the afternoon of October 7, 1962. After a screaming liner off the bat of San Francisco Giants outfielder Felipe Alou smashed into […]

From 1953 through 1956, Jim Woods was Mel Allen’s and Red Barber’s partner on New York Yankees radio/TV. One day, eying Woods’ slight overbite and gray buzz cut, Enos Slaughter jibed, “I’ve seen better heads on a possum.” In 1958 Jim moved to Pittsburgh, where announcer Bob Prince’s wife called Woods’ spouse “Mrs. Possum.” In […]

“I was a character in baseball. I saw it as an interim type of career,” Lou Skizas told Bill Gleason.1 Skizas, known as “The Nervous Greek” during his four-season major-league playing career, was perhaps best known for an unusual ritual that he followed before coming to bat. Before reaching the plate, the right-handed-batting Skizas dropped his […]

Rodolfo Arias’s professional baseball career as a left-handed pitcherspanned a total of 23 years in three countries: his native Cuba, the United States, and Mexico, where he made his final farewell to the game he loved. As a member of the Chicago White Sox in 1959, his one year in the majors, he made 34 […]

Tom Veryzer got into 996 big-league games from 1973 through 1984, mainly as a shortstop. He didn’t provide much offense, hitting just .241 with 14 homers, but in those days, one could still hold down a starting job at short at the top level on the strength of sound fielding. Veryzer was solid enough to […]

Joe Astroth was a model of consistency for 10 years with an Athletics franchise that moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City, an area of the Midwest that had not enjoyed major league baseball since the nineteenth century. As a catcher, he was a solid defensive player who regularly threw out opposing baserunners and was an […]

Forty-three (43) members and guests of the Larry Dierker Chapter gathered in person and via Zoom for the February 20, 2023, chapter meeting at the Spaghetti Western restaurant in Houston. Click here to watch a video recording on YouTube. President Joe Thompson opened the meeting and gave the good news that José Altuve wants to […]

In early 2007 major league baseball marked the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers, bringing an end to a sixty-year ban on black players in the major leagues. The story of Robinson and the brave men who followed his lead and helped change the game has been told often and well over […]