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Of the Cincinnati Reds’ 18 extra-inning games in 1969, none was more dramatic than the extraordinary comeback win they accomplished on July 19. The Houston Astros appeared to have the game in hand with a 9-0 lead after their at-bat in the top of the sixth inning. But the Reds bounced back and tied the […]

It was a “Veeck” of a ballgame for the St. Louis Browns and their 1,115 managers in the stands at Sportsman’s Park on August 24, 1951, in yet another amazing stunt pulled by the Browns’ legendary owner Bill Veeck Jr. Since winning the American League pennant in 1944 and finishing third in 1945, the only […]

The Houston Astros (originally the Colt .45s) had begun play in 1962, and the Astrodome had opened in 1965, but the team had endured a long wait for its first postseason appearance. In 1980 the Astros survived a one-game playoff with the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the NL West division with a 93-70 record. […]

His first time up on August 20, 1960, in the final season of his 19-year career with the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams drew a walk. It was career base on balls number 2,000.1 Only one player had ever walked more – Babe Ruth, who’d earned 2,062 walks.2 Ted got walk number 2,000 in his […]

Frank Robinson’s solo home run in the first inning was all the offense Baltimore needed, but the Orioles scored a total of 17 runs on as many hits in the first five frames to secure a blowout victory over the Chicago White Sox on July 27, 1969. According to the Baltimore Sun, “The merry-go-round was […]

The Pirates, back home at Exposition Park, took a three-games-to-one lead in the World Series with a 5-4 win over the Boston Americans. Sunday had been a travel day, and on Monday it rained. Deacon Phillippe had an extra day of rest, and was ready to go yet again – his third start in four […]

The New York Mets stopped being the laughingstocks of baseball and became unlikely World Series champions on the afternoon of October 16, 1969. After the Mets joined the National League in 1962, they spent most of the decade known as a bunch of lovable losers. All that ended on a pleasant fall afternoon with temperatures […]

A crowd of 33,196 showed up at Arlington Stadium for Opening Day in 1980. The New York Yankees were in town to face the Texas Rangers. It was the second time in three years that the two teams squared off against each other in the season opener. The Rangers won the earlier contest, 2-1, when […]

The New York Yankees, arriving in Cleveland for a two-game series against the Indians, had just lost two of three games in Baltimore but remained three games ahead of the Orioles. Only 3,895 fans showed up on a chilly night at Cleveland Stadium hoping to see their team gain ground on the division leader. The […]

The mood at the Fair Grounds in Rockford, Illinois, on August 29, 1870, may have felt like a World Series game to the twenty-first-century fan. Forest City’s faithful knew they were about to watch the most important game in Rockford’s history. “Everything was at stake for both clubs,” reported the Rockford Register, “the one [Rockford] […]

The Dodgers and Pirates broke off what New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young called their “weird affair”1 at just before midnight on June 24, 1950. Brooklyn led, 19-12. A report from the Associated Press boasted, “The crowd of 22,010 was treated to one of the wildest games in Ebbets Field history.”2 And it wasn’t […]

A small crowd headed to Wrigley Field in Chicago on Monday, July 28, 1969, to see their first-place Chicago Cubs take on the San Francisco Giants. The game’s attendance was small by the summer standard set by the first place team. Only 9,439 patrons attended, largely due to the fact that this contest was not […]

Monday, August 10, may well have been the most important day of the entire 1981 baseball season. This was the day that regular season play would resume after a two-month players strike had wiped out more than one-third of the schedule. Furthermore, in Philadelphia that night, Pete Rose would become the all-time National League hits […]

Gerald “Gee” Walker was one of the most popular players in Detroit Tigers history, even though he often drove his managers crazy with his risk-averse approach to baserunning. Walker also played for the Chicago White Sox, Washington Senators, Cleveland Indians, and Cincinnati Reds in a major-league career that went from 1931 to 1945. Walker was […]

Among numerous icons from Cuba’s somewhat murky pre-revolution past, swarthy-skinned pitching ace José de la Caridad Méndez Báez stands at the very apex of the heap. Among the young nation’s first true national sporting heroes, the rawboned fastball hurler maintains an indelible image as one of the earliest icons of island baseball history. But it […]

Mel Allen was The Voice: “his boom box of a voice” – Curt Smith “that wonderful, unmistakable voice” – Dick Young “the venerable Voice of Summer” – Sports Illustrated He was the voice of the Yankees from 1939 through 1964 and became the most prominent sports broadcaster in America. His credits include twenty World Series, […]

Entering the twilight of a 12-year major league career, Nelson Potter joined the Boston Braves in midseason of 1948 and became the top relief man and spot starter for the NL champs with an impressive 5-2 record and a 2.33 ERA. This was his second stint with a pennant-winning team; as a nearly full-time starter, […]

The leadoff men of the 1960s were known mainly for slapping singles and stealing bases. Into this game stepped Don Buford, a versatile switch-hitter with speed and a little power, and also the ability to draw walks and get on base. He had some success for a few years with the White Sox, but it […]

Soon after the 1967 World Series ended, Fleetwood Recording Co. released a long-playing phonograph record, The Impossible Dream, a reprise of the Boston Red Sox magical same-year pennant. Narrating, Sox announcer Ken Coleman hailed “an affair twixt a town and a team,” telling how the Boston American League Baseball Company used wonderwork to wave 1967’s […]

In 1927, the Chicago Cubs signed local sandlot hurler Roy Hansen. Skipper Joe McCarthy thought highly enough of the 20-year-old to extend him an invitation to spring training for the first of three successive years. Hansen was surely overwhelmed by the team’s picturesque training facility on Catalina Island, club owner William Wrigley’s private sanctuary located […]

He batted .400 for his major-league career, never committed an error, but was 0-1 as a pitcher. He appeared in four games — one in 1950 and three in 1952. His name was James Curtis Atkins, a big 6-foot-3, 205-pouind Alabaman who batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He pitched for 13 years in the minor […]

Philadelphia A’s star left-hander and future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank had scattered five hits and had not allowed a run as the Boston Braves batted in the top of the ninth in Game Two of the 1914 World Series. Unfortunately for Plank and his mates, Braves starter Bill James was pitching just as well. […]

In 1972 Hank Morgenweck achieved a long-held dream—a full-time umpiring job in the major leagues. Four seasons later, in bitter and disputed circumstances, he lost it. An experienced minor-league ump with a National League playoff game on his résumé, Morgenweck was named to the American League’s umpiring staff in spring 1972. But his contract was […]

One of baseball’s eternal debates is naming the hardest-throwing pitcher of all time. A dark horse in the field is Harry “The Flame Thrower” Fanok. Harry appeared in just 16 big-league games for St. Louis in 1963-64 — but his fastball branded the memories of those who saw him. Just ask Joe Morgan. The former […]