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The 1958 World Series featured a rematch from 1957, the defending champion Milwaukee Braves once again facing the New York Yankees. The Yankees had taken charge of the American League early, gaining first place in the fourth game of the season and never losing it all year. A streak of 14-1 in May pushed them […]

Henry Aaron and Tommie Aaron crossing bats at Bradenton, Florida on March 1, 1962. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Henry Aaron was in his ninth season with the Milwaukee Braves in 1962 when his 22-year-old brother, Tommie, broke into the major leagues as his teammate. With Henry having already established himself as one of baseball’s premier sluggers, Tommie […]

“It would be so easy to believe, had you not seen it, that there couldn’t possibly be, ever, such a game as this. Having seen it, you know you never had seen one like it before and that you never could forget it. Never as long as you live.” – Frank Graham1   Writing about […]

He “pitches with such intensity that he ought to be declared a fire hazard,” gushed sportswriter Mark Littwin after Bruce Kison’s dominant five-hit complete-game victory, while California Angels teammate Reggie Jackson described him “as so mentally tough, he’s a ball of fire.”1 Kison touted his coolness under pressure as a product of his postseason “experience” […]

She was the Kim Kardashian of her day. During the pre-Internet era, Morganna “The Kissing Bandit” Roberts was a busty stripper who gained a degree of notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s by running onto baseball diamonds, football fields, and other playing surfaces across America to kiss an athlete, and then returning to the stands […]

When Harmon Killebrew signed with the Kansas City Royals in January 1975, he brought two decades of baseball wisdom honed by major-league experience dating back to the early days of rock and roll. To borrow from a popular song title in 1954, Killebrew’s first year in the big leagues, one might say that he shook, […]

The Murderers’ Row teams of the late 1920s are generally considered to be the greatest of all baseball teams. But the truth is that those vaunted New York Yankees teams led by Miller Huggins won three World Series (1923, 1927, 1928) in six years. As great as they were, they couldn’t compare to the Bronx […]

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. […]

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 […]

Frankie Frisch may have been playing possum, or just being coy. But after the St. Louis Cardinals won Game Six of the 1934 World Series, the big question was which pitcher manager Frisch would send to the hill for the seventh and deciding game. His star pitcher, Dizzy Dean, was coming off a loss in […]

Paul Foytack is most remembered for one game at the end of his career. On July 31, 1963, while pitching for the Los Angeles Angels against Cleveland, Foytack became the first pitcher in major league history to yield home runs to four consecutive batters. That moment characterized two of Paul’s qualities. First was his propensity […]

Rich “Goose” Gossage was “the type of relief pitcher that has become extinct,” as Murray Chass of the New York Times once put it.1 Today’s closer typically has the mission of pitching one inning. In 1978, when the fearsome, hard-throwing righty was the mainstay of the bullpen for the World Series champion New York Yankees, […]

In the spring of 1972, Wes Stock worked as pitching coach for the Milwaukee Brewers, a four-year-old team with a roster of unproven throwers in need of tutelage. A year later, he had the same job with a different employer — the world champion Oakland A’s. “Wes Stock must feel like the auto mechanic who […]

Hot Doggers!Four homers in a row we got,A new league mark, last word in swat.The Yankees never saw the dayOr night when they could slug that way. That was the ditty written by James E. Doyle in the August 1, 1963 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Four Cleveland batters hit consecutive home runs in […]

Once a promising right-hander blessed with a blazing fastball and hard overhand curve, Joe Sparma seemed destined to become a mainstay of the Detroit Tigers’ starting rotation when he joined the team in 1964. Though he showed flashes of brilliance over his seven-year career, a frustrating lack of control and a perceived inability to remain […]

When Bowie Kuhn was named the fifth Commissioner of Baseball in early 1969, he was touted by owners as the man needed to modernize and strengthen the game of baseball, which was declining in popularity as pro football’s increased. It was a time, Daniel Okrent noted, when professional baseball was fighting for survival.1 Kuhn, a […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]