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A Gold Glove shortstop but perennial weak hitter, Edwin Albert Brinkman played 15 seasons in the majors, the first 10 of them with the expansion Washington Senators. Traded to Detroit in October 1970 in the infamous Denny McLain deal, he led the Tigers to a division title and was voted Tiger of the Year in […]

The March 20, 1941, edition of the Sporting News brandished this headline on page 5: “Loyal Watchers Daffy About Dodgers’ Flag Chances; Scribes Already Arguing About World Series Plans.” Brooklyn’s “Bums” had finished a distant second to Cincinnati in 1940, but the beat writers were predicting an all-New York World Series come October. The hubbub […]

Who’d have thought that almost a decade after Pete Henning’s final major-league game he could run afoul of none other than Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis? What’s more, he was connected to an obscure aftereffect of the momentous 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Yet Henning didn’t even have American or National League experience; he peaked as […]

In the summer of 1904, the Zanesville, Ohio, baseball team had a game scheduled with a team in neighboring New Concord. “When the time arrived for the boys to take the bus, there was one player missing, so the bat boy had to be used in right field to complete the team. As luck would […]

Eugene Desautels, a right-handed-batting catcher and protégé of Crusaders coach Jack Barry, jumped directly from Holy Cross College to the major leagues in 1930 without a stop in the minor leagues. He’d been a high school football star and was admitted to Holy Cross on an athletic scholarship, but his plans to play college football […]

On July 23, 2000, Marty Brennaman, radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds since 1974, was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest award bestowed on a baseball broadcaster. (Honored with Hall of Fame induction that day were former Reds manager Sparky Anderson and former Reds first baseman […]

For someone who always preferred the simple things in life, James Augustus Hunter was a complex man. To most of the world, he was Catfish, the big-game, big-money, right-handed ace who anchored an Oakland A’s pitching staff that won three straight World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. It was Catfish who in May 1968 […]

Sportswriter Charles J. Doyle of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described southpaw Emil Yde as a “cyclonic sensation” when he debuted for the Pirates in 1924.1 In his second start, Yde tossed a shutout, the first of eight consecutive winning decisions to commence his big-league career, en route to a 16-3 slate. He went 17-9 the next […]

Histories of Stanford University have referred to Zebulon “Zeb” Terry as “one of the greatest baseball players in Stanford history.”1 More than a century has passed since Terry graduated, but his name continues to come up when the early days of Stanford athletics are retold and the foundation of the university’s stellar athletics teams is […]

“It was all so new,” reminisced Pete Broberg about suiting up for the Texas Rangers in their inaugural season in 1972. “A new city, new stadium, a new look. We weren’t wearing the flannels anymore; we had the new stretchy ones.”1 It was the dawn of a new era in football-crazed Texas as the Washington […]

For a player who endured nicknames such as Twiggy Mini-Hawk, and Mighty Mouse for his light weight and short stature, Bud Harrelson is perhaps best known to the casual baseball fan getting into a fight. There’s no doubt that Pete Rose got the better of him in their brawl at second base during Game Three […]

Without a day off in the 1950 World Series, the venue shifted from Philadelphia to New York, where Yankee Stadium welcomed its 15th World Series.1 On the face of it, Game Three looked to be no contest. Eddie Lopat, who had won 18 games during the season, opposed Ken Heintzelman, who had posted a feeble […]

  “On a cool, clear, September night, only 6,702 attended the funeral of the beloved Dodgers, a hushed and bereaved gathering come to pay respects to a memory … only 6,702 could muster the courage to bid a fond farewell, perhaps because it hurt too much to say goodbye.” That was Phil Pepe of the […]

The 53rd major-league All-Star Game was the first midsummer classic played outside of the United States, and this landmark game paid tribute to both the global nature of the sport and the proud history of professional baseball in Montreal.1 The two-day celebration had a distinctly international flair that went well beyond the public-address announcements in […]

Boston’s love affair with Mike “King” Kelly fittingly began on Valentine’s Day. It was on February 14, 1887, that the Boston Base Ball Club of the National League agreed to pay $10,000 to Al Spalding and the Chicago White Stockings for the rights to the 29-year-old reigning NL batting champion. In its front-page story breaking […]

“There’s more of a feeling on this club that we’re going to win than there was even in ’59,” said veteran Jim Landis. “That ’59 club had plenty of confidence, don’t get me wrong, but this club has better pitching.”1 Landis, the last member of the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox still with the team, was […]

Anyone who has stepped up to the plate in a baseball or softball game has dreamed about hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. On one magical weekend in 1985, it was more than a dream for Orioles center fielder Fred Lynn. On May 10 and 11 at Memorial Stadium, […]

The 1913 National League championship was decided not in the final days of the season, but on the final day of June. On June 30 the swaggering New York Giants overcame an early five-run deficit to beat the first-place Philadelphia Phillies in the 10th inning, 11-10 at Baker Bowl. Jim Nasium of the Philadelphia Inquirer […]

In 1889 the Louisville Colonels of the American Association were a woeful baseball team. Over the season, Louisville went 27-111-2, with a record-setting 26-game losing streak. The team churned through four managers – Dude Esterbrook (2-8), Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf (14-51), Dan Shannon (10-46-2), and Jack Chapman (1-6) – with equally dismal results. By July 27, […]

A crowd of 69,865 packed Yankee Stadium for the second game of the 1947 World Series. The New York Yankees had won Game One with five runs on only four hits. The Brooklyn Dodgers aimed to even the Series when the two teams took the field on a chilly October afternoon. Allie Reynolds was given […]

Before the 2020 baseball season got underway, the national pastime was rocked by scandal. An investigation by Major League Baseball revealed that both the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox, World Series winners in 2017 and 2018, respectively, were involved in using technology to steal opponents’ signs and gain an illegal advantage. As a result, […]

It had been over two decades since the Dodgers won the 1920 National League pennant. Most of those years were spent in the second division. By 1937 the Dodgers were in dire straits financially. They were $700,000 in debt to their bank, the Brooklyn Trust Company, “$470,000 on a refinanced mortgage for Ebbets Field. (The […]