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Following the Pittsburgh Pirates’ loss to the Chicago Cubs on October 1, 2000, 60-year-old Willie Stargell emerged to throw a ceremonial final pitch at the soon-to-be-demolished Three Rivers Stadium. Even though most people who followed the Pirates knew “Pops” was in poor health his frail, spectral appearance that afternoon was shocking. He was almost unrecognizable, […]

Outfielder Román Mejías played in 627 big-league games from 1955 to 1964. Alas, just three of those came with the 1960 Pirates, his one US team that won a pennant. He was not on the roster when Pittsburgh won the World Series that year. Mejías was “an affable, good-natured player …  whose demeanor, humility and […]

“One of the best and most underrated players I have ever seen.” — Joe Morgan, Hall of Famer “A Puerto Rican legend whose brilliance equals that of the stars.” — Honduran sportswriter Greg Moraga   Growing up in Houston in the 1970s and ’80s, every kid idolized Astros left fielder José Cruz. They dreamed of […]

In simple terms, Barry Zito’s baseball story follows an arc much like a curveball — snapping out of his left hand and rising quickly to his profession’s highest achievement, then breaking and tumbling into what he himself has described as “a letdown.”1 Zito spent only a year in the minor leagues and won the American […]

Long ago, baseball crossed the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan. Soon the reserve clause followed. It would reach back from Japan to the U.S. and bite its own tail, like a snake forming a ring that burst into fire–the “Working Agreement.” The first man it trapped was Masanori “Mashi” Murakami, the first Japanese […]

Almost every kid who has ever played baseball fantasizes coming up in the bottom of the ninth inning during the seventh game of the World Series and hitting a home run to win it. As of the 2010 World Series, only one person has ever accomplished this. It occurred on October 13, 1960, at 3:36 […]

In his memoir, former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass extolled the virtues of the non-verbal communication between a catcher and pitcher. “The reality of a pitcher’s relationship with his catcher is that if he is on a roll, he is almost his own decision maker…But Manny knew me just as much psychologically as the nuts […]

In his book The Boys of Summer, author Roger Kahn relates how even after leaving daily 1950s baseball coverage to write for magazines, his “journalistic identity, such as it was, lived with my [New York Herald] Tribune stories” on the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. Robert Frost consoled him, telling Kahn that “nearly everyone has to lead two […]

As of 2023, the total number of men from the US Virgin Islands to reach the major leagues has reached 16 (factoring in a technicality). Yet none has had a better single season with the bat than Joe Christopher. In his finest year, 1964, he hit .300 with 16 homers and 76 RBIs for the […]

Ramón Hernández pitched in 337 big league contests, but he was born in the wrong age. His relatively short nine-season career in the majors (1967-68; 1971-1977) could have been extended had he started playing in the 1990s, when specialized bullpen roles had become more commonplace. Modern strategists would have likely found a way to maximize […]

Pat Kelly played just three games in the majors as a catcher with the 1980 Toronto Blue Jays — but he has survived in professional baseball for 45 years. How has he done it? “He’s just a leader; he’s a player’s coach, which means he relates to the players like he’s a player,” said Zach […]

Three Rivers Stadium; if it wasn’t the most picturesque coliseum in American sports history, it was perhaps one of the most perfectly named. In southwestern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, the county seat of Allegheny County, lies partly in a hilly region known as the Golden Triangle, the location of the city’s business district. For those unfamiliar with […]

The first major-league baseball game this writer ever saw was at the Polo Grounds in New York City on May 24, 1946. Since then he has visited major-league and minor-league parks from Boston to San Diego and many places in between. But he has never seen games anywhere that rival the pageantry of those at […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates visited Crosley Field for a weekend series at a time of turmoil for the Cincinnati Redlegs. Two seasons removed from being named the National League Manager of the Year, skipper Birdie Tebbetts resigned his post on Thursday, August 14. With the Redlegs lingering at or near the bottom of the league, Tebbetts’ […]

Over the course of his 18-year major-league career, Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente recorded 4,514 putouts at the position.1 He earned 266 outfield assists, throwing out that number of baserunners – an average of a little more than 14 per year. As one looks through Clemente’s career, one comes across the occasional game in […]

The last baseball game ever played at the Polo Grounds was the one and only Latin American major league players’ game. The charity benefit match wasn’t close — the National League defeated the American League 5-2, and the AL scored only in the ninth inning. Nor did it have any official status. Nonetheless, it gained […]

The fans at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on a beautiful July night in 1963 saw a total of seven future Hall of Famers in the starting lineups for the first game of a twilight-night doubleheader between the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. The most junior of those Cooperstown-bound players – Pirates rookie left fielder Willie […]

Forty-year-old Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves was only three victories shy of 300 for his career when he faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 22, 1961. Spahn pitched just three innings that day, preventing him from pushing even closer to the magical pinnacle, but he did hit a second-inning blast into Forbes Field’s right-field […]

It took five major-league seasons for Gary Peters to have a breakout year in his career; but when he finally did, he made the most of it by winning Rookie of the Year honors in the American League. One of the first games that propelled him into the spotlight was a 13-strikeout one-hitter, a near-perfect […]

On April 7, 1970, one historic first and one historic last occurred at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. In their ninth try, the New York Mets finally captured their first Opening Day victory, while Forbes Field hosted its final Opening Day after 61 years. The Mets, basking in the glow of their Miracle championship from last year, […]

A two-outcome (walk or strikeout) pitcher in his first major-league start in the twilight game of a doubleheader, Brooklyn’s Sandy Koufax pitched four shutout innings against Pittsburgh before walking in a run in the fifth and leaving the game. The Pirates gained a split by roughing up reliever Ed Roebuck to beat the Dodgers 4-1 […]

“His beautiful swing never varies,” raved Chicago Cubs beat reporter Edgar Munzel about Billy Williams. “[It’s] a marvel of repetitive action. And it doesn’t matter who the pitcher [is].1 In the midst of a torrid streak in 1972, the most productive season of Williams’s Hall of Fame career, the Whistler, Alabama, native’s extra-inning walk-off home […]

Baseball’s All-Star Game was played at Griffith Stadium in 1937 and 1956, and now it was time for another generation of local baseball fans to gather at the new District of Columbia Stadium to watch the feats of the greats. History told us later that the 1962 All-Star Game featured 18 future Hall of Famers.1 […]

At 6:30 A.M. on July 14, 1969, Bill Stoneman was a private first class in the Vermont National Guard, fulfilling military obligations to his country at Camp Johnson in Colchester, just north of Burlington. At 4 P.M., with the day’s duties complete, Stoneman got into his car and headed to another job in another nation […]