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Outfielder Román Mejías played in 627 big-league games from 1955 to 1964. Alas, just three of those came with the 1960 Pirates, his one US team that won a pennant. He was not on the roster when Pittsburgh won the World Series that year. Mejías was “an affable, good-natured player …  whose demeanor, humility and […]

Three-time All-Star and 1959 Rookie of the Year Bob Allison was a feared slugger, an aggressive, daring baserunner, a versatile outfielder and first baseman with a powerful arm, and, above all, a competitive team player. He played his entire 13-year career (1958-1970) with the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins, helping transform a moribund franchise into a consistent […]

A genuine pre-modern national star, one of the major league game’s pioneers, and one of the sport’s most enduring and intriguing figures, Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 17, 1861, at 13th and Jefferson on the city’s west side. A lifelong resident of Louisville, Pete Browning was the youngest of […]

Rodney Craig signed as an undrafted free agent in 1977 and was the Seattle Mariners’ first homegrown player. He showed potential stardom as a switch-hitting outfielder with excellent speed and a self-proclaimed “legendary” arm. Craig clearly possessed superb natural athletic ability, which allowed him to overcome his limited experience in organized baseball, undrafted status, and […]

You won’t find the definition of “baseball lifer” in the American Heritage Dictionary, but if you did, Don Zimmer’s picture would be a suitable choice to accompany it. Over a period of 60 years, Zimmer claimed to have never collected a paycheck anywhere other than baseball, except once from Social Security. “I never dreamed I’d […]

Catcher Steve Lembo was a lifelong New Yorker. He was born in Brooklyn, played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and every one of his big-league appearances took place at Ebbets Field. In between those seven games, five in 1950 and two in 1952, he also played a small yet significant role at the Polo Grounds. On […]

When 19-year-old John Cavanaugh took the field in the opener of a July 7, 1919 doubleheader at Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl, he became the first player born in the 1900s to appear in a major-league game.1 A late-inning defensive replacement for the last-place Philadelphia Phillies, Cavanaugh struck out in his only at-bat, then watched as his […]

Brothers Bob and Ken Aspromonte were both graduates of Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School and both became major-league ballplayers. Ken was the eldest of the two, by nearly seven years, but Bob made the majors first, breaking in with the Brooklyn Dodgers (for all of one at-bat) in 1956. He didn’t return to the big leagues […]

Right fielder Hank Bauer was a mainstay of the Casey Stengel–Yogi Berra Yankee dynasty who sparkled in the World Series spotlight. In the final game of the 1951 Series his bases-loaded triple broke a tie and gave the Yankees a 4-1 lead. After the Giants narrowed the margin to 4-3 in the ninth, with the […]

“Pitching is called 70 per cent of baseball.”1 The Pittsburgh Pirates knocked 20 hits off 70 percent of the Brooklyn pitching staff, beating the Dodgers in an old-fashioned slugfest, 16-11, before 20,196 fans during a Sunday afternoon tilt at Ebbets Field. Ralph Kiner carried his team to victory, hitting for the and driving in eight […]

In 1879 Will White of the National League’s Cincinnati Reds set single-season major-league records for complete games (75) and innings pitched (680) that will almost certainly never be broken. The first major leaguer to wear glasses on the field, White had as his batterymate a future Hall of Famer whom baseball historian Peter Morris called […]

When San Francisco Giants leviathan Barry Bonds went on the disabled list for a torn triceps muscle in the third week of the 1999 season,1 he had some unexpected company. That same day Baltimore Orioles’ Iron Man Cal Ripken Jr. landed on the disabled list for the first time in his then-19-year career.2 Bonds’ spot […]

After bolstering their pennant-winning roster with high-profile free agents Reggie Jackson and Don Gullett, the New York Yankees skidded into last place in the American League East two weeks into the 1977 season. Manager Billy Martin responded with a revamped batting order, purportedly drawn from a hat, on April 20 against the Toronto Blue Jays […]

One evening in the summer of 1947, the National League’s best and worst teams put on a display that a future baseball commissioner labeled “a farcical exhibition which was a disgrace to baseball and a complete travesty of all the rules of sportsmanship.”1 The Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers spent 12 anarchic minutes in Philadelphia […]

Montreal Expos manager Jim Fanning returned to the dugout on September 22, 1982, after missing five games with severe migraines. But it was Expos shortstop Chris Speier who gave the visiting Philadelphia Phillies headaches that night, driving in eight runs in an 11-4 Expos win. Expectations for the Expos ran high at the beginning of […]

The 1961 Cincinnati Reds1 were a pre-season pick to finish sixth in the National League.2 Having finished 28 games of the pace in 19603, baseball pundits viewed them as only better than the Cubs and Phillies. While a club with undeniable batting prowess—think Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Gordy Coleman, Gene Freese, and pinch-hitter extraordinaire Jerry […]

After more than two decades as Expos owner, Charles Bronfman had become disillusioned with the business of baseball. He was looking to sell the team, and he wanted to go out a winner, so he had his GM, 32-year-old Dave Dombrowski, make a move that wasn’t normally part of the Montreal playbook.1 On May 25, […]

The Cleveland Indians hosted the Boston Red Sox for a doubleheader on the first Sunday in August 1958. The two teams were pretty much neck-and-neck in battling with four other teams for second place in the American League standings, with the Yankees far out in front of the tightly-bunched pack. The Indians were 17 games […]

No one at Montreal’s Jarry Park on Saturday, April 19, 1975, could ignore the howl of tropical-storm-force winds.1 Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark listened to the wind and let it dictate last-minute changes to his starting lineup. The results made him look like a genius as his team downed the Expos, 3-0. Most accounts of […]

The Brooklyn Robins and New York Giants were seemingly participating in different leagues though the teams were adjacent in the standings in late June of 1929. The fifth-place, 26-34 Robins were 11½ games behind the NL-leading Pittsburgh Pirates, and a half-game ahead of the Boston Braves. The fourth-place, 34-26 Giants fared better, 3½ games from […]

Jimmy Zinn spent 1921 as a swingman on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching staff, contributing occasional starts but more often working from the bullpen. One of his most valuable performances came on August 5 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. Tossing six innings of nearly spotless relief and adding two key hits, Zinn sparked the first-place Pirates to […]

“It was a freak contest.”1 That’s how the Buffalo Evening News summed up the action between the Buffalo and Kansas City teams at Buffalo’s International Fair Association Grounds on September 28, 1914. It seemed to be shaping into an utterly forgettable affair through seven innings. Loose fielding and poor pitching were the order of the […]

After winning the first two games of their July 1976 series at Fenway Park against the Chicago White Sox and climbing over .500 for the first time all season, the defending American League champion Boston Red Sox couldn’t complete the sweep on July 7. They lost the final game in 10 innings, 6-3, after several […]

When the Chicago Cubs finally won a World Series again in 2016, after 108 years of futility, they also shed their standing as “lovable losers,” ceding that title back to the squad to whom it truly belonged: Charlie Brown and his ragtag neighborhood team of Peanuts fame. Indeed, for all the failure and ignominy the […]