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Shortstop Joe Boley played for 11 pennant winners in his first 16 professional seasons. Contemporary observers considered him a key player on the Philadelphia Athletics teams that won three consecutive pennants and two consecutive World Series from 1929 through 1931. Throughout his career, sportswriters described him with superlatives like “brilliant,” “sensational,” “sparkling” and “great.” He […]
Todd Frohwirth was a high school senior with no future in professional baseball until he saw Kent Tekulve on television and tried pitching like the unorthodox right-hander. Eight years later, he was Tekulve’s teammate in the major leagues. Exclusively a reliever, Frohwirth spent parts of nine seasons (1987-1994, 1996) with the Phillies, Orioles, Red Sox, […]
Throughout his 14-year major league career, John Anderson became accustomed to change. As one of the era’s few switch-hitters, one might say he even had a knack for it. From 1894 to 1908, Anderson played for six different franchises in seven different cities. He played for winners, such as the pennant winning 1899 Brooklyn Superbas […]
Jerry Coleman was a true American war hero who played a little baseball for the New York Yankees during the times the Marines did not demand his services. He was the only major-league ballplayer to see combat in both World War II and the Korean Conflict.1 And he saw more than just a little combat […]
In 1909 Joe Bernard was a bookkeeper for Springfield Marine Bank in Illinois, playing baseball two or three games a week for local amateur teams and a semipro club in Gillespie, Illinois. The 27-year-old, 6-foot-1, 175-pound righthander had never played a game in the minor leagues. His chances of ever pitching in the major leagues […]
Taking on the writing of a biography of a man named John Smith seemed to be a daunting undertaking. It is perhaps still the prototypical generic male name in American society, though as the 2010 baseball season got underway the Boston Red Sox had two players named Ramon Ramirez on the 40-man roster and no […]
Lou Piniella was coming home. The Tampa native signed a four-year contract to manage the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on October 29, 2002.1 At the press conference announcing his signing, he said, “For 40 years now, I’ve been packing for spring training. I don’t need to pack anymore.”2 Piniella had successfully managed other teams over […]
On Monday, August 10, 2020, the New York Mets played the Washington Nationals at Citi Field. Entering the game, the Mets were 7-9, unusual given the month, but the COVID-shortened 60-game 2020 season had not begun until July 23. The Mets were a game ahead of the cellar-dwelling Nats, who were defending their 2019 World […]
Acrowd of just over 25,000 filed into Ebbets Field in Brooklyn for Game Three of the 1920 World Series. Others piled onto the rooftops of nearby houses along Bedford Avenue and Montgomery Street.1 “The fans turned out in droves,” wrote the New York Times, “and long after the game started thousands were left outside the […]
The Philadelphia Phillies joined the National League in 1883, and nearly a century later they were still looking for their first championship. They had won pennants in 1915 and 1950 before losing the World Series to the American League champions. They had won NL East Division titles from 1976 through 1978 before losing the National […]
“The outlook wasn’t rosy for the Redland tribe that day; The score was six to nothing with one inning left to play. But in the final session they got busy with their sticks, And when the smoke of battle cleared, the score was nine to six.”1 In New York, the Giants were pulling away […]
The Cincinnati Reds, trailing the Chicago Cubs 9-0 after eight innings in the first game of a September 26, 1912, doubleheader at Chicago’s West Side Park, scored 10 runs in the top of ninth. It would have been the greatest ninth-inning come-from-behind victory in major-league history – except that the Cubs scored two runs of […]
Going into this June 1967 Crosley Field game between San Francisco and Cincinnati, the mound opponents seemed a baseball version of David vs. Goliath. Starting for the visitors was right-hander and five-time All-Star Juan Marichal, then in his eighth season. Only weeks before, after a win against the Dodgers, he had become, “percentage-wise, the top […]
After he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Montreal Royals in the 1946 season opener against the Jersey City Giants left a lasting impression in so many ways. Robinson’s four hits, four runs batted in, and two stolen bases led the Royals’ 14-1 rout. Joseph Sheehan, covering the game for the […]
Photo entitled “Famous Gate City Baseball Club of 1867” appeared in Atlanta Constitution, October 21, 1906, page 26. Left to right: Tom Johnson, Hugh Angier, Jim Gregg, Billy Sparks, Bob Dohme, Willis Biggers, George Cassin, Rube Tidwell and John Collier. In the spring of 1866, a year after the end of the Civil War, […]
Manager Casey Stengel was back at the helm for the fourth consecutive season as the American League took on the National League in the 1953 All-Star Game at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. Stengel’s Yankees had won their fourth consecutive World Series the prior October, and his star young center fielder, Mickey Mantle, was elected by the […]
New York Mets pitcher David Cone was back on the mound facing the St. Louis Cardinals for the second time in a week. Six days earlier in St. Louis, on September 14, Cone and reliever Jeff Innis had combined for the 19th one-hitter in the Mets’ 30-season history, but the Cardinals beat the Mets, 2-1, […]
The Boston Red Sox had the opportunity to sign Jackie Robinson at a supposed tryout at Fenway Park in April 1945.1 Instead, it was more than 14 years later – after every one of the other 15 teams in the American and National leagues had integrated, and after Robinson himself had been retired for nearly […]
On May 16, 1957, “a day after Sandy Koufax lost his bonus-baby status, meaning he could be farmed out by the Dodgers,”1 he and two Chicago Cubs pitchers, Moe Drabowsky and Turk Lown, combined to tie the record for the most strikeouts in a National League game: 23. The record lasted until the Philadelphia Phillies […]
It was “my greatest thrill ever,” said carrot-topped Del Crandall after launching a walk-off home run in the 12th inning to give the Milwaukee Braves a dramatic 2-1 victory over their arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers.1 The 25-year-old backstop had been mired in a terrible slump, hitless in his last 23 at-bats, before his extra-inning heroics made […]
The New York Giants fell to third place in 1955; even so, Willie Mays slammed 51 home runs. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.) After shocking the baseball world in 1954 by defeating the 111-win Cleveland Indians in the World Series, the Giants entered 1955 expecting to contend for another championship. But despite the […]
Only two months had passed since outfielder Lee Walls was traded from Pittsburgh to Chicago,1 and he had not yet become a household name in the Windy City as July 1957 began. On July 2 Walls moved up some in Cubs fans’ eyes as he tried to singlehandedly lead his Chicago teammates to a victory […]
After they swept the Cincinnati Reds in a two-game, mid-July series in Los Angeles, the first-place and eventual 1965 world champion Dodgers’ season turned to the Dog Days of August in hot and humid Cincinnati versus the third-place Reds. The Ohio Rhinelanders were reeling, having begun the month losing five of seven home games including […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) September 2020 Past newsletters Editor: Andrea Long From the Directors The BioProject on Social Media Update on BioProject Submissions From the Editor Local Connections & Chance Encounters, by Jack Zerby Hometown Holmes, by Niall Adler Project Team From the Co-Directors […]