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Vivian Sheriffs Anderson played third base for her hometown Milwaukee Chicks in 1944, the city’s only year in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The spirited infielder suffered a season-ending injury in June of that remarkable season and missed out on the Chicks’ championship. Even though Anderson’s time in the AAGPBL was brief, the league provided […]

In his short major-league career, Albert Edward Kaiser played only 155 games and batted only .216. Yet from 1909 through 1914, he was known in the Midwest as an exceptionally fast outfielder, daring baserunner, and somewhat reckless player. In fact the Indianapolis Star, reviewing the 1913 season, said that “his great speed enabled him to […]

Left-hander George Brunet pitched professionally in a record 33 consecutive seasons. After his major league career with nine different teams ended in 1971, he pitched in Mexico until he was 54 in 1989.1 He eventually set the minor league record for strikeouts and earned a place in the Mexican League’s hall of fame. Counting winter […]

For the most part, pitcher-utilityman King Brockett owed his membership on major and high minor league baseball clubs to a single man: Deadball Era manager George Stallings. First as a third baseman-outfielder, thereafter as pitching staff ace, Brockett was a key component of Buffalo Bisons clubs led by Stallings, including the Eastern League champions of […]

Frank Strong Lary, a talented, hard-throwing right hander for the Detroit Tigers, proved to be one of the American League’s best pitchers from 1955 through 1961. An All-Star hurler in 1960 and 1961, he was best known as the “Yankee Killer.” While fashioning a major league lifetime record of 128-116 with an ERA of 3.49, […]

Carlos Beltrán jump-started his Hall of Fame career in 1999 by winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award. He rose to national stardom in 2004, when he turned in one of the greatest postseason performances ever, batting .435 with eight home runs in 12 games. Possessing a rare combination of power and speed, Beltrán […]

Long before launch angles, exit velocities, infield shifts, and OPS calculations, Clarence Jones taught the basics of hitting to some of the greatest players in Atlanta Braves history. Jones played 19 seasons of professional baseball as an outfielder-first baseman. Though his major-league career totaled 58 games with the Chicago Cubs, Jones won two US minor-league […]

Phil Gagliano grew up in a baseball-oriented family. Though his grandparents on his father’s side of the family hailed from southern Italy (Sicily and Calabria), and on his mother’s side from the Tuscany region, the second-generation Americans took to baseball whole-heartedly. Phil’s father, Ralph, who was a director of purchasing at a wholesale food business […]

“He’s a superhero without a cape. That’s the way we see him.” — Alex Cora1 Several of the biggest base hits in Boston baseball history came off the bat of “Big Papi,” David Ortiz. He sports three world championship rings and then wrapped up his career with one of the best final seasons any player […]

“He’s one of the icons of the industry, no question.” – Dan Moushon, President of the Appalachian League (2020)1   In the early 1970s, Miles Wolff raised a concern about having a career befitting a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. That concern was unfounded. Over the course of half a century as a commissioner, executive, […]

Bert Blyleven’s career statistics speak for themselves: 287 victories, 4,970 innings pitched, 3,701 strikeouts, and 60 shutouts accumulated over the course of 22 seasons in the big leagues (1970-1990, 1992). However, some sportswriters questioned whether the Dutch-born right-hander, whose curveball was regarded as the era’s finest, was Hall of Fame material when he retired. In […]

Despite having a lifetime .236 batting average, Randy Hundley is one of the most beloved Chicago Cubs of all time. The Virginia native played 10 seasons with the Cubs in the 1960s and 1970s and was considered a leader on the field for the team that endured a historic collapse in 1969. Hundley also introduced […]

Jay Bell stepped into the batter’s box in Minneapolis wearing his Cleveland uniform for the first time. The date was September 29, 1986, the place the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, and not only was this Bell’s first major-league game as a player, it was also the first major-league game he ever attended. The Cleveland Indians […]

Born in Cincinnati on October 5, 1858, John Good Reilly would spend most of his life and nearly all of his baseball career in his native city. He passed his earliest years at his family’s home in the city’s East End, within walking distance of the Ohio River. The family’s circumstances were probably fairly comfortable, […]

Like many New York Yankees from their late 1960s and early 1970s nadir, Jerry Kenney suffered from the curse of expectations that media and fans had for the once dominant franchise. Winning 29 pennants and 20 World Series in 44 years, from 1921 to 1964 inclusive, was proof to many fans that winning was an […]

After a highly successful playing career as both a slick-fielding infielder and a slugger, Davey Johnson went on to an even more decorated career as a manager. His winning percentage of .562 is 10th all-time among managers with 1,000 victories, and is surpassed by only Earl Weaver among pilots who began their career after 1960. […]

The etymology of the term “ace” meaning the best pitcher on a team derives from the nickname of Asa Brainard, one of the top pitchers of baseball’s early years. Upon settling with the Excelsiors of Brooklyn in 1860, he was initially a second baseman and outfielder because the great James Creighton was positioned in the […]

Right-hander Ray Scarborough pitched for the Senators, White Sox, Red Sox, Yankees, and Tigers during his 10 years in the major leagues. His longest stretch was with the Washington Senators, pitching in seven of those seasons, from 1942 into 1950. He was 80-85 for his career, with a lifetime 4.13 earned run average. Scarborough’s best […]

Talk of Don Mattingly’s worthiness for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame most often focuses on his offensive statistics. Perhaps not enough is said about his defense. Mattingly has one of the best career fielding percentages of any player – ever – at any position. His .9959 percentage means that every 1,000 times the ball […]

From 2001 through 2013, Brian Roberts was a solid fan favorite with the Baltimore Orioles. He earned that status as one of baseball’s premier second basemen and leadoff hitters. Known as B-Rob to fans and players, the two-time All-Star led the American League in doubles twice, with 50 in 2004 and 56 in 2009. At […]

Here are the SABR Defensive Index™ rankings through games of June 12, 2016. For the fourth consecutive season, the SDI will be used to help select the winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The SABR Defensive Index accounts for approximately 25 percent of the Rawlings Gold […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]

Shortly before Christmas of 1889, about 20 men gathered at New York City’s luxurious Fifth Avenue Hotel. Although all were well dressed, there were two distinct groups. One group was youthful and in prime physical condition; the other was more mature and perhaps not so physically robust. Both were, however, there for the same purpose, […]