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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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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,” […]

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 […]

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 […]

Ulysses “Tony” Lupien played just four full major league seasons, but he made a lasting impact on baseball through his pioneering player-rights efforts after World War II and his development of college players as baseball coach at Dartmouth College for more than twenty years. As a lefthanded-hitting first baseman in the 1940s, Lupien displayed remarkable […]

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. […]

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 […]

When baseball fans reflect on the great Oakland Athletics teams from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, there is a lot to recall. Three straight pennants (1988-1990) and one world championship (1989) is a good start. Teams do not put together those types of seasons without a solid core of players. A starting rotation […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Cy Block was never shy about speaking up for himself. When he thought he had been wronged, which was often, he went straight to the top. At different times he confronted Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, National League President Ford Frick, and Dodgers President Larry MacPhail over his disputes with baseball management. His voice carried as […]

The Southern Tier Expressway does not lend itself to reflection or nostalgia. The six-lane divided highway breaks off from Interstate 81 in Binghamton, New York, and heads west, offering drivers — when construction allows — the fastest possible route to Elmira, Corning, the Finger Lakes, and other destinations in the Empire State’s southern and western […]