Search Results

In an era when baseball players, collectively and individually, began to clash with management as never before, it is likely that no one clashed more than Alex Johnson. Though he was blessed with much-coveted talent, teams that employed him tired of him fairly quickly. The winner of a batting title, his emotional disability was at […]

Dick “Cannonball” Redding pitched professionally from 1911 to 1936 and got his nickname from his blazing fastball that knocked back catchers.1 Redding claimed he once fired a brand-new baseball against the side of a building and the ball broke apart.2 His velocity was so legendary that some historians have wondered if Redding was the hardest-throwing […]

Bobby Malkmus was a small, light-hitting, versatile middle infielder who made his major-league debut for the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 during their frantic midseason search for a second baseman. Poor hitting (2-for 22) and the club’s acquisition of All-Star Red Schoendienst marked the end of the Malkmus experiment after less than four weeks. Malkmus returned […]

Babe Ruth is considered by many, if not most, baseball fans, as the greatest player ever. The Great Bambino is noted for his magnificent clouts and overwhelmingly charismatic personality. Before he became baseball’s home run king, he was a tremendous pitcher, winning 94 games in his career. His enormous appetite for everything that life had […]

From 1998 to 2010, Bengie Molina was a two-time consecutive Gold Glove Award catcher. Considered one of the slowest baserunners in his era, nevertheless in 2003 Molina was rated the best defensive catcher in the American League by Baseball America. He is the only player in baseball history to hit a home run but not […]

This lanky pitcher was the first Mexican player to win a World Series ring. El Ejote – The Stringbean — was a member of the Oakland A’s bullpen in 1973. His motion was quirky and memorable: Whipping the ball from a low side-arm/submarine angle, Piña then swung wide and landed hard with his trailing right foot. NBC’s […]

Brandon Knight is on the list of major-league pitchers who have just one career win, but his life and career go far beyond that unique distinction. In addition to being a major leaguer, he was an Olympic athlete who represented the United States, and he also enjoyed a successful baseball career overseas in both Japan […]

Some baseball players have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Many others never do. A few, however, momentarily have this kind of good fortune in their grasp, then see it taken away. Shortstop Rey Quiñones was a May call-up for the 1986 Boston Red Sox, a team destined to […]

Joe Black helped lead the Brooklyn Dodgers to the 1952 pennant, going 15-4 with 15 saves, and a 2.15 ERA. He won the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. “Let’s put it this way,” Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen told reporters, “Where would […]

Andy Seminick was a rock-solid catcher who had a career year in 1950 and had a lot to do with the Phillies winning their first pennant in 35 years. He was the antithesis of bonus babies like Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, and Stan Lopata because he was anything but highly sought after. He […]

Although the 1970s Reds were famous for their great offense, a pitcher holds one of the team’s – and baseball’s – most impressive records. Jack Billingham has the lowest earned-run average in World Series play, 0.36. He allowed just one earned run in 25⅓ innings spread over three different World Series for the Reds. In […]

A baseball lifer, Al Widmar spent almost six decades playing, managing, coaching, and developing players in the major and minor leagues. Widmar, who was the pitching coach for the 1964 Phillies, pitched for the Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Browns, and Chicago White Sox with a 13-30 career record and 5.21 ERA in parts of […]

Frank Quilici must have been a milliner in a previous life because he wore so many hats with the Minnesota Twins. From player to coach to manager to broadcaster, Quilici came up from working-class roots in Chicago to become a baseball lifer with the Twins’ logo tattooed on his heart. He was also the only […]

Tom Angley was a ballplayer born 50 years too soon. Born in an era nearly 70 years before the designated hitter, he was a short but powerfully built player who hit for average and power. However, defensively, he was a catcher more because of his physical size than prowess behind the plate. The Sporting News […]

The picture is familiar. From a very young age, a father and son throw a ball back and forth in the backyard or the playground or the street. A bond is formed and with it, the dream emerges. “I was hoping just to get to the Show and stayed 14 years.” So it was that […]

Though contemporary newspaper reports typically referred to Hall of Fame outfielder Hazen Cuyler by his given name, the right-hander is more easily recognized by one of the most unique, yet most often mispronounced nicknames in baseball history: Kiki.  “It came from shortening my name,” Cuyler explained about acquiring the moniker (which rhymes with “eye-eye”) as […]

Donald Wayne Hankins, a tall, lanky right-hander who suffered a broken elbow as a teenager, enjoyed an 11-year professional baseball career — including ten seasons in the minors — during the 1920s. Hankins finished with a lifetime minor league record of 75-87. But during the four seasons he hurled in the Double-A (the highest classification […]

Like Babe Ruth, he was a savior for the major leagues when the game was at risk of losing fans. Like Jackie Robinson, he was a courageous pioneer who blazed a trail and opened new doors of opportunity for others to follow. Like Fernando Valenzuela, he was the pride of a specific ethnic community, yet […]

It is an oft-told story that legendary manager John McGraw, who led the New York Giants for 30 eventful years, had photographs of only two former players on his office wall: Christy Mathewson and Ross Youngs, today an almost forgotten Hall of Fame outfielder.1 Youngs personified the type of all-out hustle and will-to-win ballplayer that […]

On August 29, 1977, Gene Richards was nearing the end of what was one of the finest rookie seasons in baseball history. His 56 stolen bases during that season were an all-time rookie record. However, on this particular evening, he stood silent at first base at San Diego Stadium, next to a man who had […]

Prospects who don’t fulfill their promise are a dime a dozen throughout baseball history. Boze Berger could be the epitome of that kind of prospect. While his major-league service was not exemplary, Berger had a flexible glove in the field, giving him some value to a few American League teams. After spending three seasons with […]

Mark Baldwin could burn the ball in there. He terrorized opposing batters with his nervous tics on the mound, which were usually followed by one of the swiftest fastballs of the 19th century, if not the swiftest. His catcher at Columbus of the American Association, Jack O’Connor, certainly thought he was the fastest. O’Connor said […]

  High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) May 2016, Volume 1, Number 5 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley SABR 46 committee meeting From the Editor From the Director Guest Columns: Rory Costello and Warren Corbett Interview with Bill Nowlin Project Profile: Tom Schott Project Poobahs   […]

On April 22, 1886, construction wrapped up on New York’s home for America’s quintessential icon. The final granite capstone was “laid in silver mortar,” on the Bedloe’s Island pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, Auguste Bartholdi’s homage to American independence.1  That same day, on nearby Staten Island, the brainchild of another foreign-born visionary opened its […]