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“I knew I had a no-hitter after the first inning,” said Larry Dierker with an air of seriousness before breaking into a chuckle. “Walking back to the dugout, I wondered, ‘When was the last time I got through the first inning without giving up a hit?’”1 Dierker had come close to a no-hitter before. As […]

The Baltimore Orioles were flying high as June 1997 approached. The 34-15 Orioles carried the AL’s best record, and a 7½-game lead over the New York Yankees in the AL East Division, into a two-game weekend showdown against the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians. Baltimore opened the 1997 season with a four-game winning streak and maintained […]

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 […]

Things looked bleak for the Chicago Cubs in the top of the ninth inning against the Cincinnati Reds on May 5, 1919. They had made two Keystone Kops plays and they were down 6-0 and had only four hits. Ironically, a third Keystone Kops play by the Cubs in the ninth actually helped them tie […]

“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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

John Henry Johnson — the lefty pitcher, not the Pro Football Hall of Famer or the baseball executive1 — pitched in eight big-league seasons from 1978 to 1987. He enjoyed his greatest success as a 21-year-old rookie. Primarily a starter in his early years, Johnson moved to the bullpen and was effective at times, though […]

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, […]

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 […]

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. […]