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Considered one of the best defensive shortstops of his era, Hall of Famer and 10-time All-Star Pee Wee Reese was the quiet yet forceful captain of the postwar Dodgers. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field was hosting the All-Star Game for the first time, the last of the major league locations in existence in […]

It was the weakest arm in the Red Sox outfield against the fastest runner on the basepaths for the Chicago White Sox, but in this wild and wacky season, the Cardiac Kids found yet another way to pull out an improbable victory. Gimpy-armed right fielder Jose Tartabull became the instant hero when his throw from […]

It was just the third game of the 1947 season. The American League champions of 1946, the Boston Red Sox, had won their first two games at home, then left on a brief road trip, the first stop being Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Athletics had opened their season at Yankee Stadium, winning their first […]

It was a “boiling” hot Saturday afternoon in Yankee Stadium, according to Yankees radio play-by-play announcer John Sterling,1 with a game-time temperature of 95 degrees. Little did the 41,682 fans know that two young prospects, Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge, would make their Yankees debut in spectacular fashion that day. New York entered the game at a disappointing 59-56 […]

White Sox fan Dennis Zweifel decided to leave Comiskey Park early on the night of August 28, 1968, looking to pop into one of the taverns lining Halsted Street on Chicago’s Near South Side.  The ballgame crowd, cheering on the performance of rookie pitcher Gerald “Jerry” Nyman, ultimately faded from Zweifel’s ears with every step […]

The story surrounding Joe Borden’s first no-hitter in professional baseball history is a microcosm of the state of baseball in 1875. Midway through the season, the Boston Red Stockings were steaming toward a 71-8-3 record and a fourth straight National Association pennant. Yet, the topic that dominated the sporting world was news of their looming […]

The 1933 Washington Senators won 99 games and captured the American League pennant. The 1934 season was a different story. Injuries up and down the roster contributed to the team’s decline. The list of maladies ranged from sore arms, pulled muscles, and beanballs to more unusual cases such as facial paralysis, pleurisy, and an injured […]

In 1943 Joe McCarthy had kept all his Yankees players on the bench. But for this game, McCarthy, managing the American League for the seventh time, started two of the three Yanks on the team, including the battery of right-hander Hank Borowy and veteran catcher Rollie Hemsley. Borowy, the ninth Yankee pitcher to start in […]

Gary White, a catcher recently battling cancer, collected the decisive RBI single for his only hit of the 1999 Intercontinental Cup tournament, as Australia won its first gold medal in international baseball competition in an 11-inning, 4-3 thriller against Cuba.1 It was November 14, 1999, at Homebush Stadium, the site of the 2000 Sydney Olympic […]

Jackie Robinson‘s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers was more than just the first step in righting a historical wrong. It was a crucial event in the history of the American civil rights movement, the importance of which went far beyond the insular world of baseball. The Dodgers signed Robinson to a major-league contract just five […]

All through the winter of 1913-1914, the passionate baseball “cranks” of Binghamton and Utica, New York, longed for their favorite sport to return. When it finally did, they got a game for the ages. On Opening Day of the 1914 New York State League season, Binghamton’s Festus Higgins and Utica’s Frank Oberlin staged an epic […]

Both the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Giants had disappointing 1948 seasons. The Phillies won 66 games and lost 88 while finishing sixth in the National League. This was the 16th consecutive losing season for the Phillies, a streak that began in 1933. The Giants did better, finishing fifth with a 78-76 record. Still, both […]

With the Detroit Tigers seizing a two-games-to-one lead in the 1935 World Series on the Chicago Cubs after a wild extra-inning affair in Game Three, managers Charlie Grimm and Mickey Cochrane were compelled to shuffle their lineups. “The two managers, reckless in their manipulation of talent in the turbulent concluding innings, forced themselves into a […]

This game had everything that makes baseball great — nail-biting tension, great pitching, playoff implications, two rival teams, 17 innings, you name it. Throw a record-setting achievement and a walk-off hit to send the home team off happy, and you’ll get an idea of the marvelous, maddening 1-0 affair between the Expos and the Phillies […]

“You know what they say about Chicago. If you don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes.” — Ralph Kiner1   Ralph Kiner was about to see more of Chicago than he bargained for. While taking batting practice, the Pirates slugger learned he was traded to the visiting Chicago Cubs. “What’s the number? Kiner asked. “22,” […]

There aren’t many in baseball who have had the thrill of catching the ball, thus making the final play that seals their team winning a world championship. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Four of the 1990 World Series, Cincinnati Reds first baseman Todd Benzinger took his position and hoped the Reds […]

Gene “Stick” Michael is the only person to serve, at one time or another, as player, scout, manager, and general manager for the New York Yankees. His exceptional work as their general manager from 1990-1995 led to four world championships. However, throughout his life he lamented not pursuing professional basketball. He was loved by his […]

“The wildest pitching you ever saw would not make him weaken. Hot or slow, high or low, in or out, no matter where the ball came or how much the curve, it was all the same to Brown.” — Sporting Life1   Lew Brown probably could have stopped a cannon ball if one had been […]

“Missed train by a hare!” – Familiar refrain in Rabbitt’s wires to Beaumont Exporters manager Al Bernsen during the 1924 Texas League season, explaining why he didn’t accompany the team1   Well, of course Joe Rabbitt led various minor leagues in stolen bases – six times altogether. It’s also not every day that a player […]

Joe Cambria was one of the most prolific scouts in major-league history, signing hundreds of men to professional contracts as a scout for Clark Griffith and the Washington Senators. He also inked countless others as a promoter of semipro and Negro Leagues baseball in Baltimore and minor-league teams throughout the country. He was one of […]

Over the final six weeks of the 1982 season, right-hander Brian Denman started nine games for the Boston Red Sox. The last of the nine was a six-hit shutout of the New York Yankees. They were the only nine times he appeared in the majors. He’d worked four-plus seasons in the minor leagues before getting […]

From the moment he was born in the back seat of a car in the parking lot of the East Orange (New Jersey) General Hospital, during a snowstorm on December 21, 1948,1 Elliott Maddox showed a knack for doing things on his terms. He was a premier defensive outfielder who had just begun to show […]

Picture this: You are standing in a dugout in St Louis. It is the seventh game of the World Series. The team you have managed for most of the year is nursing a 3-2 lead over the home Cardinals as you enter the bottom half of the sixth inning. Your ace pitcher, the eventual Cy […]

The iconic main entry of Ebbets Field was located at the intersection of Sullivan Place and Cedar Street (later renamed McKeever Place). (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   On an October afternoon in the 1950s, while the Dodgers prepared for the first game of the World Series, an elderly man walked into Ebbets Field. On the surface […]