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“Eleven saves in two months. That’s more than Schultz had in his whole big-league career,” fumed Gene Mauch in September 1964. “He never saw the day he could get us out before,” continued the frustrated Philadelphia manager.1 In the last 60 games of the Cardinals’ 1964 season, Barney appeared 30 times, all in relief, winning […]

Left-handed pitcher William Oliver “Billy” O’Dell, nicknamed “Digger” after a character in the radio-TV show The Life of Riley, was signed by the Baltimore Orioles as a bonus baby right out of Clemson University, and never played a day in the minors. In his 13-year major-league career, he pitched in five seasons for the mediocre Baltimore […]

Cliff Melton stormed through the 1937 National League as a rookie pitching sensation for the New York Giants and even received consideration as a possible Game One World Series starter over future Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell. But Melton’s insistence that Hubbell teach him to throw a screwball, the rarely used pitch featuring an outward […]

James Thomas “Moe” Mahoney was signed as a pitcher, but converted to a middle infielder. He played in an even 100 games at the big-league level, 89 at shortstop, 10 at second base, and one at third base. He was utilized as a pinch-runner in another 20 major-league games. Mahoney was a native of Englewood, […]

One of the most ignorant things ever said about baseball was the labeling of catcher’s gear as “the tools of ignorance.” The origins of that regrettably memorable phrase date back at least to the 1930s, though the etymology is disputed. Suffice it to say, however, that anyone who repeats that ignorant utterance must never have […]

The man who broadcast Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers recalled that, as a boy in Sanford, Florida, “I saw black men tarred and feathered by the Ku Klux Klan and forced to walk the streets. I had grown up in a completely segregated world.” Red Barber confessed that when he learned the Dodgers […]

When the curtain rose on the New York Yankees’ 1929 season, for the first time in team history each ballplayer wore a numbered jersey. Catching for New York that day was John Grabowski, the large block 8 on his back signifying his spot in the batting order. One of three backstops that Yankee manager Miller […]

In retirement, Ted Wills lived at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in a planned community on the outskirts of Clovis, California, near Fresno in the central park of the state. His house overlooked seasonal wetlands protected by the Department of Reclamation, a setting that suggested a lifelong love of hunting and fishing. Wills’s cheerful […]

Hector Headley Lopez, the Panamanian-born third baseman for the Kansas City Athletics, saw his solid career shift to a better team when the A’s traded him to the New York Yankees on May 26, 1959. After more than four seasons in Kansas City as a regular infielder, mostly at third base, Lopez continued to play […]

Ellie Rodriguez loved to catch. The catching position put him in the center of the action of a baseball game, from his sandlot days in the Bronx Federation League and a Spanish league in New York City to a nine-year major-league career with five teams. In 1969, Rodriguez was the Kansas City Royals’ only selection […]

 Fa’a Samoa – The Samoan Way – is an ethic that embraces a community. Its central tenets are respect for elders, religious faith, and unshakable family loyalty. Aiga, perhaps best translated as clan, guided the life of Samoa’s sole major-leaguer: Tolia “Tony” Solaita. Tolia was born in the village of Nu’uuli, on the main American […]

“Al Benton, 45, once the relief pitching ace of the Tigers, now partly blind, was one jump ahead of the FBI on a car-theft charge today.”1 That’s the kind of news story that attracts attention. Indicted in May 1957 on charges of driving a stolen car from Sacramento to Oklahoma City three years earlier, Benton […]

Tony Kubek was a bit anxious. Not just because he was the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, or that he was a rookie who was participating in his first World Series. But the series had shifted to his hometown of Milwaukee. For the first time, his family would see him play in […]

In 1896, the Des Moines Prohibitionists were dismantled in the middle of a season while cruising to the Western Association pennant after having won 25 straight games.1 Their utter domination had drained fan support in competing cities, prompting league officials to slash salaries in a failed attempt to keep the league afloat. The ace of […]

Major-league right-hander Bob Chakales was one of five sons born to Edward Peter and Blanche Wiggs Chakales – (sons in order: Robert, Charles, Dwight, and twins John and James). Bob was born on August 10, 1927, in Asheville, North Carolina. His mother worked in retail, selling women’s clothing, and his father – known as Eddie […]

Larry Doby is best remembered for becoming the first Black player in the American League and the second in modern history. When Doby made his debut for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, he broke the league’s color barrier less than three months after Jackie Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.1 In the […]

Opening Day 1975. The National League celebrated the centennial of its founding. The New York Yankees shared Shea Stadium with the Mets while their ballpark in the Bronx underwent a renovation. Shea Stadium was a busy place that year; it was also used by the NFL’s two New York teams, the Jets and the Giants. […]

Thirteen years before Yankee Stadium opened, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Deacon Phillippe hit a second inning inside-the-park grand slam in Forbes Field during a 14-1 rout of the Brooklyn Superbas.1 Phillippe remained the only pitcher to achieve the feat until 55 years later, when right-hander Mel Stottlemyre lined Bill Monbouquette’s first pitch between Red Sox left […]

When the fans at Tiger Stadium settled into their seats for a game between the Yankees and Tigers on June 24, 1962, little did they know that history was about to take place at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. The two teams, having played a doubleheader the day before, were looking to finish […]

The Toronto Blue Jays were struggling as they took the field in the third game of a four-game series at Tiger Stadium. They’d lost seven of their last nine games, including the first two games against the Tigers. Detroit seemed like a good team to get their bats going against, since the Tigers pitching staff […]

On Friday, August 25, 1972, the New York Yankees began a 10-day, 12-game homestand. Early-season rainouts forced the Yankees to make up two games in doubleheaders, and a scheduled twin bill made it three doubleheaders in five late-August days.1 New York ended up playing 33 games in August. Twenty-five innings of baseball in the Sunday, […]

Forty-two years after the first major-league baseball All-Star Game was played in Dodger Stadium, the third oldest major-league ballpark still in use (after legendary Fenway Park and Wrigley Field), hosted the 92nd midsummer classic in 2022. Two hometown pitchers, Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin, played integral roles in the game, although their National League team […]

On June 24, 1946, the Spokane Indians, a Class B Western International League team full of World War II veterans and promising prospects, traveled by bus across Washington state for their next series in Bremerton. While the team stopped for dinner in Ellensburg, word came that third baseman Jack Lohrke had been recalled by the […]

Virgil Trucks’s 1952 season has been described by Gregory H. Wolf as “one of the most incongruous and surprising ones imaginable.”1 Trucks had missed almost the entire 1950 season with a serious arm injury and struggled in 1951 to regain his well-regarded fastball. In his first four starts of 1952, Trucks was tagged for 30 […]