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Through the 2020 season, both the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees had three perfect games in club history, tying for the most by a big-league franchise. The Yankees’ first was Don Larsen’s in the 1956 World Series. The Yanks’ Davids – Wells and Cone – threw perfectos in 1998 and 1999 respectively. Charlie […]

The third time’s the charm. After going 0-2 in his first two starts for the 1969 New York Mets, Jerry Koosman reminded fans why he nearly won the previous year’s National League Rookie of the Year voting.1 On April 23, 1969, the sophomore southpaw scored his first “W” of the season with a five-hit, 2-0 […]

Roberto Clemente on Opening Day of the 1960 season. (Courtesy of Dennis Morgan/Pittsburgh Courier Archives.)   An MVP, a Cy Young, two future Hall of Famers and a world championship, the Pittsburgh Pirates presaged all these honors by battering the Cincinnati Reds, 13-0, in their 1960 home opener. Pirates shortstop Dick Groat scored three runs […]

At 11:00 A.M., the rookie pitcher relaxed in a booth on Forbes Avenue. Five hours later he would start the final baseball game at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. James Lorin Nelson recalled that morning: “I remember sitting in McDonald’s having a cup of coffee about a block from the park and watching people going to the park and how […]

By the end of the 1960s, it seemed that the Major League Baseball All-Star Game had turned into an annual exhibition of National League dominance. The senior circuit had won 11 of 13 games during the decade (two games were played in 1960, 1961 and 1962; one game was tied when it was called because […]

The 1974 season was only about two months old. Yet on June 9, two National League teams – the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants – played a game that was a turning point in both of their seasons. The Pirates were on a 12-game road trip against NL West Division clubs. They had […]

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 […]

Max Macon was the top pitching prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system before he blew out his arm in his first spring training appearance. The left-hander, so skinny he could “close one eye and look like a needle,” was the rare pitcher who hit well enough to make a comeback as a position […]

Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Prince was a man of paradox. He was often brash and loud, but tender and caring around the disabled children who meant so much to him; a carefree playboy who enjoyed a drink or two (or three), but a devoted family man who raised two children with his wife of […]

Juan González played in the American League during an era of power hitters like Cal Ripken Jr., Albert Belle, Cecil Fielder, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, and Rafael Palmeiro. Among them, Igor, as he was nicknamed in his native Puerto Rico, excelled, with the high point of his 17-year career in 1998, when he was […]

Estalella was a pudgy, happy-go-lucky sort of a guy who struck people the right way.” — Ossie Bluege1   The 12th player among those in Dave Frishberg’s “Van Lingle Mungo” lyrics lineup is Roberto Estalella, and he is united by rhyme with Danny Gardella, the song’s sixth man.2 There may not have been anything intentional […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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. Only one person has ever accomplished this. It occurred on October 13, 1960, at 3:36 p.m. That was when the Pittsburgh […]

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 Robinson-Kell SABR chapter met Saturday, August 20, 2016, at the Central Arkansas Library at 12:00 p.m. There were 17 members present. The guest speaker was former major league pitcher and Texarkana, Arkansas, native Dustin Moseley who now owns and operates Proformance, a baseball training facility in Little Rock. He was accompanied by his wife […]