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The 1967 baseball season was winding down, with less than 25 games to go. On Wednesday, September 6, half of the 10 American League teams were in the thick of a tight pennant race. The dark-horse California Angels (72-66) were in fifth place, trailing the league-leading Minnesota Twins (78-60) by six games. Sandwiched between those […]

It began just after 3:00 in the afternoon when Cincinnati’s ace, Eppa Rixey, served one up to Cubs second baseman Sparky Adams. Sixteen innings later it ended after Charley Dressen scored on a single by Wally Pipp. Between those two pitches, the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs battled through the longest and one of […]

The 1981 American League Championship Series was primed for epic status before it began. Billy Martin, fired twice as manager by the New York Yankees, now led his up-and-coming Oakland Athletics against the Yankees in the postseason. Martin made no secret of his animus, telling reporters, “I’m going to beat [Yankees owner George] Steinbrenner’s ass […]

On April 15, 2013, Mike Napoli’s bat and Dustin Pedroia’s hustle gave the Boston Red Sox a 3-2 win in their traditional late-morning home game on Patriots Day and Marathon Monday, the Red Sox’ second walk-off in three days over the Tampa Bay Rays. Just minutes after this game ended, the day’s significance was forever […]

Down two games to one in the 1934 World Series, the Detroit Tigers evened the count in Game Four with a resounding 10-4 win in a lengthy 2 hours and 43 minutes before 37,492 disappointed Sportsman’s Park fans. It was a game full of misadventures, dominated by Dizzy Dean’s attempt to run the bases. After […]

The Detroit Stars held first place in the Negro National League when they arrived in Ohio to play the Columbus Buckeyes in July 1921. The Stars appeared set to maintain their pace when they took an early lead in the series opener at Columbus’s Neil Park on July 9, but the Buckeyes capitalized on shaky […]

Jim Hutto may be best remembered among baseball trivia buffs for a game in which his biggest accomplishment was simply not getting hurt. On May 2, 1970, when the Phillies lost catchers Tim McCarver to a broken hand and Mike Ryan to a broken finger in the same half-inning, rookie utilityman Hutto was called on […]

In the throes of a nine-game losing streak, the Chicago Cubs were in last place in the National League with a 23-37 record when they visited the league-leading Pittsburgh Pirates, who were up 16½ games on Sunday, June 26, 1960. Manager Lou Boudreau’s team faced a daunting task in the first game of a doubleheader […]

The Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants began a three-game series at Ebbets Field on the evening of Friday, April 22, 1955. The Dodgers started the season winning their first 10 games while the Giants, winners of the 1954 World Series by sweeping the Cleveland Indians, had lost five of their first seven. The […]

The Detroit Tigers played in Bennett Field in 1911. Immediately after the last game of the 1911 season, the small wooden structure was demolished and replaced with a $300,000 steel and concrete ballpark named Navin Field after the club’s owner, Frank Navin. Navin Field officially opened its doors to Tigers fans on April 20, 1912.1 […]

The career of Henry “Hunky” Hines spanned more than 20 years, from 1887 at the age of 19 through 1910 at the age of 42.1 His career took him from Minneapolis to St. Louis, and from Brooklyn to Oakland. When he was signed to play for the club in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903, the Davenport […]

A Pawtucket native, left-hander Henry John LaRose was first called on in relief against the Tigers, as the Red Sox and Yankees battled to the wire in September 1978. He’d been brought up to the big leagues to pitch for Boston just a few days earlier. With just 11 games on the schedule, and the […]

It’s not every part-time player with a brief major-league career who takes part in a historic baseball event. However, when Emil “Hap” Huhn of the Cincinnati Reds crouched behind the plate in the bottom of the first inning at Chicago’s Weeghman Park preparing for Fred Toney’s first delivery, that is exactly what was about to […]

During the 1892 season while playing for St. Louis, Cliff Carroll had the misfortune of being fined by the club when a ball inadvertently rolled into his pocket. The incident, which occurred in the sixth inning on August 17 of that season, was his major claim to fame, although in his time he was a […]

By the time Mike Schmidt retired early in the 1989 season, he was regarded as perhaps the greatest all-around third baseman in baseball history. No major-leaguer hit more homers during the 1980s, but he was not a one-dimensional threat: he curbed his tendency to strike out and stole bases when needed. In the field, he […]

A person arriving at Elmwood High School near Bloomdale, Ohio, and looking at the pictures of students who had attained all-state status in various sports might see Chris Hoiles’s picture as a third team all-state football player in 1983 and assume he went on to play college and NFL football, but that person would be […]

Joe Schultz, a catcher in his playing days, spent over 40 years in professional baseball. His career included five full seasons and parts of four others as a fringe reserve in the majors. That paved the way for 13 years as a minor-league manager and another 14 as a big-league coach. He was there for […]

The opening lines of Grantland Rice’s poem “Red Lucas, Ball Player,” say it all: “Just a ball player, that’s all- He can field, he can pitch, he can hit …” During his National League pitching career, Charles Frederick “Red” Lucas finished 204 of 302 starts; was one of the all-time best control pitchers, walking just […]

This burly Kentuckian signed as a pitcher but made it to the majors with his bat. Jeoff (which rhymes with “off”) Long could hit balls a long way. That got him into 56 games in 1963 and 1964 as a first baseman/outfielder, first with the St. Louis Cardinals and then with the Chicago White Sox. […]

In the early 1970s, lefty pitcher Bob O’Brien made an unlikely and mercurial rise from unheralded draft selection to big-leaguer. His stay in professional baseball was brief, but along the way he became the subject of one of Tommy Lasorda’s greatest motivational stories. Robert Allen O’Brien was born on April 23, 1949, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, […]

“He was the greatest manager I ever played for, perhaps the greatest manager who ever lived, and that includes managers in the big leagues. I’ve never played for a guy who could get more out of every ballplayer than he could. He knew how to communicate with everybody and to treat every player as an […]

Those Americans who grew up in the Great Depression, went to fight in World War II, returned home, and went to work bringing the country back to life are now called, thanks to Tom Brokaw, the “Greatest Generation.” Such a man was James Bartholomew Prendergast — who also happened to play professional baseball. He worked […]

Alvin O’Neal McBean – for decades, the only big-league pitcher from the Virgin Islands – was a good one. His hard sinker and limber, resilient arm made him valuable as a starter and even more as a reliever. Throwing from various arm angles as the spirit moved him, McBean was somewhat reminiscent of Orlando “El […]

Fred Beene proved that big things can come in small packages. Affectionately known as Beeney throughout much of his professional baseball career, the 5-foot-9, 160-pound Beene defied skeptics who thought he was too small to succeed on a major-league mound. At times the criticism of his physical attributes proved frustrating for the slick-fielding right-hander who […]