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Outfielder Manny Jiménez, a Dominican native who reached the major leagues with the Kansas City Athletics in 1962, was not known as a power hitter. He had only one multi-homer game and 16 career home runs in 2½ major-league seasons prior to July 4, 1964. Yet on Independence Day in Babe Ruth’s hometown, the San […]

The Cincinnati Redlegs were mired in seventh place during late July 1955, more than 20 games behind the NL-leading Brooklyn Dodgers. The team struggled during a 5-15 road trip that lasted from July 8 to 24. Although the Redlegs endured seven- and four-game losing streaks during July’s travels, their misery was mitigated by a 19-1 […]

Stan Musial’s career was winding down. It was September of his final season, and his St. Louis Cardinals were making a late run toward the National League pennant, trailing the league-leading Los Angeles Dodgers by three games entering play on September 13, 1963. Just 16 days earlier, at the close of play on August 28, […]

Proximate geographies, shared histories, and personal relations drive great sporting rivalries. The race for the 1916 National League crown had all three of these essential elements. The neighboring boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan make up part of New York City. Wilbert Robinson and John McGraw spent years together on the Baltimore Orioles and New York […]

During the peak years of his 14 major-league seasons, before two knee injuries slowed him, Randy Hundley was regarded as a super-durable defensive player whose glove and leadership made him nearly indispensible to the Chicago Cubs. In 1970, when he suffered his first knee injury, manager Leo Durocher lamented, “If there’s one player I hate […]

Willie Stargell began 1975 with a new assignment. For the first time in 14 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Stargell was the club’s Opening Day first baseman.1 Already Pittsburgh’s all-time home-run leader, he celebrated by belting two more homers and going 4-for-4 as the Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-4, on April 10 at frigid […]

George Brett entered the 1992 season as an accomplished veteran leading a rebuilding team. The 1991 Royals finished with an 82-80 record, 13 games behind the AL-West-leading Minnesota Twins and only one game removed from the basement. Kansas City hadn’t reached the postseason since winning the 1985 World Series, although the Royals won 92 games […]

After defeating the Indians in game one of their July 29, 1990, doubleheader, the Yankees were ready to face Cleveland in game two. The game had been rescheduled after snow forced the Indians to call off the teams’April 11 game. New York manager Stump Merrill picked five-year veteran Jimmy Jones to send to the mound. […]

It was July 14, 1970, in Cincinnati, where the 41st Major League All-Star Game was played at the brand-new Riverfront Stadium in front of 51,838 fans. It was an era of turmoil. Just 2½ months earlier, President Richard Nixon had announced that the United States had invaded Cambodia to hunt out the Viet Cong in […]

A mood of nervous, anxious excitement permeated Shea Stadium on an abnormally cool 60-degree Saturday afternoon, September 20, 1969, as the New York Mets took on the Pittsburgh Pirates in the third tilt of a five-game series. The Mets were on the verge of a miracle, but a celebration in the Big Apple was far […]

“If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out.” — George Brett   It was quite the major-league debut for 27-year-old Roberto Peña. He ended the day with three errors and a .571 fielding average. At the plate, he banged out three hits, including a home […]

After the 1965 season Bill Virdon retired from the Pirates. Virdon was a solid contributor with a career batting average of .267 and nearly 1,600 safeties, as well as an excellent center fielder. In order to plug this chasm, manager Harry “The Hat” Walker and general manager Joe L. Brown traded pitcher Ozzie Virgil to […]

CC Sabathia strode to the mound at Jacobs Field on a bright and breezy Sunday afternoon, debuting as a 20-year-old from Vallejo, California, only three years removed from high school. The heralded youngster made the Indians out of spring training as Cleveland’s No. 4 starting pitcher.1 Cleveland’s first-round pick from the June 1998 Amateur Draft […]

“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 […]

The longest homerless stretch of Joe Mauer’s Hall of Fame career began in August 2014 and carried into 2015, spanning 324 plate appearances and lasting until Mauer’s Minnesota Twins visited the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 20. With the score tied in the top of the 13th inning, Mauer hit Antonio Bastardo’s pitch over PNC Park’s […]

Daniel Staub? Who the hell is Daniel Staub? Nobody has ever heard of a ballplayer named Daniel Staub. But everyone has heard of Rusty Staub, and for the French and English fans of a brand-new ball club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he was known — and loved — as Le Grand Orange. Daniel Joseph “Rusty” […]

Cuban entrepreneur Roberto “Bobby” Maduro was a singular baseball man. When he passed away in 1986, the news made the front page of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish newspaper of Miami, where he and so many of his countrymen made their home after Fidel Castro took power. In that story, Fausto Miranda (the dean of […]

Milwaukee fans anxiously awaited the outcome of rookie Pete Ladd’s duel with future Hall of Famer Rod Carew. With one more out, the Brewers would earn the franchise’s first trip to the World Series. The 1982 American League Championship Series between the California Angels and Milwaukee Brewers was knotted at two games apiece. The Angels […]

During the 1970s and early ’80s, every announcer or writer had to dish the dirt on his story. He played major league baseball in summer, but Richie Hebner dug graves in winter. Beginning in the ninth grade, he continued digging throughout his 18-year major league career, even when free agency expanded his paychecks beyond 1976, […]

In retirement, former major leaguer Johnny Romano took up flying radio-controlled model airplanes near his retirement home in Florida. He liked to fly them high and far. There was a time, though, when those terms — high and far — also referred to his ability as a hard-hitting All-Star catcher for the Cleveland Indians and […]

It took 72 years for the first Black man to play for the Cincinnati Reds. The second one arrived merely minutes after the first. The franchise, one of the National League’s founding clubs, has a complicated record on racial matters. Despite being very early to appreciate the quality of white Cuban players — Armando Marsans, […]

From 1955 to 1965 Bill Virdon established his reputation as one of the finest and fastest center fielders of his generation, and was known for his accurate throws from the deep center-field power alleys in spacious Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Ironically, one of his throws that inadvertently hit his manager may have led to his […]

A league pennant was squarely on the line under the brutal Mexican sun on September 5, 1938. A team known as Agrario, led by the legendary Satchel Paige, battled Aguila for the championship of the summertime Mexican circuit, a league recently strengthened by the importation of such frontline Negro League stars as Josh Gibson, Ray […]

Eight words: “They may not have some of the necessities.” Those words made Dodgers general manager Al Campanis a pariah. He tried to explain that he had not said what he meant or meant what he said, but his reputation was wrecked. His self-destruction focused a spotlight on Major League Baseball’s shameful record in hiring […]