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Kirk Rueter admitted that he was “scared to death” when he made his big-league debut for the Montreal Expos on July 7, 1993.1 The 22-year-old soft-tossing southpaw had good reason to be nervous. Rueter was facing the San Francisco Giants, a team that had bolstered its lineup in the offseason with free-agent superstar Barry Bonds […]

Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright made his first big-league start at Houston’s Minute Maid Park on August 6, 2013, and lasted only an inning. It was about as bizarre a start as one could imagine, in what turned out to be one of the wildest wins of the Red Sox’ 2013 World Series championship […]

For nearly two months in the summer of 1981, major-league stadiums were empty. On June 12, after a year of negotiations failed to produce an agreement on the structure of baseball’s free-agent compensation system, the players voted to strike. With the work stoppage still in progress on July 14, the All-Star Game was postponed. Instead, […]

More than one football coach has used the adage “A tie is just like kissing your sister.”1 On May 28, 1964, the Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers must’ve felt the same, after their 17-inning, 4-hour and 58-minute marathon at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field ended in a 2-2 tie. This was the longest game of the […]

“This year Columbus is fighting desperately for the lead with Milwaukee. Both teams are traveling at top speed and both are composed of youngsters sensational and veterans reliable, who are trampling upon opposition with no regard for feelings.” — Pittsburgh Press, July 6, 1913   Before a pivotal three-game series at Milwaukee’s Athletic Park from […]

The 1920 American League pennant race was as tight as one could get. Three teams were within a half-game as the middle of August approached. Cleveland (70-40, .636) was in a virtual tie with Chicago (72-42, .632). New York (72-43, .626) was a half-game behind them and breathing down their necks. Cleveland hit the rails […]

It was the 10th game of the 2013 season, with the Tampa Bay Rays (4-5) visiting Fenway Park to play the Boston Red Sox (5-4) on a Saturday afternoon. Friday’s series opener had been rained out, turning a scheduled four-game series into a three-game set. In a battle of left-handers, the starting pitcher for manager […]

Which team was more determined to win? During the Philadelphia Athletics-Boston Red Sox game at Shibe Park on April 29, 1951, the Athletics came back five times to either take the lead or tie the game. It took three different Red Sox hitting home runs in extra innings to outlast the relentless Athletics in 13 […]

After going 28 consecutive innings without scoring a run, the anemic Rangers offense gave starter Pete Broberg a two-run lead in the first inning of their July 16 game against the Cleveland Indians at Arlington Stadium. Broberg eventually allowed Cleveland to tie the score and did not receive a decision for his 8⅓ innings of work. Instead, […]

He wasn’t kin to former Dodger mound greats Dazzy Vance or Sandy Koufax, but Gene “Sandy” Vance1 was a vital component in manager   Walter Alston’s Los Angeles rotation when Bill Singer was lost to unusual circumstances early in the 1970 season. Singer, a 20-game winner for the Dodgers in 1969, was sidelined by infectious […]

Rule 48, Sec. 2: “A fair batted ball that goes over the fence or into a stand shall entitle the batsman to a home run …”1   On the second-to-last day of the 1930 season, the Brooklyn Robins hosted the Boston Braves in a doubleheader at Ebbets Field, and a key hit in Brooklyn’s opening-game […]

When healthy, Eric Davis possessed a rare combination of power and speed, but he could never stay completely healthy in his career. Injuries and inconsistent performance limited Davis to 113 games in his first two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. But in the next five seasons, 1986 to 1990, Davis hammered 148 homers and swiped […]

Detroit’s Bennett Park hosted a four-game series between the Senators and Tigers in mid-July 1909. Detroit won the first three games of the set, with the finale set for Friday, July 16. The Tigers began that day atop the American League, with a 50-28 record. Washington lay in last place, at 23-52. Detroit was pursuing […]

“It’s true, ladies, all true. THE game did last almost until dawn’s early light and your old man was not out on the town, even if he may have looked it.”—Morris Siegel1 Open any book about baseball or any page on the SABR website to reveal myriad ways to contemplate the game. Consider that baseball […]

For 35 seasons, Ed Williamson of the Chicago Cubs held the major-league record for home runs in a season. In 1884, when pitchers tossed from a 4-foot-by-6-foot box, the front of which was located 50 feet from home plate, Williamson walloped 27 round-trippers, during a season in which he and three of his teammates, Fred […]

When the first big-leaguers from the Dominican Republic became All-Stars and competed in the World Series in 1962, Mariano Duncan was in his mother’s womb. He grew up to start one All-Star Game and play for two World Series champions – the 1990 Cincinnati Reds and 1996 New York Yankees. Primarily a middle infielder, Duncan […]

He was known as Shorty, The Rabbit, or sometimes The Mosquito. He used his short stature, his speed, and his pesky nature as a hitter and runner to advantage. These traits earned him the center field slot for one of the best baseball teams in baseball history, the 1906-1908 Chicago Cubs. At 5-foot 6-inches1 and […]

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 […]

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, […]

Jimmy Walsh was among the last natives of Ireland to play in the major leagues. He appeared in 541 games from 1912 to 1917, batting .232 with six homers. He was a member of two American League pennant winners with the Philadelphia Athletics, including the 1913 World Series winners, and he joined the Boston Red […]

A strong, quiet leader. Steady and determined. One of the best minds in baseball. All apt descriptions of the often-overlooked player, coach, and manager Bob Lillis. In 1928, Perry Reed Lillis, born in Michigan, married Lillian Pearl Porterfield, from Oklahoma. The couple had two sons: Jack Howard Lillis, born in 1928, and Robert Perry “Bob” […]

Marc Sullivan started 35 games in 1986 as backup to All-Star catcher Rich Gedman. He made the squad in spring training because of his defensive skills, but many critical Red Sox fans and beat writers would not overlook his offensive shortcomings. He hit only .193, with 23 hits in 119 at-bats, and seemed to be […]

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 […]