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Clyde Melno Hatter, whose baseball career was ended by his premature death, was born to Claude Melnow Hatter (the father’s middle name had a “w” at the end while the son’s did not) and Tressie Lay Hatter in Poplar Hills, Jefferson County, Kentucky, on August 7, 1908. He was the last of three children, with […]

Frank Robinson would not want to be remembered as a racial pioneer. He would prefer to be immortalized as a baseball player who conducted his craft to the best of his ability in the field and at the plate. Robinson knew from a young age that he would face his share of obstacles in life. […]

For two years, 5-foot, 9-inch Bob Saverine teamed with 6-foot, 7-inch Frank Howard on the Washington Senators. But, that’s not all. The talented pair, along with several other Senators players, formed a basketball team.1 Prior to the 1968 season, newly named manager Jim Lemon watched as they played an exhibition game and defeated a team […]

Joe Oliver earned his place in Cincinnati Reds lore with a memorable game-winning RBI in the 1990 World Series, but the catcher’s 13-year major-league career (1989–2001) was better defined by his defense and durability behind the plate. He spent the majority of his career in Cincinnati, where he sported the so-called tools of ignorance in […]

Thomas Michael McCarthy was a right-handed pitcher who battled his way through a considerable number of injuries and pitched in the major leagues for the Boston Red Sox (1985) and Chicago White Sox (1988 and 1989). He also toiled through 15 years of minor-league baseball, most of them at the Triple-A level. Though he never […]

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 […]

Rollie Fingers was clearly excited as he caught a leaping Ted Simmons, his catcher, after Fingers struck out Detroit’s Lou Whitaker to nail down the victory and the second-half American League East title for his Milwaukee Brewers in 1981. (The unprecedented split season was devised after the players’ two-month strike was settled.) The Brewers were […]

Hugh Miller was a quiet man with a penchant for strife. His life was a constant seesaw ride—minor-league phenom, big-league flop, decorated war hero, hobbled veteran. His lows were lengthy and commonplace, his highs brief and extraordinary. Miller, born in St. Louis on December 22, 1886, was the second of four sons of John and […]

During the Deadball Era, luck and persistence were nearly as important as talent in determining the ultimate success of a young player. In The Glory of Their Times, Al Bridwell spoke about the breaks that helped him reach the major leagues. Others of more modest talent reached the major leagues through persistence. Dale Porter’s career […]

A lifetime .500 hitter in the major leagues, flawless in the field, Kim Darrell Andrew had a couple of sips of coffee early in the season with the pennant-winning 1975 Red Sox but two years later found himself playing professional baseball in Italy. Andrew was a Californian, born to Elbert L. Andrew and Frances Schandel […]

Before Curt Schilling and the bloody sock in 2004, one player who personified toughness in a Boston Red Sox uniform was Butch Hobson. Hobson’s legacy is that of a power-hitting third baseman who brought a football mentality to the diamond in the way he played through pain and gave every ounce of effort on the […]

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 […]

Frank M. Schulte was the slugging right fielder for the great Chicago Cubs teams of 1906-10. After his first start on September 21, 1904, “Wildfire” remained with the Windy City club until 1916, and outlasted the likes of Mordecai Brown, Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, and Joe Tinker, who by the end of Schulte’s days in […]

The Minnesota Twins belted five home runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to erase a 4-3 deficit and take the rubber game of a three-game series with the Kansas City Athletics, 9-4, before a crowd of 9,621at Metropolitan Stadium. It was the first time an American League team hit five home runs in […]

For most of its 51-year history (1911-1961), Washington’s Griffith Stadium was considered one of the toughest parks in the major leagues to hit a home run in – if not the toughest. To cite one example: In 1924, the year the hometown Senators won their only World Series championship during the club’s 60 years in […]

Only 289 brave souls had the good fortune to see right-hander Tom Drees of the Pacific Coast League’s Vancouver Canadians no-hit the Calgary Cannons at Vancouver’s Nat Bailey Stadium on a cold, damp night on May 23, 1989. At the time, it was the smallest crowd in the Canadians’ 12-season history, according to the Calgary […]

Just over two months of the 1891 season were in the books, and the race for the National League lead was tight. As the month of July began, the New York Giants had a one-game advantage over the Chicago Colts. Two other teams were within six games of the Giants – the Boston Beaneaters and […]

“We won the game, and we went back to the hotel. I woke up at 4 o’clock the next morning, sat up in bed and screamed as loud as I could. I knew I would never have a chance to do that [pitch a perfect game] again.” – Brian Holman1   In May 1989 the […]

The 2001 American League Division Series between the Cleveland Indians and Seattle Mariners headed to Cleveland for Game Three tied one win apiece. The Indians won Game One, 5-0, behind Bartolo Colon’s eight shutout innings and a three-run fourth inning. The Mariners rebounded to take Game Two, highlighted by two two-run clouts in the first […]

Baseball was played at the Olympics for the first time as a demonstration sport at St. Louis in 1904; very little information on this game is available. Further Olympic baseball exhibitions took place in 1912 and 1924. Hoping to make baseball a sanctioned medal event, former major leaguer Les Mann petitioned the Olympic Committee to […]

It took the dual attractions of a Jackie Robinson number-retirement ceremony and a postgame fireworks show to lure the Pirates’ first non-Opening Day sellout crowd since June 5, 1977, to Three Rivers Stadium on July 12, 1997.1 The surprising Bucs, who had been dubbed “The Freak Show” by announcer Greg Brown because of their unexpected […]

In 1892 Colonel Thomas P. Robinson was the 30-year-old owner and manager of Oakland’s entry in the four-team California League. Was he a colonel? Probably not,1 but the press called him “Colonel,” and his team was called the Colonels. The year before, the Oakland Colonels had played home games in Emeryville, about three miles north […]

The 1882 Kingston Leaders, a semiprofessional club sponsored by the Kingston Daily Leader. The newspaper promoted games and rivalries in its own columns, turning the team into recurring civic news. The Leaders went unbeaten in 1882. Front row, from left: Myron Allen, Dick Johnston, J. F. Cloonan, and George Johnston. (Courtesy of the Ulster County […]