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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The New York Mets won the franchise’s fifth pennant in 2015 but lost that year’s fall classic to the Kansas City Royals. A season later, they fell in the National League wild-card game to the San Francisco Giants. After this came consecutive losing seasons. By 2019, the Mets had almost completely overhauled their depth chart. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

This article was published in “The Stars Shone on Philadelphia: The 1934 Negro National League Champions” (SABR, 2023), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   The 1934 Negro National League Championship Series between the Philadelphia Stars and the Chicago American Giants was a closely contested, contentious nailbiter of a series. Not only did […]

The Detroit Tigers concluded their 1938 season with a three-game series on the road against the Cleveland Indians. Even though the doubleheader on October 2 was the last two games according to the schedule, the season had long been over for both teams, which were looking northward at first-place New York. The Indians were in […]

“When Red Sox slugger Jim Rice gets impatient, look out.” So began Bill Liston’s game story in the next day’s Boston Herald.1 The Boston Red Sox started the 1978 season on the road, losing their first two games to the Chicago White Sox, both 6-5, picking up a win, then splitting a pair in Cleveland. […]

The Cincinnati Reds had endured a rough winter. Confessions of game-fixing tarnished their long-coveted championship. Three key players were holdouts. A beloved team executive passed away. But the slings and arrows of baseball’s fortune could not diminish Cincinnati’s celebration of Opening Day. As a record crowd overflowed Redland Field, the Reds opened 1921 by surging […]

Winning six pennants from 1901 to 1914, the Philadelphia Athletics were the first sustained American League dynasty. At the heart of Connie Mack’s teams in this era were set pitcher-catcher batteries. This study examines their statistical accounting and insights into their makeup, and considers their place within the evolution of the sport. “It is especially […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Baseball is a game full of statistics; however, they rarely tell the whole story. Such is the case with Roger Holt, an infielder who grew up in a small town in rural Florida and made it to the major leagues with the New York Yankees late in the 1980 season. Holt – a contact hitter […]

Playing with the Philadelphia Phillies from 1910 through 1913, Jimmy “Runt” Walsh became one of the most notable utility players of his era. In 1911 he became the third major leaguer to that point to play every position during a single season.1 Recruited by his ex-Phillies teammate Otto Knabe, the colorful Walsh jumped to the […]

Larry Lintz was built like a whippet — 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds — and ran like one. He came up as a middle infielder with the Montreal Expos in 1973 and stole 50 bases the following season, his most active year in the majors. In addition to being an exciting baserunner, he was a good […]

“Honest Jack” Boyle was a “19th century multi-position sensation.”1 He was the first of only five major-league players to log 500 games at catcher and at least two seasons of 100 games or more at first base (with Joe Mauer, Joe Torre, Gene Tenace, and Mike Napoli).2 Boyle abandoned boxing to become a major-league catcher […]

Jesse Orosco appeared in 1,252 regular-season games during his career, the most of any major-league pitcher. As of Opening Day 2015, the active hurler with the most appearances was LaTroy Hawkins with an even 1,000, so Orosco’s record endured for at least some time. The lefty spent most of his 24 seasons in the majors […]

Outfielder Mark Corey looked like a surefire star after winning batting titles in his first two pro seasons. He tore up rookie ball in 1976, hitting .400 with 17 homers; the next year he hit .310 with 15 homers in Double-A. As it turned out, though, Corey never did break into the crowded Baltimore outfield. […]