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From 2010 through 2017, Daniel Nava played in 589 major-league games (for five different teams), but the high point of his entire career came on the very first pitch he saw. He hit it for a grand slam, only the second player in major-league history to accomplish such a memorable feat.1  By the time his […]

George McQuillan was the Doc Gooden of the Deadball Era. In 1908 he enjoyed one of the best rookie seasons in history, going 23-17 for the mediocre Phillies with a sparkling 1.53 ERA in nearly 360 innings of work (in 1985 the young Gooden posted an identical ERA). An unusually fast worker even in an […]

A steady, left-handed pitcher can always find employment in baseball. Bob McClure was armed with a tremendous competitive spirit and a deceptive curveball. He turned his talent into 19 major-league seasons. “Bob Uecker told me that if I were right-handed I would have been digging ditches 10 years ago,” McClure said.1 After his playing days, […]

A league pennant was squarely on the line under the brutal Mexican sun on September 5, 1938. A team known as Agrario, led by the legendary Satchel Paige, battled Aguila for the championship of the summertime Mexican circuit, a league recently strengthened by the importation of such frontline Negro League stars as Josh Gibson, Ray […]

The first European-trained major leaguer was Wilhelmus Abraham Remmerswaal, known simply as “Win.” The pitcher from the Netherlands made his nickname come true three times in 22 appearances for the Boston Red Sox in 1979-80. He played just one more season in Triple-A after that, then spent five years pitching in Italy. Red Sox fans […]

Buddy Hassett was a New York boy who played for two of his hometown teams and almost made the trifecta. The first baseman had two distinctions: his ability to put the bat on the ball and his tenor voice. “The Bronx Thrush” would sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” at the drop of a leprechaun. […]

A.J. Bushong was better known as Doc or Bush in baseball circles. The Bush nickname is self-explanatory. The doctor reference denotes his degree in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained the degree early in his major-league career but only dabbled at the profession until his baseball career ended nearly a decade later. As […]

Mark Leiter was a right-handed pitcher who appeared in 335 games over 11 major-league seasons between 1990 and 2001 (1990-1999, 2001). He started 149 games and appeared in relief 186 times. Leiter pitched for eight clubs: the New York Yankees (1990), Detroit Tigers (1991-1993), California Angels (1994), San Francisco Giants (1995-1996), Montreal Expos (1996), Philadelphia […]

As a baseball coach at Army, Eric Tipton amassed a record of 234-201-5 during the years 1958 through 1977. Tipton, known in the big leagues as Duke or Blue Devil, debuted on June 9, 1939, for the Philadelphia Athletics, as an outfielder. He played in 501 games for Philadelphia and the Cincinnati Reds from 1939 […]

Joe Burke broke into baseball with help from his wife, and spent the rest of his life in the game. He was involved in the business side of the game in both the minor and major leagues, and is best remembered as general manager and president of the Kansas City Royals teams that won six […]

Bob Scherbarth was a catcher for the Red Sox. He played in just one major-league game — and never did get the opportunity to bat. His “cup of coffee” came on April 23, 1950, in the first game of a doubleheader against the PhiladelpJoe McCarthyhia Athletics. “I went up there for a month,” he recounted […]

A vital part of the Boston Red Sox teams of the 1950s and early 1960s, Ivan Martin “Ike” Delock, a gritty right-handed pitcher, was born, in Highland Park, Michigan. A Marine Corps veteran, he compiled an 84-75 record in a career which, with the exception of a one-month stint with the Baltimore Orioles in 1963, […]

Gonzalo Márquez, one of the earlier Venezuelans in the majors, never played a full year in “The Show.” From 1972 through 1974, he got into just 76 regular-season games with Oakland and the Chicago Cubs. Márquez’s primary position was first base, and he was a good fielder — but he lacked power. Across his entire […]

On Monday night, May 19, 1986, the Boston Red Sox hosted the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park. The first-place Red Sox had defeated the Texas Rangers on Sunday in a stunning 10-inning finish. As Yogi Berra once said, it was déjà vu all over again on Monday, as Boston again rallied and won in walk-off […]

“Yesterday the hazardous feat of playing a match of base ball upon skates was accomplished by the Atlantic and Charter Oak Base Ball Clubs. What next?”— Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 5, 1861   “Play was lively and exciting,” reported the New York Times, “not as much difficulty being experienced from the use of skates by […]

Mark Brouhard was a moon-faced reserve outfielder with some power and limited playing time for the Brewers in 1982. But in Game Four of the American League Championship Series against the California Angels, Brouhard was a hero. He drove in three runs with a single, double, and a home run, and scored an ALCS-record four […]

For the third straight year, the New York Yankees were not headed to the postseason. According to Jim McCulley of New York’s Daily News, the 1946 Yankees (82-65) were “stoically situated in third place and going no place else.”1 The Philadelphia Athletics (49-97) were finishing in last place for the second consecutive campaign (and sixth […]

It was an inauspicious game. Both the Orioles and the Washington Senators were fighting to stay out of the cellar. The Orioles finished the season 57-97 in seventh place while the ever-struggling Senators finished 53-101. Orioles manager Paul Richards tried out rookies in quick succession during the last part of the season in an attempt […]

A sellout crowd packed Fenway Park and then waited 20 minutes for the rain to subside. Not a long wait to honor a man who had spent 23 years donning a Red Sox uniform. When he started in 1961, Carl Yastrzemski was just a kid charged with the unenviable task of replacing Ted Williams in […]

“[W]ith his great right arm in splendid order,” gushed the New York Sun, Amos Rusie “proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is still the best pitcher in America.”1 The praise came pouring in for the Hoosier Thunderbolt, making his first appearance on the mound for the New York Giants in more than […]

It was a team effort. It took 21 Red Sox players to win the game but win it they did. This was win number 97 of the 2018 season, when Boston set a franchise record with 119 wins, 108 of them in the regular season, and won the World Series, their fourth world championship of […]

Discerning Beaneaters fans had a choice on Friday, May 19, 1893. Should they skip that afternoon’s game with the Brooklyn Bridegrooms because of the threatening weather or risk getting wet to see their heroes take on Ed Stein, the young season’s hottest pitcher? A 27-game winner the prior year, Stein, after dropping his first start, […]

Negro League historian James A. Riley wrote about Satchel Paige, “A mixture of fact and embellishment, Satchel’s stories are legion and form a rich array of often-repeated folklore.”1 There is truth in the assertion that a lot of myth-making has been involved in constructing Paige’s life story: however, as Riley also noted, “The stories are […]

The years have not been particularly kind to Altoona, Pennsylvania. When the Pennsylvania Railroad crumbled after World War II, Altoona crashed down right along with it. The smokestacks and hulking railroad shops are almost all gone now, replaced by the garish lights of the chain restaurants and strip malls that seem to stretch into infinity. […]