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“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]

A “short, stocky, active, aggressive” second baseman, Otto Knabe teamed with shortstop Mickey Doolan to provide the Phillies with one of the most notorious double-play tandems of the Deadball Era.1 After seven years in Philadelphia, Knabe jumped to the Federal League in 1914 to lead the Baltimore Terrapins. But in Baltimore and two later minor […]

Infielder Billy DeMars broke into professional baseball at age 17, had his career interrupted by service in the Navy during World War II, then came back and played parts of three seasons in the majors (80 games with the Athletics and Browns), and extended his minor-league career by turning to managing through 1968. He assigned […]

Aloysius “Wish” Egan was one of the top scouts in the Detroit Tigers system. Among the players he signed in his 40 years of scouting were Jim Bunning, Hal Newhouser, and Dizzy Trout. Egan even scouted the Lakeland, Florida, site the Tigers have used for spring training since 1934. All scouts have regrets; one of […]

Hardworking, spirited, and optimistic are all apt descriptions of Jim Lefebvre. The switch-hitter spent more than 40 years in professional baseball, including eight years (1965-72) as a Los Angeles Dodgers infielder and six seasons managing the Mariners, Cubs and Brewers. Perhaps determined would be the best adjective of all for the former National League Rookie […]

It is rare for a single moment to pivot a career. Dick Stockton is an exception, not rule. Before 1975, Stockton moved from Syracuse University via KDKA Pittsburgh’s revolutionary news to pro basketball’s Boston Celtics. After 1975 he aired a Klondike of more national sports, including the Red Sox, A’s, and network baseball postseason and […]

Today Jack Graney is best remembered as the man of the firsts. Graney was the first hitter Babe Ruth faced as a pitcher in the major leagues for the Boston Red Sox, one of the first major leaguers to take the field with a number on his uniform, and in 1908 was part of the […]

On September 16, 1975, the Pittsburgh Pirates were wrapping up a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. They held a six-game lead over Philadelphia in the National League East Division and the season was growing old. With only 12 games remaining on the Pirates’ schedule, time was indeed running out on the […]

Buzzie Bavasi had a ball running a ball club. In 18 years directing the baseball operations of the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, he assembled four World Series champions and eight pennant winners (and two more clubs that tied for first), more than any team except the Yankees. He had the benefit of owner […]

Garry Hancock was a strong-armed, good-hitting outfielder who did not earn a regular place in the star-studded Red Sox outfield of Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, and Dwight Evans. Instead, Hancock filled in for the outfield trio during the heartbreaking roller coaster ride that was Boston’s 1978 campaign. Ronald Garry Hancock was born on January 23, […]

If his only claim to fame had been giving a young pitching prospect named James Bell his nickname, “Cool Papa,” he would have perhaps been the answer to a baseball history trivia question. Had his sole contribution to the story of the game been that of teaching a young Satchel Paige how to throw what […]

Two teams with losing records and subpar pitching staffs slugged it out in a back-and-forth contest that featured 13 runs, 9 pitchers, 4 errors, and half a dozen ties and lead changes before the first-year Royals finally prevailed 8-5 over the White Sox. Royals rookie Don O’Riley won his only major-league victory in front of […]

This Monday night game was the first of a four-game series as part of a nine-game West Coast swing for the New York Yankees (11-10, second in the AL East, 2½ games back of Tampa). The Yankees were definitely not at full strength. They had 13 players on the injured list, including Aaron Judge, Giancarlo […]

Ever since the convention of running the bases counterclockwise was established, sometime between 1834, when informal rules originating from the English game of rounders specified clockwise, and 1857, when the opposite direction was formally codified,1 infield positions beyond first base have been the domain of the right-handed. Able to throw leftward without pirouetting, righties have […]

On a cold September 7, 1911, a gathering of 5,523 Boston National League fans witnessed a pitching duel between two future Hall of Famers.1 Phillies rookie Grover Cleveland (“Pete”) Alexander allowed just one hit and beat 44-year old Cy Young, 1-0. A Boston Post headline caught the moment perfectly: “Old Cy Twirls Great Game, but […]

The New York Mets were trying to stay in the playoff race. They won their previous series against the Miami Marlins but remained 10½ games behind the Washington Nationals in the National League East. On their return to New York, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson told the press, “I think we feel differently about ourselves […]

Jackie Robinson’s debut at Braves Field was originally scheduled for April 22, 1947. But the Dodgers’ three-game series in Boston was a total washout because of rain. Robinson’s first game was in the opener of a Memorial Day doubleheader on May 30. Before both scheduled series, Robinson wasn’t the biggest story in the local news. […]

Following their “Miracle” National League pennant and World Series championship in 1914,1 the Boston Braves had slipped to seventh place by 1920. Skipper George Stallings was still at the helm, but that changed in 1921. When Stallings resigned in November 1920 to purchase a part-interest in the Rochester Colts of the International League,2 the Braves […]

The Expos and Phillies, sporting identical 89-70 records, went head-to-head in a three-game series at Olympic Stadium on the final weekend of the 1980 season to determine the champions of the NL East. After defeating Montreal 2-1 on Friday night on a pair of RBIs from Mike Schmidt, Philadelphia clinched the division on Schmidt’s dramatic […]

Every professional athlete hopes to “go out on top” at the end of their career. No one likes to think of struggling through a final season and not being invited back, like a hypothetical baseball player putting up disappointing numbers and then wishing he had perhaps retired a year earlier. When Ted Williams hit just […]

It is common knowledge that Cleveland Indians Hall of Famer Bob Feller tossed the only Opening Day no-hitter in major-league history against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park on April 16, 1940. On the 75th anniversary of the event, Major League Baseball’s official website touted it as “the first — and to this day […]

It was July 14, 1970, in Cincinnati, where the 41st Major League All-Star Game was played at the brand-new Riverfront Stadium in front of 51,838 fans. It was an era of turmoil. Just 2½ months earlier, President Richard Nixon had announced that the United States had invaded Cambodia to hunt out the Viet Cong in […]

A no-hitter without a strikeout. Since 1901, there have been only four recorded in either the American or National Leagues. Given the current trend of hard-throwing starting pitchers with fastball velocities averaging in the mid-90s and almost a quarter of plate appearances ending in strikeouts, there will likely never be another. Deadball Era hurlers Pete […]

She was the Kim Kardashian of her day. During the pre-Internet era, Morganna “The Kissing Bandit” Roberts was a busty stripper who gained a degree of notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s by running onto baseball diamonds, football fields, and other playing surfaces across America to kiss an athlete, and then returning to the stands […]