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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 […]

Stan Williams, a veteran right-hander, stood atop the mound at Metropolitan Stadium in the top of the ninth inning of a 1-0 game with runners at first and second and two out. At the plate stood pinch-hitter Vada Pinson, a dangerous batter and a new arrival in his first month with the Cleveland Indians after […]

When Cardinals right-hander and future Hall of Famer Jesse Haines retired in 1937 after 18 seasons with the club, he held the franchise record for wins (210), innings pitched (3,203⅔), starts (387), and complete games (209), and had helped guide the Redbirds to five NL pennants and three titles. Haines’s pitching records have all since […]

Dave “Beauty” Bancroft made his name primarily on defense during his Hall of Fame career as a shortstop. One of his biggest days as a hitter came on June 28, 1920, when he went 6-for-6 in the New York Giants’ 18-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. Bancroft’s six-hit game […]

The high-powered Cincinnati Reds “collided head-on with [an] immovable object,” declared sportswriter Bill Ford in the Cincinnati Enquirer. That object was St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson, who “reduced the most vaunted offense in baseball to a fistful of beebees,” tossing a four-hit, 10-inning shutout.1 “His fastballs to me never were the same,” complained a […]

It was a battle for fourth place in the NL East – not the most coveted prize. The Cardinals held a half-game lead over the Phillies. St. Louis’s record was 36-33, Philadelphia’s 38-36. To arrive at a similar, middling place, though, the teams took different paths. The Phillies started well. They had winning streaks of […]

On the morning of August 24, 1974, the Boston Red Sox boasted a season-high seven-game lead in the American League East Division over the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles. They possessed the best record in the AL to that point. By September 4, this lead had dissipated, the Orioles – division winners in four […]

It was a year in which the Red Sox had never lost more than three games in a row all season long. And now they had won the first game of the 2018 World Series, 8-4. The Dodgers started the same nine in Game Two. Facing them was David Price, who seemed to have overcome […]

Prior to the start of Game Two of the 1918 World Series, Fred Mitchell, manager of the National League pennant-winning Chicago Cubs, recalled George “Lefty” Tyler’s previous World Series appearance. Mitchell earned his current position at the helm of the Cubs from successful work with his pitchers, especially Tyler, during his tenure in Boston. During […]

Heavy clouds hung over Yankee Stadium before Game Four of the 1978 World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers led the New York Yankees two games to one in the best-of-seven series. Although Graig Nettles’ defensive heroics from the previous night lightened New Yorkers’ moods,1 the afternoon’s forecast for occasional showers and the tarp covering the […]

The New York Yankees still had hopes for an American League wild-card slot when they hosted the Boston Red Sox in a four-game weekend series at Yankee Stadium in September 2013. As the series began, the first-place Red Sox were 7½ games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays and 10 games ahead of the Yankees […]

In his 1984 collection of essays on baseball, Why Time Begins on Opening Day, longtime Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell described the sport’s Opening Day as a “symbol of rebirth”: an opportunity for every team and its fans to start fresh with a 0-0 record, ready to embrace new possibilities and put the previous season […]

To date, there has only been one woman who played baseball with a team of major leaguers in a big-league ballpark. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Murphy and on August 14, 1922, she played for a team of “all-stars” in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Lizzie Murphy’s team beat […]

Johnny Lazor was a ten-year veteran of the minor leagues and a wartime major-league outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, playing for four seasons from 1943 through 1946. Why he never appeared in the ‘46 World Series is a matter of conjecture, but there appear to have been a couple of good reasons. He was […]

Andy Coakley is remembered most as “Lou Gehrig’s coach” in his 37 years as head of Columbia University’s baseball program. But this overlooks his extensive influence on the game. Once a promising right-hander with Connie Mack’s Athletics in the early 20th century, Coakley was also a labor pioneer, a forward-thinking league organizer, a team owner, […]

When Orlando Cepeda stood on the podium in Cooperstown, New York, on July 25, 1999, it is likely that no man had followed a more difficult path to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or that any man was any happier to attain the honor. Cepeda had escaped the slums of Puerto Rico to attain stardom […]

Today we would call Sherry Magee a five-tool player: he could hit, run, field, throw, and hit with power. For more than a decade he was the Philadelphia Phillies’ clean-up hitter and greatest offensive star, setting the all-time team record in stolen bases (387) and ranking among the top ten in almost every other category. […]

In sports, college or professional, individual or team, nothing captures a fan’s interest quite like a streak. This is especially true with baseball. Whether it is a team’s winning or losing streak or a player’s performance within the chalked lines, the fanfare and pressure may build each day. The fervent fan or even the uninformed […]

“The D is silent.” — Jamie Foxx as “Django” in “Django Unchained”   Joe Zdeb probably smiled when he first heard that line because he’s been saying it his entire life. Rare is the article in Zdeb’s early career that doesn’t include some reference to his name. Writers, or Zdeb himself, would typically settle on […]

A speedy, talented and versatile infielder, Sandy Alomar Sr. spent half a century in professional baseball as a player, coach, and manager. That time included 11 full seasons plus parts of four others in the majors from 1964 through 1978. Alomar made the American League All-Star team in 1970 and was a member of the […]

Everyone knows about John Smoltz’s dominance as both a starter and as a reliever. Same with Dennis Eckersley. Little do people know they were hardly the first people to be widely praised at both spots in the pitching staff. Though he started his career as a highly touted starting-pitcher prospect, Jim Slaton eventually moved to […]

As the unofficial but recognized spiritual adviser to the ever-mercurial Manny Ramírez, Ino Guerrero had a distinctive role on the 2004 World Series champion Red Sox.1 Given the nature of the team’s offensive prowess, his official role as batting-practice pitcher would seem to be enough for most people, and yet his role as the attendant […]

On October 10, 1924, Virgil “Zeke” Barnes stood on the mound in Griffith Stadium, poised within tantalizing reach of a rare and coveted prize, just four outs shy of a Game 7 World Series win. Palpably close, but it was not to be. His moment of reckoning came with an improbable, aberrant bounce of the […]

Jersey City, squeezed between Newark Bay and the Hudson River, is a prime metropolis for a ballpark. For 50 years, it had one, an Art Deco edifice débuting in the Depression, thriving for the first half of its life, fading into deep neglect in the 1970s, and succumbing to eventual nullity in the 1980s. Within […]