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Offensive firepower made the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds favorites to capture the first NL West crown in the inaugural season of division play in 1969. The heavy-hitting teams looked to profit from baseball’s decision to lower the height of the mound from 15 to 10 inches to increase scoring after the “Year of […]

The New York Mets and Kansas City Royals squared off for the fourth game of the 2015 World Series on October 31. Noah Syndergaard had fired up the Mets with his solid performance in Game Three. It was now Steve Matz’s turn to take the mound. This was a dream come true for the left-hander. […]

The last Saturday in August of 1963 brought an afternoon match at the Met between the Minnesota Twins and the visiting Chicago White Sox. An announced crowd of 23,415 came out to the ballpark for this, the second of a three-game series. Minnesota, at 75-58, had won three in a row and six of its […]

Momentum in the 2020 World Series had swung back and forth through the first three games. Tampa Bay tied the Series in the second game but lost to the Dodgers in Game Three to fall behind again. Now they were looking to swing the pendulum back in their favor in the fourth game. Tampa was […]

On a warm Sunday August evening,1 the hot first-place Atlanta Braves (66-39) were visiting the last-place St. Louis Cardinals (42-63)2 in the final game of a three-game series that pitted two close friends as mound opponents. The strike-delayed start to the 1995 season meant that each team had played only 105 games to this point […]

Washington Post columnist and author Thomas Boswell once wrote, “There are oceans of consolation, seas of restored appetite, in as humble a thing as a baseball season.”1 No truer were these words than when 45,274 Washington Nationals fans returned to Nationals Park for Opening Day 2013. Entering the 2018 season, only once had more fans […]

Harmon Killebrew clouted 573 home runs in his 22-year big-league career, but few were more dramatic than his walk-off, two-run smash with two outs in the ninth inning to give the Minnesota Twins an exciting victory over the New York Yankees, 6-5, on Sunday, July 11, 1965, at Metropolitan Stadium. “The scene could have been […]

In January 1949, the St. Louis Cardinals sold right-hander Murry Dickson, a mainstay since their glory years earlier in the 1940s, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $125,000. Dickson defeated his former club five times in eight decisions that season, with one victory especially harmful to St. Louis’s championship aspirations. His complete-game 7-2 win at Pittsburgh’s […]

In 1925 the American League experienced a rebirth at shortstop with four ripe players taking their first stabs at a major-league career. Among them was 27-year-old, pint-sized Jackie Tavener of the Detroit Tigers, who had been once deemed too small to play in the majors but battled back up the ranks to become a fixture […]

The 2021 All-Star Game shined a national spotlight on the Los Angeles Angels’ Shohei Ohtani, who not only was the American League’s starting pitcher, but also led the major leagues in home runs going into the game, with 33. Comparisons have been made to Babe Ruth, who won 89 games as a pitcher with the […]

The New York Mets were hosting the Miami Marlins for their home opener. Both teams had won only one game in the young season, although the Marlins had lost five and the Mets two.1 After a 2020 season of fanless games with piped-in crowd noise, even a limited-capacity crowd of 8,4922 fans was a welcome […]

“His reputation is that of a driving, spirited leader who at all times has evidenced an interest in the boy’s future, rather than furthering any ambitions he might have had for himself.” With those words in The Sporting News, columnist John Steadman introduced George Staller as the latter joined the Baltimore Orioles’ coaching staff in […]

Bob “Bucky” Oldis wasn’t an All-Star, or even a journeyman major leaguer, but he had much more than just a “cup of coffee.” He was a true lover of the game who liked to have fun. Along the way, he played in 135 games, hit a major-league home run, got three hits in one game, […]

If you never heard of Harry Lochhead, that is very understandable. The shortstop’s big-league career was brief and his statistics mostly unimpressive, though he led the hapless 1899 Cleveland Spiders with 148 games played and played briefly as the keystone partner of Nap Lajoie in 1901. Harry would have had some dazzling tales for his […]

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 […]

Understanding is shrouded by the passage of more than a century, but it is still difficult to figure out what the St. Louis Cardinals saw in minor-league outfielder Ody Abbott. During five professional seasons, Abbott had established himself as a capable fly-catcher, but had proved unable to hit even Class C-level pitching. Still, in August […]

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. […]

Rene Descartes: “I think; therefore, I am.” Steve Stone stepped off the mound, mopped his brow, and took a long look at the crowd in the stands. “This is nice,” he said to himself. But it wasn’t always this way for Stone. For some time, he had struggled to find himself as a pitcher and […]

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 […]

A big man with a famous scowl and a name that felt ripped from a James Bond film, Mo Vaughn was a hulking 6-foot-1, 225-pound lefty hitter whose frame dangled over home plate. Baseballs seemed to disintegrate on impact when he exploded out of his crouched stance, extending one arm to the sky on his […]

Somewhere, back in the swirling mists of time, there existed a magical and wondrous age when aspiring athletes did not commit their lives to the fanatical and single-minded pursuit of one sport by the time they were five years old. Take, for instance, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, who were notable for having a number of […]

Right-hander Chuck Rainey was a first-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox, the 19th pick overall in the January 1974 draft. A little more than five years later, he broke into the big leagues with Boston, pitching for the Red Sox, Cubs, and Oakland Athletics in a major-league career that lasted six seasons. Red […]

Over a major-league career that lasted 10 seasons, Elden Auker played for Hall of Fame managers Bucky Harris, Mickey Cochrane (who called him “Mule Ears”), and Joe Cronin (who severely limited Auker’s effectiveness by calling, from his shortstop position, each pitch Auker was to throw). Auker was a teammate of Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg, Charlie […]

From 1902 through 1911, Walter Schlichter owned the Philadelphia Giants, the finest African American team of the era. Schlichter was white, the Philadelphia Item’s sporting editor, and had previously managed boxers, not ballplayers. Yet with Sol White he formed a persevering, successful partnership. Competition, alignment with more powerful forces, an ill-advised secondary baseball venture, and finally a break […]