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Few players have been as coveted by professional clubs as Paul Pettit was in the spring of 1949. During that high school season, the hard-throwing left-handed pitcher drew crowds to the small southern California town of Lomita. They echoed the influx to the region after oil was discovered there in the early 1920s. Pettit’s powerful […]

Long ago, baseball crossed the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan. Soon the reserve clause followed. It would reach back from Japan to the U.S. and bite its own tail, like a snake forming a ring that burst into fire–the “Working Agreement.” The first man it trapped was Masanori “Mashi” Murakami, the first Japanese […]

Although there are many hard-luck cases in the annals of baseball history, Fred Cambria’s story is one of the most memorable. A highly touted college and minor-league pitcher, Cambria made his major-league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates late in the 1970 season. Only 22 years old, he pitched effectively, going 1-2 with a 3.51 ERA. […]

In January 1956, a few months after Ellis Kinder had been sold by the Boston Red Sox to the St. Louis Cardinals after eight years in the Hub, his friends threw him an Appreciation Night at Boston’s Sheraton Plaza Hotel. In attendance were the governor, the mayor, several former teammates, and 600 assorted guests. Birdie […]

When walking through the exhibits at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, it is difficult not to absorb slices of the game’s history and lore, and to learn about the role the sport has played in both American and world history. It also quickly becomes clear that the stories of the […]

During the fourth game of the 1927 World Series, Pittsburgh hurler Johnny Miljus threw a wild pitch in the ninth inning that scored Earle Combs from third base, completing a sweep by the New York Yankees. Perhaps the happiest player that day was New York shortstop Mark Koenig. His .500 batting average in the Series […]

Three months removed from high school, hard-throwing right-hander Joe Coleman burst on the national scene by tossing a four-hit complete-game victory in his debut with the Washington Senators in 1965. Among the most durable pitchers of his day, Coleman averaged 15 wins and 252 innings over an eight-year span (1968-1975) for the Senators and Detroit […]

Terry Collins never made it to the majors as a player – but he eventually found success as a manager. Starting in 1971, Collins spent many years bouncing around the minors as a light-hitting infielder turned coach and field leader. He managed two big-league clubs in the 1990s plus one in Japan a decade later […]

Following the Pittsburgh Pirates’ loss to the Chicago Cubs on October 1, 2000, 60-year-old Willie Stargell emerged to throw a ceremonial final pitch at the soon-to-be-demolished Three Rivers Stadium. Even though most people who followed the Pirates knew “Pops” was in poor health his frail, spectral appearance that afternoon was shocking. He was almost unrecognizable, […]

A major-league umpire for 35 seasons, Joseph Norbert Brinkman was born on April 9, 1944, in Little Falls, Minnesota. His parents, Henry and Rose Brinkman, lived in nearby Holdingford and ran a dairy farm with about 80 to 90 head of cattle. Brinkman was the seventh of nine children, having seven sisters and one brother. The family was […]

Game Six of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets will forever be a part of baseball lore. Many fans will say that no matter how many games you may attend, there is always something bound to happen that you may have never seen before. This was certainly […]

His professional playing career was brief, distinguished only by one of the most peculiar nicknames in major league baseball history. Otherwise, Mother Watson, a two-game pitcher for the 1887 Cincinnati Reds of the American Association, was a nonentity, a performer who left an impression on the game so indistinct that modern reference works cannot even […]

Harold Baines played 22 years in the majors (1980-2001), mostly with the Chicago White Sox. In 2019, following years of brisk and at times vociferous debate, Baines was enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Though he led the league just once in any offensive category, he was a major threat at the plate. […]

Casey Stengel is best remembered for his managerial accomplishments with the juggernaut New York Yankees of the 1950s and the bumbling, beloved New York Mets of the early ’60s, but decades earlier he was a hard-hitting outfielder who compiled a .284 batting average over 14 seasons in the National League. Planting his right foot closer […]

He won the second-most games of any pitcher in the 1980s, was a seven-time All-Star, and helped transform the Toronto Blue Jays from expansion basement-dwellers to world champions. But Dave Stieb may be best known for his terrible luck in attempting to close out no-hitters. Four times in five years, Stieb reached the ninth inning […]

Sometimes the best deals are those that aren’t made. In the spring of 1908, Boston was so impressed by a pitcher they faced in an exhibition game at Toledo they offered the Mud Hens $5,000 for him. Toledo Manager Bill Armour asked a reported $7,000 for the contract of Jack Bushelman – so he remained […]

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 […]

After the Seattle Mariners joined the American League as an expansion team in 1977, the team and its fans endured 14 consecutive losing seasons. However, one player from this era emerged having made such an impact that he earned the nickname “Mr. Mariner.” Alvin Davis was the franchise’s first homegrown star and won the Rookie […]

Unfortunately, Tim Wakefield just ran out of time. The knuckleballer spent 17 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, recording 186 of his 200 career victories with the franchise – just six short of the team record held by Cy Young and Roger Clemens. He was also a member of two World Series champions, including the […]

“There are ballplayers who can’t remember the last town they were in, much less the first fellow to ever help them, but Woody Woodward remembers both and also has a habit of remembering to be right there any time someone needs his help. He sees nothing strange about that. ‘That’s the only way to do […]

During his two stints as a broadcaster for the Athletics, Monte Moore covered some of the best teams in their history, and some of the worst.  Beginning his major-league broadcasting career in the final years of the A’s time in Kansas City, he followed the team to the West Coast and broadcast six American League […]

The Chicago White Sox (13-11) were looking for a series win against the Detroit Tigers (9-12). The White Sox had taken the first two of the four-game series. It was a beautiful night in Chicago. At 73 degrees it was even a bit cool for August. Perhaps that would help the starting pitchers since both […]

George Earnshaw “gave an exhibition of pitching mastery that has been seldom equaled in [the] world series,” declared St. Louis sportswriter John E. Wray.1 Pitching on one day’s rest, the Philadelphia Athletics hurler tossed a complete game to win Game Six and capture the club’s second straight title. Lauded as the “the lionhearted leviathan of […]

Roy Campanella with a mighty swing during spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the early 1950s. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Baseball fans making their way to Ebbets Field for Game Five of the 1953 World Series were in a festive mood even while a weather prediction of overcast skies took shape.1 Police officers yearned for […]