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Some players are fortunate enough to play major-league baseball for several years. Others, like Moonlight Graham, play only one game, often for only an inning or two during a late-season lopsided matchup. Harvey Freeman was closer to the latter category. He was one of 330 pitchers between the start of the twentieth century (1901) and […]

Since being swept by the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals had twice been world champions — beating the Detroit Tigers in 2006 and the Texas Rangers in 2011. Boston had won the World Series again in 2007, over the Colorado Rockies. All told, the Red Sox had six world […]

The Chicago Cubs and their fans were flying high on the first Wednesday in October 1984 as “Work came to a standstill, crime came to a halt and joy was the most abundant emotion in town.”1 The Cubs crushed the San Diego Padres 13-0 in the opening game of the National League Championship Series. The […]

“This has a special place right up there with the fifth one because it comes so late in my career,” said Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers after tossing his sixth career no-hitter.1 At 43 years of age, Ryan became the oldest pitcher to hurl a no-hitter and the first to fire one with three […]

When muscular, truculent gentlemen with names like Brutus Beefcake and Bret “Hit Man” Hart are waiting to use your baseball field, you step aside and let them use your baseball field. Or so it went on August 1, 1985, when a “Balls and Falls” promotion at a minor-league ballpark turned into an unexpected conflict between […]

Honus Wagner was one of the greatest players in baseball history. Bill James’s 2001 New Bill James Historical Abstract listed the Pennsylvania native and longtime Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop as the second best player of all time, with only Babe Ruth ranked ahead of him.1 Elsewhere, James wrote, “Wagner was a legendary figure in that era, […]

It didn’t have nearly the impact of Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning home run or the World Series-winning blasts of Bill Mazeroski and Joe Carter, but for the perennially weak Boston Braves of the 1920s and ’30s, Wally Berger’s pinch-hit grand slam on the final day of the 1933 season was worthy of bold-face headlines and its […]

The 1978 Montreal Expos were hoping to finish above .500 and had assembled a cast of hitters that included future Hall of Famers Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, and Tony Perez. Ross Grimsley and Steve Rogers headed their pitching staff, and manager Dick Williams was in his second year at the helm. As late as May […]

Fresh off a one-hit shutout of the Kansas City Monarchs, Chicago American Giants right-hander Tom Williams faced the St. Louis Giants, who rivaled Chicago among the hottest teams in the Negro National League in July 1921. Williams outdueled St. Louis’s Bill Drake, limiting the Giants’ powerful lineup to three hits and stranding the bases loaded […]

Terry Francona raised the art of self-deprecation to a new level. Decades after his playing career ended, the man who had become one of the most successful managers in big-league history loved to downplay his talents as a ballplayer. He claimed that the last thing he wanted was his players to hit like he did. […]

Despite five straight World Series titles, Casey Stengel had yet to manage the American League to an All-Star Game victory when he set his lineup at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on July 13, 1954. Stengel ended his midseason drought this hot afternoon as the AL stopped a four-game NL winning streak in a record-setting slugfest. “They’ll […]

On August 23, 1971, 24-year-old Al Oliver had one of the greatest games in his 18-year major-league career. The game got little media attention locally, partly due to a newspaper strike against the Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that ran from mid-May until September.1In the second game of a twilight-night doubleheader at Atlanta Stadium, Oliver went 5-for-6 with two home runs, […]

In 1992 the Houston Astros finished fourth in the National League Western Division, with an 81-81 record. Determined to upgrade its starting pitching, the team made two major free-agent signings within a three-day span in December. First, on December 1, the Astros landed a former Cy Young award winner, right-hander Doug Drabek, for $4.25 million; […]

“I can’t say enough about it, or savor it enough,” said inspirational team leader Gary Carter after his New York Mets clinched the NL East crown by defeating the Chicago Cubs.1 While hard-throwing Dwight Gooden buoyed the team with a sparkling six-hitter, September call-up Dave Magadan, making his first big-league start, supplied the offensive fireworks […]

Without his unforgettable name, Eppa Rixey might be one of the more forgotten members of the Hall of Fame. His 266-251 won-lost record doesn’t stand out, yet his win total stood as the National League record for left-handers until Warren Spahn surpassed it in 1959. Rixey greeted the moment with characteristic humor, saying he was […]

An unlikely big leaguer who reached New York from the bushes by way of the Ivy League, Walt Bernhardt appeared oh-so-briefly for the war-depleted Yankees before entering the U.S. Army in 1918. He afterward built a life outside of baseball, tending to dental patients and Holstein cattle. Walter Jacob Bernhardt was born on May 20, […]

In 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates rookie catcher Steve Nicosia watched the 6’1”, 220 lb. right-handed power hitter crowd the batter’s box and wondered, “How are we ever going to get a pitch by him?”1 Nicosia was hardly alone in these thoughts. For much of his 15-year major-league career Greg Luzinski – whose large bat appeared toothpick-like […]

“It is difficult to muster up much sympathy these days for the young men who make their livings in professional baseball, but I submit for your consideration a possible exception,” Toronto sportswriter Marty York commented in 1993.1 He was referring to Domingo Martínez. Players have complained for decades about lacking chances to prove their worth, […]

To say that Alexander Schacht was obsessed with baseball is to understate. He was possessed by it. Schacht was an undersized man with an oversized heart and love of baseball. It consumed him as he traveled from hamlet to hamlet trying to sell his wares as a pitcher. When he did finally make it to […]

If it were not for the San Diego Padres, this biography on the lives of Ray and Joan Kroc would never have to be written. Not that the reader would be bereft of materials on this celebrated billionaire couple. Ray and Joan Kroc were both American celebrities long before they ever became associated with baseball. […]

“This guy is a natural. He’s got ideas about what he wants to do and does it. He amazes me.” — Carl Hubbell “No pitcher has made such magnificent use of his God-given equipment.” — Branch Rickey “If you placed all the pitchers in the history of the game behind a transparent curtain, where only […]

Bill Shettsline must have been delighted. Peering through a knothole in a fence around a baseball park, the Philadelphia Phillies business manager was getting a chance to scout a left-handed pitcher who was making headlines in the semipro leagues around Philadelphia. And he was doing it without leaving the confines of the city. The only […]

The Deadball Era’s Jack Taylor — not to be confused with “Brewery Jack” Taylor, who died in 1900 — was the greatest “iron man” pitcher of the 20th century, hurling 187 consecutive complete games from June 20, 1901, to August 9, 1906. Pitching mostly for losing teams, Taylor relied on pitch location and guile to […]

On October 28, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals prepared to play Game Seven of the World Series against the Texas Rangers at Busch Stadium. The organization asked Whitey Herzog, the manager of the last Cardinals team to play a World Series Game Seven at home, to throw the ceremonial first pitch. He had fallen ill, […]