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The New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds faced off in Game Two of the best-of-five National League Championship Series on October 7, 1973, at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. The first game had been a heartbreaker for the Mets. Tom Seaver went the distance but lost when Johnny Bench hit a game-winning home run in the bottom […]

During the 2017 baseball season, the Chicago Cubs surpassed 8,000 regular-season games played at Wrigley Field. The season included the raising of the team’s first World Series championship gained while calling Wrigley Field home. A century earlier, the Cubs played their first game at Wrigley (then called Weeghman Park), to a packed Chicago crowd that […]

On the afternoon of April 20, 1886, some 3,500 fans gathered in Eclipse Park to see if the homestanding Louisville Colonels could capture a third straight victory in the season-opening series against the visiting Cincinnati Reds. Hometown hopes were pinned on promising youngster Tom “Toad” Ramsey, a left-handed fireballer with a “puzzling drop curve.”1 But […]

The Atlanta Braves were grinding down the upstart Washington Nationals’ NL East lead 84 games into the 2005 season, eager to regain their accustomed first-place perch. Atlanta had won the division every year a pennant had been awarded since their stunning “worst to first” 1991 season.1 They had just ridden Horacio Ramirez’s complete-game three-hitter and […]

Jacob DeGrom was on his way to becoming the ace of the New York Mets pitching staff in 2015, just his second year in the majors. His 2.54 ERA and 205 strikeouts were the best on the team. DeGrom also played a key role in the postseason as he went 3-1 during the Mets’ march […]

The city of St. Louis was ecstatic that it would get to host at least two games of the 61st World Series during its bicentennial year. In addition to thrusting the Midwestern metropolis itself into the spotlight, “two sons of St. Louis,” Johnny Keane and Yogi Berra, were managing the Cardinals and New York Yankees […]

The 1973 season was not going as envisioned by Cincinnati Reds players and fans. Not only was the team in danger of not successfully keeping the National League pennant or even the NL West Division title in the Queen City,1 but on July 1 the Reds stood just two games over .500. Cincinnati had finished […]

At the start of Game Three, Brooklyn fans draped a large banner from the railing of the center-field bleachers that read, “We waited 21 years, don’t fail us now.” The sheet proclaimed its message proudly throughout Games Three and Four. But by late in Game Five, the banner was sagging and unreadable, an apt metaphor […]

Granted, it was only the first week of the 1951 season, but the Washington Senators, perennial denizens of the American League second division, were perched atop the standings as they hosted the defending world champion New York Yankees on Saturday, April 21. The Senators were 4-0 with a pair of road wins at Philadelphia to […]

Leading the Texas Rangers to an 8-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians on July 23, 1985, Oddibe McDowell had a “host of rookie dreams”1 come true. Before a home crowd of 8,985 at Arlington Stadium, the 22-year-old center fielder delivered a 5-for-5 performance and became the first Ranger to hit for the cycle. He tied […]

“I’ve played in pain before, but this hurt me just to blink.”1 That was how Philadelphia Phillies backup catcher Mike Ryan characterized the experience of playing through 15 innings with a severe back spasm he sustained while pulling on his sanitary socks before the July 26, 1971, game against the Houston Astros. But as Philadelphia’s […]

It took a lot to pry the attention of the baseball world away from New York teams on September 30, 1973. The Yankees played their final game at the original Yankee Stadium, losing to Detroit. And the Mets split a doubleheader with the Cubs to cling to a one-game lead in the National League East. […]

New York’s Penn Station was all hustle and bustle on the sunny afternoon of June 12, 1941. The Brooklyn Dodgers were gathering to board a train bound for Pittsburgh. The trip would then continue west to St. Louis, where a crucial series with the Cardinals awaited the two early rivals in the National League pennant […]

Martin Flaherty was a major-league owner, player, and umpire during the 1880s – sort of. Mostly, he was a fan. For six innings in 1881, he played outfield as an emergency substitute for the Worcesters, a National League team he partly owned. The following season he umpired a single game: the Worcesters’ final nine innings […]

A tremendous all-around athlete who was one of the Deadball Era’s best at fielding his position, Claude Hendrix was a spitball pitcher who posted three 20-win seasons, each with a different team, en route to a lifetime 144-116 record and 2.65 ERA. With a batting average of .241, 13 home runs, and 97 RBIs over […]

Catcher Rick Cerone had an 18-year career in the major leagues (1975-92), but he used his athletic talent and fame well beyond the baseball field. An excellent multiple-sport athlete in his youth, his real love was baseball. Prior to his major-league career, he was a college baseball star, and after his time in the majors, […]

A fill-in catcher in a rookie-loaded lineup for Connie Mack and the World Series-bound Philadelphia Athletics on September 30, 1913, Navy man and “one-hit wonder” Joe Giebel’s only major league appearance would fortuitously occur right in his hometown of Washington, DC. Joseph Henry Giebel was born in Washington, District of Columbia, on November 30, 1891, […]

Unlike Leo Durocher, the man he replaced as Brooklyn Dodgers manager for the 1947 season, Burt Shotton was no gruff, umpire-baiting field general. He was instead a calm, serious baseball lifer who, like the more illustrious Connie Mack, wore his street clothes in the dugout during his tenure in Brooklyn. His quiet demeanor did not […]

Burleigh Arland Grimes, who pitched in four games for the St. Louis Cardinals at the beginning of the 1934 season, was born on August 18, 1893, on his parents’ dairy farm about halfway between the towns of Emerald and Clear Lake in northwestern Wisconsin. (Wisconsin records indicate he was born in Emerald, but he always […]

Adonis Terry debuted in the first major- league game played by the franchise that became the Dodgers and saw the start of his last game delayed by an electrical fire in a doomed grandstand. During the 13 years in between, the tall, mustachioed right-hander threw two no-hitters, earned two pennant-clinching victories, won three World Series […]

Baseball fans who watched Chet Lemon during his 16-year major-league career likely recall the speedy outfielder racing across the field at Comiskey Park or Tiger Stadium to track down a line drive headed for the gap. Just as likely, they can still see him diving headlong into first base or getting hit by a pitch. […]

Hailed as the next Robin Yount, Julio Franco debuted with the Cleveland Indians in 1983. Franco came to the Indians from the Philadelphia Phillies as part of a five-player deal for Von Hayes. Expected to be the Phillies’ shortstop of the future, Franco had found himself without a regular chance to play when the Phillies […]

Cy Falkenberg was perhaps the most unlikely pitching star of the Deadball Era. Nothing special for most of his career, he developed a deadly emery ball at age 32 in 1913, and rocketed to the forefront of major league pitchers. “Falkenberg has upset all possible existing dope, has broken preconceived notions into a million scattered […]

In 1957, Valmy Thomas became the first man from the U.S. Virgin Islands to play in what were then classified as the major leagues. Since Thomas was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, some gave Joe Christopher this honor, but it really belonged to Thomas — until December 2020, when the Negro Leagues were recognized as […]