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Alex Gaston was noted as the poor-hitting catcher who broke up his own brother’s no-hitter. It was on September 12, 1926, in the second game of a doubleheader in St. Louis. Milt Gaston was pitching for the Browns and brother Alex was playing for the Red Sox. Boston had won the first game, 11-3. Milt […]

If laughter is the best medicine, then Lou Costello should have won a Nobel Prize. Costello’s legacy of laughter rests on a body of work encompassing burlesque, Broadway, radio, films and television. Its anchor is a baseball comedy sketch derived from a burlesque staple — straight man explaining to a friend that words known primarily […]

When baseball made its return to the Olympic Games in 1984, the star of Team USA’s mound staff was John Hoover. That same year, he’d capped a glittering collegiate résumé: Hoover had shattered records, was named college baseball’s pitcher of the year, and became the Baltimore Orioles’ first-round draft pick. The right-hander possessed a wicked […]

When the Philadelphia Phillies arrived for spring training in March 1911, future Hall of Famer Grover Alexander was not the only highly touted pitching prospect in camp. Held in equal regard was George Chalmers, like Alexander a recent graduate of the Class B New York State League. The previous season, Chalmers, a strapping [6-feet-1, 190 […]

“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 […]

Trying to throw a baseball as hard as you can from 60 feet, six inches and hitting a target 17 inches wide by approximately 24 inches high is hard enough as it is – but when that target is shrunk down to a height of less than three inches, it’s nearly impossible. That’s the task […]

Fittingly, pitcher Leroy Matlock was called “the Black Carl Hubbell” in press releases promoting a 1937 barnstorming tour.1 Hubbell, who entered the Hall of Fame in 1947, had completed a high-profile streak of 24 wins in a row earlier in 1937 for the pennant-winning New York Giants. Matlock, also a lefty, had 26 straight victories […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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   […]

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 […]