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Right-hander Elmer Singleton pitched professionally for 23 seasons — more than half of them in the Pacific Coast League, where he won 146 games and once carried a no-hitter into the 13th inning. Over parts of eight major league campaigns with the Boston Braves (1945-1946), Pittsburgh Pirates (1947-1948), Washington Senators (1950), and Chicago Cubs (1957-1959), […]

Curt Schilling’s father, Cliff, served in the United States Army for 22 years, a master sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division who was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base adjacent to Anchorage, Alaska, when his son Curtis Montague Schilling was born on November 14, 1966. Curt was the middle child of Cliff and Mary Schilling. […]

Billy Purtell set a record that would not encourage bragging rights. In 1910, while playing for the White Sox and the Red Sox, he appeared in 151 games and hit only six doubles. At the time of his death – more than half a century later – this “record” was noted in his 1962 obituary […]

As the leadoff or number-two batter for some of the highest-scoring teams in baseball history, Woody English scored 400 runs from 1929 through 1931 while playing shortstop or third base for the Chicago Cubs. As noted by Bill James, “English in 1930 had 214 hits and 100 walks, which enabled him to score 152 runs, […]

Warren Harvey “Curly” Ogden became part of World Series lore in 1924 when Washington manager Bucky Harris started him in Game Seven as a ploy to fool Giants manager John McGraw. The idea was to get McGraw to play rookie first baseman Bill Terry and other left-hand batters against the right-handed Ogden, so that Harris […]

The Chicago Cubs have had some outstanding second basemen in their long history. Four of them are enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame: Johnny Evers, Rogers Hornsby, Billy Herman, and Ryne Sandberg. There were some who thought that Ken Hubbs might take his place next to them in Cooperstown. “Kenny would have been […]

Kenny Washington, known to many as the Jackie Robinson of the National Football League and one of the greatest players in football history, was also a standout on the diamond. Various people who saw him play baseball thought his talent surpassed Robinson’s. On three separate occasions Washington figured in efforts to integrate professional baseball. Kenneth […]

Venezuelan infielder Dámaso Blanco was 30 years old and in his 12th pro season when his dream finally came true with the San Francisco Giants. He told me the story in 2010. “The most important moment in my baseball career as an active player came on May 26, 1972. That day I played in my […]

Perhaps no Virgin Islander made a greater lifetime contribution to baseball than Elrod Hendricks (1940-2005). The native of St. Thomas also embodied Baltimore Orioles tradition; only Brooks Robinson wore the orange and black for even half as many games. Ellie’s major-league career spanned 12 seasons from 1968 to 1979, but he also spent a remarkable […]

Earl Potteiger was the head coach of the New York Giants when they first won the National Football League’s championship. He grew up where a large percentage of professional football and baseball players did, in the heart of Pennsylvania. After attending Ursinus and Albright Colleges, where he played each sport plus basketball, Potteiger had professional […]

Right-hander Jack Meyer seemed destined to become a fan favorite when he debuted for the Phillies in 1955. Solidly built, blond, and handsome, the 23-year-old Philadelphia native possessed considerable pitching talent. Teammate Robin Roberts recalled years later that Meyer had “Nolan Ryan-type stuff with a sharp curveball to go with a blazing fastball.”1 Meyer enjoyed […]

In 1935, The Sporting News captured in a few sentences the early (possibly entire) playing career of Joe Bowman: “[He] was something of a humpty-dumpty, with more ups and downs than [heavyweight boxer] Max Baer, when he started out to follow baseball as a profession. Indeed, at one time, the right-hander didn’t know from one […]

Although military service delayed his entry into professional baseball until he was 25 years old, speedy shortstop Dave Altizer rose rapidly through the minors and ended up playing parts of six seasons in the major leagues. Nicknamed “Daredevil” for his sometimes erratic and reckless play, he still showed such promise that one of his managers, […]

 Fa’a Samoa – The Samoan Way – is an ethic that embraces a community. Its central tenets are respect for elders, religious faith, and unshakable family loyalty. Aiga, perhaps best translated as clan, guided the life of Samoa’s sole major-leaguer: Tolia “Tony” Solaita. Tolia was born in the village of Nu’uuli, on the main American […]

 William Charles Swift was born on October 27, 1961 in Portland, Maine, and grew up in nearby South Portland. “It’s a great place, a small town,” Swift said. “Actually, it’s one of the bigger ones in Maine, but a small town compared to other places. It was a great place to grow up. It’s real […]

Longtime Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once wrote that Ralph Garr was as hard to get out as an impacted tooth.1 Getting “The Road Runner” out was an especially difficult task in his signature year, 1974, in which he won the National League batting title, hitting .353. This came after finishing second to Joe […]

Tommy Umphlett had a superb rookie year in 1953, finishing second to the Detroit Tigers’ Harvey Kuenn, in American League Rookie of the Year voting. It wasn’t close. Kuenn received 23 first-place votes and Umphlett received the other one. Umphlett drove in more runs (59 in 137 games, compared to Kuenn’s 48 RBIs in 155 […]

As of 2016, 14 men from the U.S. Virgin Islands had played in the major leagues.i Calvin Pickering was the tenth, and the third of seven from the island of St. Thomas. He was an intriguing talent, with power to match his enormous size. “Picko” stood 6’5” and weighed 260 pounds at his fittest. As […]

“I think I was playing third base at the time, and he hit a ground ball by me…. It dug a hole about a foot deep on its way to left eld. … In those days Torriente was a hell of a ballplayer. Christ, I’d like to whitewash him and bring him up.” — Frankie […]

Bob Davids, a career Federal government employee, never played professional baseball. However, he had a deep and lasting impact on the game by founding the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) in 1971. This organization has had a large effect on how baseball is quantified and discussed, and its existence is a logical extension of […]

On November 25, 2017, thousands of Canadians turned to the streets of Windsor, Ontario, for the annual Winter Fest Holiday Parade, and many went on that chilly Saturday to see Santa Claus ring in the holiday season. Others, though, were there to see someone even more popular in their eyes: Ernie Whitt, who served as […]

From New England’s Blackstone Valley textile mills sprang Second World War pitcher Lou Lucier, a trim 5-foot-8 right-hander weighing 160 pounds with a brief major-league career for the Red Sox and Phillies in the years 1943-45. Lucier had four brothers and four sisters, born in Northbridge, Massachusetts, on March 23, 1918, to John B. Lucier, […]

A journeyman for most of his eight seasons in the minor leagues, left-handed pitcher Alpha “Al” Brazle overcame career-threatening arm injuries by reinventing himself as a slick side-arm sinkerball pitcher. After an unexpectedly strong first half with the Sacramento Solons in the Pacific Coast League in 1943, Brazle debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in […]