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At the close of the 1890 season, the Cincinnati Reds had high hopes for rookie backstop Jerry Harrington. The 21-year-old had proved a major asset for the fourth-place (77-55-2, .583) ball club – an able handler of pitchers; a sure-handed receiver with a powerful and accurate throwing arm, and a decent enough batter for any […]

Most famous today for being on the wrong end of one of history’s most lopsided trades, Jim Fregosi was a six-time All-Star who drew comparisons with the finest players in the game at a young age. But an 18-year major league playing career, coupled with 15 years as a big league manager, are enough evidence […]

Bill Shettsline was the most identifiable face of the Philadelphia Phillies during their first half-century. After joining the team in 1884 as a ticket salesman, he soon became team secretary, before being suddenly thrust into a managerial role in 1898. Reckoning with cheap ownership, unruly players, and a baseball war, Shettsline nonetheless achieved a .548 […]

Simon Rosenthal was one of only 16 Red Sox players who was actually born in the city of Boston and — joining Jack Slattery — one of only two to both live and die in Boston. He garnered more at-bats for the Red Sox than any other Boston native, 357 of them during the years […]

Jason Jennings had what might be the greatest debut in baseball history. His first game at the major-league level was so impressive that no less an authority on greatness than the National Baseball Hall of Fame contacted the Colorado Rockies to inquire about displaying memorabilia from the game. The Rockies promoted pitcher Jennings from Triple-A […]

Every successful team should have a player like Glenn Hubbard. Though undersized, he played with a tremendous amount of heart and always left all his energy on the field. Teammates recognized his value. Hubbard hit just .244 over his 12 seasons in the majors, but he had some pop in his bat, connecting for 70 […]

Four swings made Dusty Rhodes famous. The pinch-hitting hero of the 1954 World Series, when the underdog New York Giants swept the Cleveland Indians, Rhodes delivered key hits in three of the four victories. And he never had to pay for another drink in New York. “You know what Rhodes was?” his manager, Leo Durocher, […]

Over his career, Jim Fuller hit just 11 homers in the major leagues but amassed 170 in the minors, including many tape-measure blasts. The righty slugger stood 6 feet 3½ inches tall and weighed 215 pounds. As a rookie with the Baltimore Orioles in 1974, he drew this observation from team groundskeeper Pat Santarone: “Anybody […]

Pitcher Jim Hannan appeared in 276 major-league games as a starter and reliever from 1962 through 1971, winning 41 of his 89 decisions. During both his playing days and post-playing days, he participated in and had an impact on several historic baseball moments. On the field, he was a senior member of the Washington Senators […]

Starting in 1970, John Curtis played in the major leagues for 15 years. He was a respectable left-handed pitcher — 89 wins and 97 losses, with a lifetime ERA of 3.96 — praised as much for his eloquence as his fastball. John Duffield Curtis II was born March 9, 1948 in Newton, Massachusetts, the second […]

Long-limbed southpaw Graeme Lloyd became the first Australian to win a World Series ring. The 6’8”1 reliever joined the New York Yankees bullpen late in the 1996 season and remained with the club for the 1998 championship too. Through the 2011 season, this distinction remained unique among Aussies. Just one other of Lloyd’s countrymen, Grant […]

“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 […]

These days, a man coming from Gayville might be taunted in some circles, feted in others. There appear to be two Gayvilles in South Dakota, one an unincorporated place on the western edge of the state and the other a town in Yankton County in southeastern South Dakota. In 2010, the population was 407. In […]

Lenny Levy’s career defies conventional logic. A washout in one year of minor-league D-level baseball (years later, Baseball Digest called him “hardly more than a semipro player”), he fashioned a professional career with the Pittsburgh Pirates that began in 1934 and ended in 1964 with only a break for World War II. He was a […]

The score stood at 11-1 when Tim Lollar left the mound and Wes Gardner took over in the seventh inning in the sixth game of the season at Chicago. With Boston’s comfortable lead, Gardner could relax a little for this, his first game in a Red Sox uniform and his debut in the American League.  […]

Opening Day is for all intents and purposes a national holiday in America. Leaving behind a long, cold winter, thousands of Americans may today take the day off from school or work to witness the start of a new baseball season. On Opening Day, hope always springs eternal and, just maybe, this could be our […]

When the 1892 season ended, the Boston Beaneaters had prevailed again and taken the pennant. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms – sixth-place finishers in 1891 – gave them a battle for the flag in 1892, finishing just 2½ games behind Boston for the first half of the season. At the close of play on August 4, however, […]

 Joe Oeschger, the ace of the Boston Braves pitching staff, cruised through the first eight innings of the opening game of a Thursday afternoon doubleheader at Braves Field. He gave up just three hits to the last-place Philadelphia Phillies, as he propelled the fourth-place Braves to a comfortable 6-0 lead going into the top of […]

“I guess if you can’t win ballgames, you gotta try to win fights,” Yankees owner George Steinbrenner jokingly taunted after witnessing one of the uglier brawls in baseball history. “If I hadn’t been upstairs, I would’ve tried to get [Armando Benitez], too.”1 Despite having baseball’s biggest payroll, the 20-23 Baltimore Orioles came into Yankee Stadium […]

Seventh place in the eight-club National League in 1946 and 1947, the Pittsburgh Pirates challenged for the pennant in 1948. The team’s success – and left fielder Ralph Kiner’s league-best home-run stroke – pushed total home attendance toward 39-year-old Forbes Field’s all-time high with a month left in the season. On August 31, before a […]

Tommy Brown first gained notoriety as a 16-year-old for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944. His unique opportunity to reach the big leagues at such a young age came about because most of baseball’s regular players were serving in the military during World War II. He would be a part-time player during his entire nine-year major-league […]

Rookie knuckleballer Tim Wakefield boosted the Pittsburgh Pirates to their third consecutive National League East Division crown in 1992 after getting called up in July to fortify a shorthanded starting rotation. With the Pirates trailing the Atlanta Braves two games to none in the NL Championship Series, Wakefield continued his late-season infusion, tossing a five-hit […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison” (2019), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. “[T]oo many parks aren’t situated where they should be – and that is, preferably, not just in a city but in a neighborhood.” — Travis Sawchik1 Sawchik is not alone in praising Wrigleyville. Kevin Kaduk […]

From its beginning, as a plank in Ivan Allen’s campaign platform for mayor, to its end, hosting the Olympic baseball competition and a World Series in its final year of existence, Atlanta Stadium was a major part of the push to make Atlanta a world-class city.1 The stadium succeeded in attracting teams from major-league baseball, […]