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When the New York Yankees won the first two games of the 1947 World Series, many fans started calling it the “worst World Series in history.”1 After Brooklyn beat the Yankees 9-8 in Game Three, Dodgers fans showed up at Ebbets Field hoping to see their team even the Series. History-minded Brooklyn fans might have […]
“It was a tough play I needed to make, and I didn’t make it” — Pete Harnisch 1 Somewhere around the fifth inning of a potential no-hitter, the whispers begin in the stands. Nobody uses the dreaded “no-hitter” term for fear of jinxing the pitcher. All anyone might say is that things are starting […]
It was April 1964. The top five songs on the Billboard Hot 100 were by the Beatles. The Ford Mustang was introduced to consumers.1 The New York Yankees were the Kings of American League Baseball. A perennial power throughout the ’50s and beyond, the Yankees were the only American League champions thus far in the […]
“I was a damn effective pitcher. It pains me to be remembered for one unfortunate pitch — and, unfairly, a pitch surreptitiously signaled to the hitter — as opposed to a hurler who, for a number of years, had good stuff.” — Ralph Branca1 The young Brooklyn Dodgers fan raced home from school on […]
Roy Smalley was off to a solid start to the 1981 season for the struggling Minnesota Twins. John Bierig of the Minneapolis Star wrote that he’d been “the only bright spot in a dismal season” for the ballclub.1 Smalley, fresh off signing a four-year contract extension in the offseason, was hitting .294 with 6 home […]
The 1934 season began with minimal fanfare for the Detroit Tigers outside of Corktown. The Washington Senators were projected to repeat as American League champions with the Bengals expected to come in behind the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in fourth place. Despite this, new player-manager Mickey Cochrane was entirely optimistic. “We have […]
It was the final All-Star Game of the twentieth century. On a mid-July night at Fenway Park, the greatest living players in baseball history were in the ballpark for the game between the best of the National League and the best of the American League. And, appropriately, two Red Sox legends stole the show. The […]
The San Francisco Giants entered 1986 coming off three straight losing seasons, including back-to-back last-place finishes in the National League West Division. In 1985 they had lost 100 games for the first time in franchise history. But when the Giants began a six-game road trip with a weekend series against the Cincinnati Reds in late […]
On May 24, 1963, the Minnesota Twins used two dramatic home runs to extend their winning streak to five games. Harmon Killebrew’s grand slam put the Twins ahead in the fifth inning, and after the Chicago White Sox tied the score, Jimmie Hall ended the game with a two-run blast in the bottom of the […]
The Chicago White Stockings had won the 1885 National League pennant with a record of 87-25-1. They continued their winning ways in 1886, and as they visited the Detroit Wolverines for a three-game series that began on August 20, “the Champions,”1 as they were known in the press, had posted a 60-22 record with about […]
Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds and Bud Harrelson of the New York Mets fight with each other during the 1973 National League Championship Series as Mets teammate Wayne Garrett approaches. (SABR-Rucker Archive) The Cincinnati Reds and the New York Mets arrived at Shea Stadium to play the third game of the 1973 National […]
As the sun rose over San Diego on July 19, 1982, San Diego Padres fans were excited that the Tony Gwynn era was about to begin. The sports stations were announcing all day that the Padres had brought up Gwynn, their third-round pick from 14 months earlier, from Triple-A Hawaii. The day before, Hawaii manager […]
Hitting for average and power and stealing bases with aplomb, the diminutive infielder was the star of the Castlemont High School baseball team in Oakland, California. Major-league scouts were well aware of the quality of play in the East Bay. Among alumni of Oakland schools were such recent luminaries as Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, and […]
On October 4, 1955, outfielder Edmundo Amorós helped “Next Year” arrive at last for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His racing catch off Yogi Berra near the left-field line at Yankee Stadium saved the Bums’ 2-0 lead in Game Seven of the World Series. Johnny Podres held on for the remaining three innings to bring Brooklyn its […]
Grant Johnson, baseball historian Gary Ashwill argues, “was the best everyday player in Black baseball from 1895 to 1909.”1 After slugging his way to a legend with a hometown Findlay, Ohio, club in 1894, “Home Run” Johnson’s career mapped the finest Black teams of the era. He starred at shortstop for the Page Fence Giants, […]
Willy Miranda epitomized the “good field, no hit” shortstop. He was a lot more than good in the field, though—Tom Lasorda, to name just one, thought the flashy little Cuban was the best he ever saw at short.1 Wielding the same battered, patched, and secretly doctored glove for nearly his entire pro career, Miranda was […]
In 1949 Bantam Books published Joe DiMaggio’s autobiography Lucky To Be a Yankee. It could be the title of Johnny Blanchard’s life story as well. “I was so lucky to have been a member of the best New York Yankee team ever,” Blanchard says, referring to the 1961 Bronx Bombers. “With any other organization, I […]
The list of National League batting champions from the 1930s and early ’40s contains many familiar names: Hall of Famers like Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, and Stan Musial and stars such as Pete Reiser and Dixie Walker. Amid this listing is an obscure name, Debs Garms. Little known, he is now recalled as the answer […]
In 1973, Jason Miller’s angst-enabled play That Championship Season won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. The drama, set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, focused on the 25th-anniversary reunion of the players and the coach of a high-school basketball team that won the state championship. Full of booze, brooding, bigotry, bitterness, betrayal, and bruised feelings, […]
No compilation of baseball’s all-time top left-handed pitchers is complete without Whitey Ford. Indeed, he is near or at the top of any worthwhile list. His 236 wins made him the winningest pitcher in the storied history of the New York Yankees. He incurred only 106 defeats, giving him a lifetime winning percentage of .690, […]
Otis Allen Davis, a slim six-footer who could run well when he came to the big leagues in 1946, only got one chance to show his stuff. On April 22, 1946, with the Brooklyn Dodgers trailing the Boston Braves in the bottom of the ninth inning, 4-2, acting manager Chuck Dressen used Davis as a […]
James Arthur Willoughby was a right-handed pitcher perhaps best known for his contributions to the 1975 Boston Red Sox (including being pinch-hit for in Game Seven of the World Series). Willoughby also pitched for the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago White Sox. “Willow,” as he was often called, was born in Salinas, California, on […]
Bill Killefer began his 48-year career in Organized Baseball in 1907 as an unlikely professional, weighing only 125 pounds when he played with Jackson of the Southern Michigan League. According to his brother Wade, “the bats he used were almost as big as he was.” It would be years before he grew to be 5’10 […]
Cookie Rojas is one of a handful of major leaguers who played every position in his career including pitcher. Of that group, he is the only one to make both the American and National League All-Star teams. Rojas worked in the major leagues as a player, coach, manager, and broadcaster for more than five decades. […]