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In the first 150 years of professional baseball, more major leaguers came from Pennsylvania than any state but California.1 Only one — John “Brode” Shovlin — was born in the tiny coal-mining town of Drifton.2 A diminutive middle-infielder with only 18 games spread over nine years and a .209 career batting average, Shovlin went eight […]

Manuel García Carranza was born in Manacas, Las Villas, Cuba on December 28, 1905. Little is known about his youth and family background, as is often the case with Cubans of bygone generations. García started playing weekend baseball games in his late teens for the Central Washington (Washington Sugar Mill). There, a promoter known today […]

John Alexander “Bid” McPhee, baseball’s greatest second baseman of the 19th century, was born on November 1, 1859, in Massena, New York, the fourth among five children of a saddle-maker. When he was seven, his family moved to the Mississippi River town of Keithsburg, Illinois, a small hamlet of 1200 inhabitants. Keithsburg was the birthplace […]

A stocky 5’8″ right-hander who threw one of the wettest spitballs in baseball history, Harry Howell was the St. Louis Browns’ best pitcher during the Deadball Era, establishing a franchise record for career ERA (2.06) that has never been equaled. Howell learned his singular pitch from spitballing legend Jack Chesbro in 1903, and subsequently relied […]

“I realized that this was a short-lived career, and I did something to prepare myself for what was to come later. I never spent a winter without doing something constructive.  I never played winter ball. I went to school or I took courses in advertising, radio and TV production.  I even took books on the […]

Over his 16 major league seasons, Stan Bahnsen was a regular rotation starter, a workhorse in a three-man rotation, a closer for a while, and finally an all-purpose reliever and spot starter. Fans at the University of Nebraska named him “The Bahnsen Burner” for his blazing fastball; later in his career he would be “Stanley […]

Life has its defining moments. For many ballplayers, the remembered moments come from first appearances to championship wins and include everything in between. But the life of a ballplayer is often defined by moments off the playing field and away from the crowds. A defining moment in the life of young Todd Stottlemyre came when […]

There exists a long list of forgotten nineteenth-century baseball stars who played during the game’s formative stages and under relative anonymity besides being a name in a newspaper. While the game was fundamentally the same, it was evolving in an era that saw many rule changes and ballparks with vastly varying dimensions. There were no […]

Tom Alston tried to hit big-league pitching while hearing voices, battling chronic fatigue, and carrying the weight of being a racial pioneer in a Jim Crow city. Alston, the first African-American player for the St. Louis Cardinals, spent most of his life in torment and poverty. He never escaped the grip of mental illness that […]

By some standards, Ed Swartwood toiled in relative obscurity, playing nearly his entire career in the American Association, an under-appreciated major league in the 19th century. Even the teams he played on weren’t impressive. During the league’s inaugural season, 1882, he came up with the Pittsburg Alleghenys, a poor club during his three summers there. […]

The game meant nothing. Well, virtually nothing. The Detroit Tigers were ending a three-game series in Cleveland looking for a sweep after taking the first two contests. But that was all that Detroit was playing for on August 14, 1958. The Tigers and Indians were playing out the string, holding down fourth and fifth place […]

Best known as the host of the 1960 television series, Home Run Derby, Mark Scott’s career encompassed acting, serving as a television broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds in 1956, and five-seasons (1952-55; 1957) as the radio play-by-play voice of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Scott was born Samuel Marks Solomon on February […]

As the 1929 season began, the Chicago Cubs were in trouble.  They were without the services of their starting catcher, 28-year-old Gabby Hartnett, whose arm had gone dead.  While Hartnett would eventually regain his throwing abilities, he played in only 25 games that year, just one as a catcher.1 Initially, 38-year-old Mike Gonzalez and Earl […]

Jackie Robinson’s theft of home plate in Game One of the 1955 Fall Classic is widely considered one of the most electrifying moments in World Series history. Standing in the batter’s box as Robinson broke for home was Brooklyn Dodgers pinch-hitter Frank Kellert, who saw up close New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s tag, one […]

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 […]

Prior to the start of Game Seven of the 1964 World Series, Cardinals starter Bob Gibson grudgingly obliged the press by posing for pictures with his mound opponent, the Yankees’ Mel Stottlemyre. By this time in the Series, Gibson was running on fumes; after his 10-inning, complete-game victory in Game Five, he had commented, “I […]

The year 1959 was one Ted Williams may have wished he could forget. He suffered a really bad crick in his neck during spring training in Arizona. It turned out to be a pinched nerve and he was in traction for three weeks.1 He didn’t get into a game until May 12, when he went […]

George Culver was feeling sick. “I had an upset stomach,” said the 25-year-old right-hander in his first season with the Cincinnati Reds. “I felt lousy, real weak and listless.”1 Not only bothered by nausea and a loss of appetite, the converted reliever suffered from a terribly ingrown toenail. I had to get a shot of […]

The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves played Game Five of the 1993 National League Championship Series on October 11 in Atlanta after splitting the first four games. The favored Braves, who won 104 games during the regular season to secure their third consecutive NL West Division title, had outscored the Phillies 27-13 during those first […]

It was a delightful morning on April 4, 1994, when the Colorado Rockies and defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies began batting practice on Opening Day at Mile High Stadium in Denver. The temperature was near 70 degrees,1 but weather reports called for falling temperatures, with wind and snow developing before the end of the […]

On October 4, 1969, nearly 40,000 fans filed into Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for the first-ever American League Championship Series. Beginning in 1969 the American and National Leagues were separated into two divisions, East and West. At the end of the season, each division winner would square off in a best-of-five series to decide who […]

After Game One of the 1935 World Series, Detroit’s playing manager, Mickey Cochrane, shared, “You’ll go a long time until you see better pitching than that Warneke tossed at us this afternoon.”1 Cochrane knew of what he spoke firsthand, having gone 0-for-4 including three taps back to Lon Warneke. Warneke’s performance was outstanding; he shut […]

Hours after 44-year-old Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks failed to notch his 295th career win on September 1, 2008, 42-year-old Greg Maddux of the Los Angeles Dodgers won his 354th, tying Roger Clemens for eighth all-time. With Arizona slated to visit Los Angeles for a pivotal three-game series the next weekend, the prospect loomed […]

The expansion Montreal Expos had finally developed their first Canadian player. In an attempt to find a major gate attraction, the fledgling team had signed 18 Canucks − 14 of whom were pitchers − in their first six years.1 None of them panned out until 21-year-old Larry Landreth walked out to the mound on September […]