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In December 1957 the Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians got together for a headline-making trade. Popular Cuban-born outfielder Minnie Minoso was sent packing to the Tribe, along with utility infielder Fred Hatfield. For Minoso, a five-time All-Star who had turned 32 just days before the deal, it was a homecoming of sorts; he […]
Let’s ponder these statistics for a moment: 187 pitches in a 10-inning complete game, 10 walks and 12 punchouts, one hit batter, at least 13 full counts, bases filled twice, 10 stranded runners, and three outfield flies. Together they produced Cincinnati Reds speedballer Jim Maloney’s no-hitter, arguably the most astounding in big-league history.1 “It was […]
On the afternoon of June 10, 1944, just 3,510 individuals came out to Crosley Field for a contest between the Cincinnati Reds and the league-leading St. Louis Cardinals, who were working toward a third straight pennant. Cincinnati was tied for second place, percentage points behind the Pittsburgh Pirates and 3½ games behind St. Louis. The […]
Philadelphia resident George McFadden was there bright and early. There would be 6,055 games played in the history of Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium decades later), and no one knows how many games Mr. McFadden attended. His claim to fame is that he was the first fan to enter the sparkling new and innovative […]
Many of the 25,884 fans in San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium on August 23, 1986, were looking forward to a postgame concert featuring The Monkees, an iconic rock group of the 1960s on their 20-year reunion tour.1 But the afternoon’s main attraction was a baseball game between the hometown Padres and the visiting Philadelphia Phillies. […]
For Dizzy Trout, the 30-year-old right-hander, no victory had meant so much. Sure, he had posted 98 wins in his seven seasons with the Detroit Tigers, including 20 in 1943 and 27 the following year. But on October 6, 1945, in Game Four of the 1945 World Series against the Chicago Cubs, Trout shined like […]
On April 7, 1989, the movie Major League was released across America. The movie told the fictional tale about a losing baseball team with a recent history of ineptitude and incompetence. The appealing characters and the farcical storyline made for great comedy. Unfortunately, the team that was integral to the plot was an imaginary version […]
The 2012 National League Division Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Nationals featured two teams with something to prove, but for substantially different reasons. The Cardinals were the defending World Series champions. They were facing a Nationals team making its first postseason appearance since moving from Montreal in 2005. The departures of longtime […]
As the Cincinnati Reds hosted the San Diego Padres in a Thursday afternoon matinee, the two teams’ seasons were heading in opposite directions. The Reds were entrenched in first place in the National League Central Division. The Reds had taken over first place on July 13 and won the division championship before losing in the […]
A Sunday crowd of 24,129, including 261 servicemen, “got a double thrill at Forbes Field”1 when the Pittsburgh Pirates swept the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers in a doubleheader on July 15, 1945. The Bucs won the opener, 9-1, and then took the nightcap by a score of 15-3, a game that the New York Daily News […]
“The Grand Old Dame of 7th and Florida, familiarly known as Griffith Stadium, gave up the ghost quietly,” proclaimed sportswriter Bob Addie about the final baseball game in the storied history of the ballpark in the nation’s capital. “There were no eulogies, no ceremonies, no tears.” A sparse crowd of just 1,498 spectators showed up […]
It was hot and humid in Washington when the Detroit Tigers took the field against the Senators for a doubleheader on Sunday, August 27, 1961. They were hoping to make ground on the New York Yankees as they prepared to play a doubleheader. (The second game was a makeup of a rainout on June 21.) […]
In a tight contest that lasted almost five hours on May 28, 1979, the Kansas City Royals defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4, ending what was then the longest game in Royals Stadium history. George Brett launched a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 16th inning to give the Royals their fifth consecutive victory. […]
Rodney Dangerfield is credited with saying, “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.”1 If we replace hockey with baseball, we could get an idea of what happened in Cincinnati on July 22, 1986. In what he termed “the strangest game I’ve ever been in,”2 New York Mets manager […]
As a teenager, Icehouse Wilson modestly aspired to become a draftsman; he did not have high hopes of attending college. Wilson also saw “no future in baseball for himself.”1 Only a few years after graduating from high school, however, he was a college football star. And shortly thereafter, Wilson became a major-league baseball player — […]
Curt Flood was a vital cog in the 1964 Cardinals’ world championship run, but that achievement may have been all but forgotten in light of Flood’s subsequent role in the arrival of free agency for baseball players. Curtis Charles Flood was born in Houston, Texas, on January 18, 1938. His parents, Herman and Laura Flood, […]
This slender sidearm righty appeared in just two big-league games, in 1950. Nonetheless his career is more significant than it appears. “Limonar” – so called for the country town where he learned to play ball – was one of the icons of Cuban amateur baseball in its most glorious, romantic, and competitive era, the early […]
Fred Toney was a big, strong, temperamental right-handed pitcher who authored two of the best performances in baseball history. Pitching for the Winchester Hustlers of the Class-D Blue Grass League, the 6-foot-2, 195-pounder tossed a 17-inning no-hitter in 1909. But it was his 10-inning no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs on May 2, 1917, that put […]
“Yes, I knew him. He had huge hands with crooked fingers. He was a catcher, you know.” “Hell Yes, Babe was here. When? I don’t know, maybe on Ben Egan day? No! I don’t recall ever seeing him. No! I don’t know of anyone who did.” “Yes, I knew Ben. A great guy, everyone liked him. He […]
From 1955 through 2003, Clearwater’s Jack Russell Stadium served as the spring-training home of the Philadelphia Phillies. (After he died in 1990, it became Jack Russell Memorial Stadium.) One would surmise that Russell, a right-hander who pitched in 557 games over the course of 15 seasons in the major leagues, must have been quite a […]
After the lefty pitched three games for the 1888 Cleveland Blues, Syracuse-educated Doc Oberlander found his way out west as a federally appointed subagent and physician with the Crow (Apsáalooke) tribe in southeast Montana, and the superintendent of Pryor Creek Boarding School. Hartman Louis Oberlander was born May 12, 1864, along the western shore of […]
If you were going to make a movie of the life of Claude Alfred Thomas, you’d ask Gary Cooper to play the lead. The lanky cowboy actor and the 6’1″ left-handed pitcher bear a striking resemblance in their photographs. Lefty was a professional pitcher for most of 16 seasons, appearing in 644 games, a remarkable […]
To his contemporaries, he was a hard-nosed player, a throwback to earlier days, when players like Ty Cobb played the game as if their lives depended on it. Opponents labeled him “hard-headed” and “red-nosed.” Latinos had their own title for him: El Divino Loco or the Divine Madman. But it was Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster Bob […]
Montreal mayor Jean Drepeau with (from left) John Bateman, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, and Maury Wills on Opening Day in New York, April 8, 1969 (COURTESY OF THE McCORD MUSEUM, MONTREAL) It somehow seemed inevitable when it all came to an end in 2004. Fate didn’t really smile on the ’Spos (Les Expos de Montreal) […]