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Imagine you’re playing word association with a baseball nut. Mention Commerce, Oklahoma, and the fan will respond, “Mickey Mantle!” Shout out Donora, Pennsylvania, and the fan will bellow out, “Stan Musial.” And if your next term is Puerto Armuelles, the fan is likely to shout … “Say that again?” Small though it may be, Puerto […]

Throughout nine years of professional baseball, Bill Lyons established his reputation as a versatile utilityman, capable of playing in the infield and outfield. He played in 88 games in parts of two seasons (1983-1984) with the St. Louis Cardinals, serving as the 26th man on a 25-man big-league roster and an insurance policy against injury. […]

When Shufflin’ Phil Douglas arrived on the baseball scene in 1910 at the tender age of 20, he brought with him size and a fastball impressive enough to draw comparisons to Walter Johnson’s. Douglas, a product of Cedartown, Georgia, was a big man, especially for that era, standing 6-feet-3 and weighing 190 pounds, who threw […]

As a young player, Jason Giambi advertised his ideals on a T-shirt: “Party Like a Rock Star, Hammer Like a Porn Star, Rake Like an All-Star.”1 Whatever his proclivities toward pleasure seeking, Giambi certainly could “rake” (hit). From 1999 to 2002, Giambi was arguably the second-best player in the American League, accumulating 30 wins above […]

Paul Bunyan has nothing on Rich Rowland. Bunyan was a mythical giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. He had a pet blue ox named Babe, but never played in the major leagues.1 Rowland – who was “strong like an ox”2 – worked as a lumberjack and heavy equipment operator in the […]

In 1945, The Sporting News reckoned Eddie Mayo as “an excellent example of the Salvation Army adage, ‘A man may be down, but he is never out.’”1 Acquired by the Detroit Tigers a year earlier after he had failed in several attempts to stick in the big leagues, the 34-year-old infielder helped pace the club […]

Ruggedly handsome with dark wavy hair, an engaging smile and a boyish grin, the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman was equally capable of leading the league in both home runs and pranks. General manager Branch Rickey suspiciously called him the instigator, to which James Anthony Collins remarked: “Rickey always accused me of being the […]

Who was the fastest man ever to step on a major league diamond?  This question would surely provoke a heated debate among diehard baseball fans, with many names surfacing.  It is a safe assumption that Billy Stage’s name would not come up, yet he is almost certainly the only man to hold world records in […]

Tom Monaghan has accomplished a great many things in his yet-unfinished life. The billionaire entrepreneur? Certainly. Successful businessman? Sure. Collector? Formerly, but not in any defining sense. Conservative Catholic leader? Definitely. Visionary? Maybe. Twenty-first century evangelist and savior of Western civilization? Possibly, if you talk to him. However you label the owner of the Detroit […]

In 1954 Gus Triandos, a powerfully built catcher who hit a lot of home runs, was languishing in the New York Yankees’ farm system. To the one-year-old Baltimore Orioles, a team that had a severe shortage of talent, Triandos seemed plenty good enough. And he was: After being sent to the Orioles in a blockbuster […]

After a slow start for the first four weeks of the 1944 season, the Detroit Tigers jelled as a club, climbed into pennant contention, and finally fell one game short of winning the American League flag. In the end, the pitching of a tall recruit right-hander, James Ruffus Gentry, helped fuel Detroit’s pennant run. Speaking […]

Back in the Deadball Era, when sassafrass was the primary ingredient used to flavor root beer, just as ginger provided the flavoring for ginger ale, a baseball player who displayed “sassafrass” or “ginger” was a lively player who put forth extraordinary effort, sometimes compensating for a perceived lack of natural ability. Several players have been […]

When baseball fans think about the national pastime and Rhode Island during the Deadball Era, Napoleon Lajoie stands out as the premier sports personality from “Little Rhody.” However, Joseph Connolly, despite just a four-year major-league career (1913-1916), may have had a greater impact on the social, cultural, and baseball fabric of Rhode Island than any […]

Khalil Greene’s performance in youth and collegiate ball was a showcase of abundant talent. The shortstop’s senior year at Clemson University in 2002 bespoke Hall of Fame ability. Less than two years later, Greene ascended to the majors. He had apparently begun to fully realize his huge promise at the top level in 2007. Yet […]

Bill McKinley was a steady, dependable American League umpire whose 20-season career, from 1946 to 1965, was marked by numerous highlights and one well-publicized low point. The highlights included four World Series assignments, three All-Star Games, five no-hitters—one behind the plate—and other historic moments. McKinley was working home plate in 1947 when Larry Doby of […]

Not unlike the lead character in Winston Groom’s 1986 novel Forrest Gump, Raymond Floyd Sanders (through happy coincidence or, less likely, adroit planning) was able to build a reservoir of memories in baseball, both delightful and unfortunate, that other ballplayers with much longer careers could only envy. In fact, Sanders’ appearance in four World Series […]

Johnny Antonelli, somewhat unfairly, is remembered by the incidents he was part of, instead of as an individual who had an impressive pitching career. Labels abound and, of the memories attached to them, controversies. He was, in the minds of many, a “bonus baby” who never paid his dues in the minors. A player on […]

Countless Illinois high-school basketball players knew Bob Freels as “Mr. Steps,” the hawkeyed referee who made sure no traveling penalty went uncalled.1 Freels apparently became so fond of the nickname that he carries it for eternity: It’s etched into his gravestone in his hometown of Mascoutah, Illinois, in the southern part of the state, about […]

Six-foot-seven right-handed pitcher Rich Gale joined Tim Stoddard of Baltimore as the tallest players in the American League when he debuted with an excellent rookie season for the Kansas City Royals in 1978. For a team that would win a third straight division title, he earned 13 of his 14 victories by the first week […]

“If you pitch the second game, Newk, I’ll give you tomorrow off to go fishing.” – Brooklyn Dodgers manager Burt Shotton1   With less than four weeks remaining in the 1950 regular season, the Brooklyn Dodgers boarded the train bound for Philadelphia to open a four-game series with the National League’s first-place Phillies. The Dodgers […]

“It’s too hot for a sermon today. Go home, keep the commandments, and say a prayer for Gil Hodges. — Father Herbert Redmond1 Every baseball game has a story. This one has several. Sometimes the story just centers on the action and statistics generated inside the ballpark. This one stretches well beyond. And sometimes the […]

Baseball’s distinctive aspects – the most scheduled games of all team sports, greatest amenability to playing two games in one day, and highest likelihood of suspended games getting completed at a later date – have produced more than a few chronological oddities. On May 30, 1922, Max Flack and Cliff Heathcote swapped teams between games […]

South Side Park, later known as Schorling Park, located on 39th Street between Princeton and Wentworth Streets, hosted its first game on April 21, 1900. (THE INTER-OCEAN, APRIL 8, 1900)   The ballpark on 39th Street in Chicago between Princeton and Wentworth Streets had as many names as any ballpark in the era before corporate […]