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“I’m just a guy who worked hard to get into this position. Nobody recruited me out of high school. The Houston kids got all the publicity. If a scout came to town, we all figured he was from the marines. I had to go to a tryout camp to get a junior college scholarship. I […]

Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker, an African-American, made his major-league debut with Toledo on May 1, 1884, in an American Association game. The contest was staged in Louisville, and not all Kentuckians and game participants appreciated having a black man playing with and against white men. Many let him know that he was not welcome to […]

In his prime in the 1940s, Walker Cooper was thought to be the best catcher in baseball and the game’s strongest man. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he was an intimidating presence behind the plate and, in addition, possessed one of the strongest and most accurate arms in the National League. He was destructive at […]

Everyone has their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. For Mickey Stanley they came during two weeks in the fall of 1968 when he was cast under the intense spotlight of the baseball world. The shift of a career outfielder to the unfamiliar position of shortstop during the 1968 World Series has been called one of […]

Daniel Staub? Who the hell is Daniel Staub? Nobody has ever heard of a ballplayer named Daniel Staub. But everyone has heard of Rusty Staub, and for the French and English fans of a brand-new ball club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he was known — and loved — as Le Grand Orange. Daniel Joseph “Rusty” […]

Greg Pryor played professional baseball for 16 years between 1971 and 1987, 10 of them in the major leagues. The 1970s and 1980s were rich and turbulent times for Major League Baseball. Commenting on the game on the field then, Bill James wrote, “Baseball brought into the 1980s a mixture of styles as rich as […]

Tony Kubek was a bit anxious. Not just because he was the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, or that he was a rookie who was participating in his first World Series. But the series had shifted to his hometown of Milwaukee. For the first time, his family would see him play in […]

Gabby Street may not have been much of a batsman in his career. His high mark for batting average was .238 in 1905, a season he split between Cincinnati and the Boston Beaneaters. Perhaps he was aided by only 105 at-bats, the second lowest total of his career. There may have been a slight decrease […]

“When I go, I want to be buried in my umpiring suit, holding my indicator.”1 When Tom Gorman died, his children carried out their father’s final desire. Gorman was dressed in his suit, which was meticulously buttoned, and wore his blue cap with the white “NL” embroidered on the front of it. He also held […]

Jay Tessmer pitched in parts of four seasons in his major-league career. Although he won only a single game, he was a member of three World Series championship teams, playing for the New York Yankees in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Appearing in 22 games during his major-league career, Tessmer pitched 23⅓ innings and finished with […]

Pioneer Era outfielder John Hatfield was “widely regarded as one of the best ballplayers of the 1860s.”1 Thereafter he turned in a pair of first-rate seasons playing in the National Association, the game’s first professional league. Hatfield’s attributes included good hands, a live bat, and the most powerful throwing arm of his generation. At the […]

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 […]

Mike “King” Kelly was professional baseball’s first matinee idol: the first ballplayer to “author” an autobiography, the first to have a hit song written about him, and the first to have a successful acting career outside the game. A handsome man with a full mustache and a head of red hair, Kelly through his fame […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Washington Senators line up on the field for Opening Day festivities, April 5, 1971, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection.)   Related link: Click here to read Part I of the Washington Senators team ownership history, on the original team from […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   Introduction “Since the August Day in 1933, when ‘King’ Cole of Chicago, Gus Greenlee of Pittsburgh, and Tom Wilson of Nashville, saw a dream, which originated in the minds of Roy Sparrow and […]

Three Rivers Stadium; if it wasn’t the most picturesque coliseum in American sports history, it was perhaps one of the most perfectly named. In southwestern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, the county seat of Allegheny County, lies partly in a hilly region known as the Golden Triangle, the location of the city’s business district. For those unfamiliar with […]

  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   […]

“Interleague competition would give the game a big lift and, what’s more important, it would give the fan, the average citizen, a lift, too.” – Walter O’Malley, president, Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1954.1 “Interleague play would be the fastest possible way to ruin baseball.” – George Selkirk, general manager, Washington Senators, in 1964.2   Regular-season play […]