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In the aftermath of the 1967 Detroit riots, Detroiters desperately needed something positive to take their minds off their torn city. Many sought solace in the Detroit Tigers, who emerged that summer as bona-fide pennant contenders. An entire generation of Tigers fans had witnessed mostly mediocre baseball since the team last won the pennant in […]

Walter “Red” Barber was one of the pioneers of radio and television broadcasting in baseball. Among the firsts in his career was serving as the announcer for the first Brooklyn Dodgers radio broadcast, on April 18, 1939, when the Dodgers hosted the New York Giants at Ebbets Field to open the 1939 season. By 1938, […]

Surely, preparation would not be an issue for Pittsburgh’s 1891 National League campaign. The club spent two months training in the South, getting in shape for the new season. The new manager was also familiar to the squad. Still an active player, Ned Hanlon was in the nascent stages of a managerial career that would […]

The ability of the New York Yankees to come from behind has long been part of baseball lore. Starting with the great 1927 team, the Yankees were associated with the slogan “Five O’Clock Lightning,” for their many late rallies leading to comeback wins.1 Of the many such wins in their storied history, August 20, 1947, […]

In the first week of August 1974, Americans could be forgiven for watching the events of the day unfold through their fingers. The Watergate scandal was at the top of the news, and many wondered how long President Richard Nixon would remain in office. On Monday, August 5, a bomb exploded in a public locker […]

“He can pitch,” said Montreal Expos skipper Gene Mauch about rookie right-hander Steve Rogers, who tossed a brilliant one-hit shutout over the Philadelphia Phillies to earn his first big-league win in his second start. “Rarely does a man with such experience have the confidence in his control of so many pitches.”1 Described by Pat Jordan […]

On September 23, 1942 – a little more than nine months after the United States’ entry into the Second World War – the Brooklyn Dodgers offered free admission to anyone bringing 10 pounds of scrap metal to its afternoon game against the Philadelphia Phillies.1 The patriotic promotion was a success: About 150 tons of metal […]

The 1967 Boston Red Sox captured the attention of the baseball world by going from ninth place to the World Series in one season’s time. The so-called “Impossible Dream” season rejuvenated a franchise that hadn’t made the Series since 1946 and had come to be viewed as a going-nowhere “country club” team.1 Some of that […]

San Diego Padres hurler Steve Arlin could hardly be classified as a headhunter. Coming into his August 17, 1971, start against the Montreal Expos, he had hit only four batters in 197 big-league innings. That didn’t stop the pugnacious Ron Hunt, who was usually fine with reaching base on a hit-by-pitch, from grumbling when Arlin […]

Saves became an official major-league statistic in 1969. By the mid-1970s, closers had become firmly entrenched on big-league rosters. Pitchers such as Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Sparky Lyle, and Rich “Goose” Gossage were helping to define the role, often pitching multiple innings at the end of games. In 1976, the antacid maker Rolaids, whose motto […]

For almost all his high-school career, and in his early minor-league years in the Chicago White Sox organization, Nyls Nyman was stamped as a surefire star. In 1974 when Nyman was in spring training with Double-A Knoxville, manager Jim Napier had nothing but praise for the 20-year-old Californian. “Nyls has everything it takes to make […]

Everyone agreed on one thing about Russ Wrightstone, who played major-league baseball from 1920 to 1928, mostly with the Philadelphia Phillies: He could hit. Former teammate and future Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel once told a national television audience that Wrightstone was “the best left-handed line drive hitter” he ever saw.1 Hall of Fame […]

“As a reliever, you’ve got to have amnesia. Not only with the bad days, but with the good days. You may get them out one, two, three today, but you’ve got to forget about it immediately, because that may not happen tomorrow.” — Roberto Hernandez, 20071 “(In the 1989 Instructional League), Roberto (Hernandez) and (pitching […]

Richard Leo Gedman fulfilled his childhood dream in his tenure in the major leagues, suiting up for over a decade for the team he grew up rooting for. Gedman, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, spent parts of 11 seasons (1980-1990) as a catcher for the Boston Red Sox. The two-time All-Star also played for the […]

Hardrock Johnson: it’s one of the great tough-guy names. Roy Johnson got the monicker as a minor-league manager in Arizona, circa the late 1920s, because “he was a stickler for hard playing.”1 Johnson, a righty pitcher, was in the majors for part of just one season, 1918. He posted a 1-5 record in 10 games […]

Two months after Ulysses Brooks Lawrence’s major-league debut as a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954, sportswriter Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described this newcomer to the team and his amazing accomplishments since arriving: “Ulysses Brooks Lawrence, an eager-beaver of the mound with the heart of a lion, the hide of […]

As the clean-up hitter on one of the strongest offensive teams of his day, Bobby Veach was one of the truly great RBI men of the late Deadball Era, easily leading the major leagues in runs driven in over the twelve years, 1913 to 1924, that he was a full time player. Veach drove in […]

Whitlow Wyatt already had strong ties to Atlanta baseball when he arrived with the Braves for the 1966 season as the team’s pitching coach. The native Georgian was a short-stint collegian at Georgia Tech before starting his professional baseball career in 1927 and later serving as pitching coach for the city’s standout Class AA Southern […]

“Jiquí” Moreno was not big (5’8” and 165 pounds) — but he threw hard. How hard is jiquí wood? In Cuba, Moreno’s native land, linemen could not sink their spurs into telephone poles made from this tree — they had to use ladders. Brick stair steps wore down, yet their jiquí binding was simply polished. […]

The first year the Red Sox wore uniform numbers was 1931. The first man to wear #1 was Bill Sweeney. It was his last year in the majors. Sweeney lived out the rest of his life in baseball, twice managing the Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels to pennants, in two stints eight years apart […]

Guerrant McCurdy Scarce — the ornate Southern name could have been a Confederate general’s. Instead, just over a century after the Civil War, it belonged to a tall lefty reliever known simply as “Mac.” The Virginian had a fine college career and a promising start in the minors. In the big leagues, however, he finished […]

The careers of Jerry Stephenson and his father Joe embrace over 100 years of major-league experience. Jerry broke into the big leagues in 1963 and has been involved with the game ever since. Joe broke in with the New York Giants during World War II and scouted for the Red Sox from 1948 until nearly […]

Possessing Hollywood-good looks and a keen sense of humor, Jim Pagliaroni was a beloved teammate and fan favorite who knew how to work a room. “Pag is a 6-4 stack of happiness … [who] seems to have been born with a gift of laughter. He refuses to take either himself or baseball seriously … [and […]

His fastball has long since died. He still has a few curveballs which he throws at us routinely. — Nicholas Burns, United States State Department Spokesman   Most baseball fans tend to take their idle ballpark pastimes far too seriously. On momentary reflection, even a diehard rooter would have to admit that big–league baseball’s most […]