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The visiting White Sox (40-26) were leading the American League by 4½ games over Detroit. The Orioles at 32-35 were tied for seventh, 8½ games back. The Orioles sent Steve Barber (4-7, 4.04 ERA), the wild left-hander, to the mound. In his 13 games so far in 1967, he had allowed 38 hits … and […]

Philadelphia Athletics rookie Bobby Shantz hurled nine innings of no-hit ball in a relief appearance on May 6, 1949, a feat not seen since 1917, when the Boston Red Sox’ Ernie Shore took the ball from an ejected Babe Ruth to complete baseball’s “imperfect perfect game.” Shantz had made his major-league debut for Connie Mack’s […]

The San Diego Padres (7-18) and the defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies (10-14) were both in last place in their divisions less than a month into the 1994 season when San Diego arrived in Philadelphia to open a three-game series on the first Monday in May. There may have been some lingering bad blood […]

A Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Comiskey Park pitted the hometown Chicago White Sox against the visiting Boston Red Sox. A crowd of 37,281 was on hand to watch the White Sox attempt a four-game sweep of last-place Boston. Just one week earlier (June 19), “the White Sox were encased in gloom”1 after a four-game losing […]

“I guess it shows they play ball in that other league too.” — National league manager Fred Hutchinson 1   Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted the best of baseball on July 30, 1962, in front of a crowd of 38,359. The All-Star Games had started back in 1933 when the players congregated on Chicago’s South Side […]

After competing for the 1948 National League pennant before finishing in fourth place, the Pittsburgh Pirates, on January 29, 1949, purchased right-hander Murry Dickson from the St. Louis Cardinals for $125,000 in an effort to improve their pitching staff for the 1949 season.  Regarded as one of the craftiest pitchers in baseball, Dickson had made […]

The St. Louis Cardinals had been favored to win the 1934 World Series. But after dropping Game Four to the Detroit Tigers in a humbling beat-down, 10-4, the Series was tied at two games apiece and the status of the Cardinals’ de-facto leader, Dizzy Dean, was uncertain. Had momentum swung in favor of the Tigers? […]

St. Louis Cardinals great Bob Gibson hurled a high fastball from the Busch Stadium mound at 8 P.M. on July 17, 1974. César Geronimo, the Cincinnati Reds’ lithe centerfielder, swung and missed, making him the 3,000th strikeout victim in Gibson’s Hall of Fame career. Only the Washington Senators’ Walter Johnson had ever fanned that many […]

The “first-place Washington Senators” may seem like an oxymoron, but that was exactly the scenario when the undefeated Senators visited Yankee Stadium for a two-game series in April 1955. In Washington’s Griffith Stadium the day before, the Senators had defeated the Baltimore Orioles 12-5. The New York weather hovered around the 80-degree mark in mid-April, […]

Jackie Robinson never thought the abuse would happen in New York City. He was accustomed to receiving this kind of racial vilification — the vitriol and vulgarity heaped on him simply because of the color of his skin — in the Jim Crow South, where blacks, if not inured to the humiliation, at least knew […]

Matty Alou was the middle of three Dominican-born brothers who came up with the San Francisco Giants in the early 1960s. He joined older brother Felipe on the Giants roster in 1960, and three years later, their younger brother Jesús arrived. On September 10, 1963, the three brothers made history when, for the first time, […]

When the Baltimore Orioles hosted the Louisville Colonels for an American Association doubleheader at Oriole Park on June 17, 1889, the visitors hadn’t won a game in almost four weeks. After defeating Baltimore on May 21, the Colonels had lost 20 straight, more than any other Association or National League team. Louisville’s 19th and 20th […]

When the New York Giants visited Philadelphia’s Baker Bowl to begin a three-game series with the Phillies on May 31, 1923, the two teams were polar opposites. Since 1917 the Giants had posted winning records, having finished first three times and no worse than second place and winning the World Series in 1921 and 1922. […]

“When going through hell, keep running” – Winston Churchill1 “Beware of advice from experts, pigs and members of Parliament” – Kermit the Frog2   Mickey Cochrane was going through hell as he rounded the bases on his June 4 inside-the-park grand slam against the Philadelphia A’s in Shibe Park. He made it home, but he […]

The 1969 Chicago White Sox didn’t fare well in other teams’ ballparks. En route to an American League-worst 27-54 road record, the team went 1-8 in Minnesota, 1-5 in Washington and New York, and 3-6 in Oakland, Seattle, and Kansas City.1 The White Sox did find one travel stop where they not only emerged undefeated […]

A new baseball season was beginning in Baltimore. It brought lots of promise as the Orioles opened their new ballpark at Camden Yards. The ballpark was located in the heart of downtown with the historic B&O warehouse beyond right field and the Baltimore skyline behind that. It provided a link between the old and new […]

Developing a passion for umpiring began at a young age for Dave Phillips, and baseball was simply in his family’s DNA. His parents met on a St. Louis baseball field in the 1930s while his mother, Helen Creamer, was playing softball and his father, Bob Phillips, was umpiring her games. Their son grew up to […]

Albert Anthony “Albie” Lopez, of Mexican heritage, was born in Mesa, Arizona, on August 18, 1971, the oldest child of Albert and Gloria Lopez. The elder Albert owned a construction business. Although Albie learned the basic skills of his father’s trade, he showed little interest in pursuing it. His love and focus was always baseball. […]

James Bernard Driscoll was born in the midst of World War II on May 14, 1944, in the town of Medford, Massachusetts, about three miles northwest of downtown Boston. He was the second-born of Joseph and Kathleen (O’Keefe) Driscoll, longtime residents of the Boston area. Joseph and Kathleen would ultimately produce a family of nine […]

Recalled from the minor leagues near midseason by the Cincinnati Reds in both 1974 and 1975, Tom Carroll was a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher who began his career by winning his first four decisions as a starter in 1974. With the Big Red Machine cruising in 1975, Carroll’s four wins helped stabilize the staff when their […]

Scrap Iron: the punchy, evocative nickname fit Phil Garner well in the 1970s and ’80s — but it fit catcher Clint Courtney even better a generation before. The punchy part was one reason. Journalist Bob Addie wrote in 1959, “Clint put his aggressive temperament to work several times and was involved in some notable fisticuffs […]

Chicago Cubs fans who are old enough will remember Walt Moryn as the blond, 6-foot-2, 205­-pound Minnesota native who roamed the Cubs outfield from 1956 to 1960. The burly, left-handed-hitting slugger, known affectionately as “Moose,” averaged 20 home runs a season for a team that never won as many games as it lost. For most […]

“A big, hard thrower with a ton of guts, `Sut’ was never mistaken for a wallflower. He had one thing going for him right away too: He wasn’t afraid to challenge hitters and didn’t back away, even if he made a mistake with a pitch. He was a very quick learner.” — Rick Monday, Dodgers […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 19, in 1999.   The whole history leading up to Jackie Robinson has usually been that an electric light went on in the head of the noble Branch Rickey one morning and he ended baseball discrimination.” As the lean, white-haired Lester Rodney speaks in […]