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After foundering with fastballs and curveballs for the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates in the first half of the 1960s, Wilbur Wood transformed himself into a quality knuckleballing reliever for the Chicago White Sox from 1967 to 1970. He then improbably metamorphosed into one of the top pitchers in baseball as an innings-eating workhorse […]

In the 1960s, the home for the Rutgers University baseball team was University Heights Field on the Busch Campus, just across the Raritan River from the main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Memory serves to recall the expansiveness of the field often whipped by strong winds. Imagine looking down the left-field line and spotting […]

To the extent that twenty-first-century baseball fans remember Willard Hershberger, they remember him for the unfortunate circumstances of his death. Hershberger, a 30-year-old backup catcher in his third season with the Cincinnati Reds, took his own life in a Boston hotel in August 1940 after a long struggle with depression. He was the first active […]

Nothing in the early spring of 1951 gave any clue that this would be the New York Giants’ season of miracles. The year when the Giants overtook the Dodgers in baseball’s most dramatic pennant race saw the New Yorkers drop 12 of their first 14 games, and by the end of April they were in […]

On the evening of June 20, 1931, in Jamestown, North Dakota, an estimated crowd of 1,800 came out to the ballpark to see something old and something new. The “old” was Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, the winner of 373 major-league games, who would be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938. […]

Two teams that were flying high ran into each other, and one got run over. As always, the complete randomness of the blowout was unpredictable. The Texas Rangers had swept a doubleheader from the New York Yankees on Sunday for the first time ever. The two wins pushed them into a tie for first place […]

In the early part of 1927, the Midwest was bursting with anticipation as the baseball season segued from projections to facts delivered by daily sports accounts. By mid-April, pitching matchups, game summaries, and season standings would replace the “dreary box-scoreless winter” to provide “something in the newspapers.” Even an umpire might expect applause for one […]

No one knew it was the Athletics’ last home opener in Philadelphia, though if you looked closely you could see the writing on the peeling walls of recently rechristened Connie Mack Stadium. But Opening Day 1954 felt less like the end of an era and more like the beginning of one. The uniforms were new, […]

On April 6, 1970, the Cincinnati Reds were a club transitioning from one era to another. By midseason the Reds would leave their longtime home at Crosley Field for the brand-new Riverfront Stadium. Without necessarily knowing it, the Reds stood on the brink of the most successful era in team history. Expectations were raised. Cincinnati […]

Perhaps unfairly, Charlie Root’s name and legacy are indelibly intertwined with one of baseball’s most enduring and intriguing legends: Babe Ruth’s “called shot” in Game Three of the 1932 World Series.  Overlooked is Root’s reputation as one of the most dependable, durable, and hardest-throwing pitchers of his generation. With the most victories in Chicago Cubs […]

Phil McCullough remembered sitting in sleet and freezing rain in the Washington Senators’ bullpen in Griffith Stadium on April 22, 1942. “It was just a terrible day. We tore up chairs and benches and furniture to make a fire in the bullpen to keep warm. It was so cold.”1 The sturdy (six-foot-four, 204 pounds), curly-haired […]

The 1945 Boston Red Sox had two Steiners on the roster – catcher Red Steiner and second baseman Ben Steiner. Though it might seem unusual for a team to have two unrelated players with the same surname, in the 1940s alone the Red Sox had Skeeter Newsome/Dick Newsome, Jimmie Foxx/Pete Fox, Bob Johnson/Vic Johnson, and […]

Left-hander Drake Britton had one win and one loss in his time in the big leagues, but he has a World Championship ring to treasure forever as a member of the 2013 Boston Red Sox. It was a year in which he almost lost the opportunity to pitch. John Drake Britton was born in Waco, […]

“Catchers are in demand,” declared the Fort Worth Record in 1907; they “are scarcer than snowflakes in July.”1 Catchers’ equipment was primitive, and injuries were common. Who wanted to endure abuse from fastballs and foul tips? Tommy Hess was willing. From 1890 to 1911, he caught for minor-league teams in at least 10 U.S. states […]

As a rookie with the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, Danny Cater said that “hollering or making noise” just didn’t fit into his style on the field. “If I told you I let my bat do my talking – that would sound corny,” he added.1 Corny or not, over the course of his 12-year major-league career, Cater […]

While Fred Cone didn’t have much of a career at the plate with a mere 20 hits in his only season, he banged out one-quarter of those hits in one memorable game for the 1871 Boston Red Stockings. In the team’s July 12 game against the Fort Wayne Kekiongas, Cone collected five hits in a […]

He played in only forty-one games in his Major League career, but took home two World Series rings. During his ten years playing professional baseball, he earned such nicknames as Iron Man, Buster, and Butch. No matter what they called Charley Wensloff, one thing was certain: He knew how to pitch. His fastball, curve, and […]

For generations of fans, the sound of an organ evoked a trip to the ballpark. One of the best-known, best-loved, and simply best baseball organists was Jane Jarvis (1915-2010). Jarvis attracted most attention during her long tenure with the New York Mets (1964 through 1979). However, the one-time child prodigy had a career in jazz […]

Most great players have something similar during their careers: a dominant year, a key series in which they made their name — or a signature play. Hall of Famer Enos Slaughter’s even had a nickname. His “Mad Dash” in Game Seven of the 1946 World Series took place on the brightest of stages. It’s certainly […]

Back when being a character could keep you locked in the minor leagues and being a reliever was considered a career demotion, Tug McGraw excelled in both roles like few before or since. As a rookie starter for Casey Stengel, McGraw ended the Mets’ long losing streak against Sandy Koufax; converted to a reliever by […]

Woody Rich, all too briefly, was a pitching phenom. He entered his first major-league training camp, in 1939, barely noticed amid all the attention given to fellow rookie Ted Williams. By the end of March he was being compared to the great Pete Alexander, and reliable witnesses were predicting he would win 20 games. He roomed with Ted […]

They called him “Dirty Jack,” but John Joseph “Jack” Doyle never quite understood why. The name was given to him in recognition of his aggressive style of play and of his insistence that the base paths belonged to the runner. “I was a hard base runner,” he later recalled. “You had to be in those […]

Cardinals have been a big part of Walt Jocketty’s life. He grew up playing for the Marshall High School Cardinals, where his dad was a teacher and coach, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jocketty later became the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and built the team that won the 2006 World Series while twice being named Major […]