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The New York Yankees had long been out of contention by Friday night, September 17, 1982. Their 14-0 loss at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers that night signaled their statistical elimination from the race. Harvey’s Wallbangers moved to a two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East Division, while the Yankees […]

Looking back on it now, it was something akin to a 1972 moviegoer watching the final scene of The Godfather and immediately thinking, “I hope they make another one.” Sequels were not commonplace then, but it seemed everyone wanted to see more of Michael Corleone and his trigger-happy family. So it was with the September […]

Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart grew up in Oakland, playing youth baseball together.1 Whether it was at Bushrod Field in North Oakland or on diamonds in East Oakland,2 they played regularly with buddies who also made it to the majors, such as Gary Pettis and Lloyd Moseby. The Oakland area has a proud tradition of […]

In late February 1985, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Pete Peterson signed veteran right-handed pitcher Rick Reuschel to a one-year deal with the Hawaii Islanders, Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. The contract provided Reuschel an opportunity to compete for a spot with the Pirates in spring training. In June 1982 he had been […]

On July 18, 1923, the Philadelphia Phillies rallied in the bottom of the ninth inning to win a see-saw battle with the Chicago Cubs at the Baker Bowl. The win pulled the Phillies out of last place, but had little impact on the fortunes of either team that season. Philadelphia sank back into the National […]

Following a last-place finish by the Orioles in 1902, the city of Baltimore was left without a major-league franchise. The team packed up and relocated to New York, leaving disheartened Charm City fans rooting for a series of minor-league franchises for the next 50 years.1 The Boston Braves’ move to Milwaukee in 1953 began a […]

Willie Mays stole four bases in a game twice in his career. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Always capable of doing the spectacular, Willie Mays stole four bases and hit a home run against the Cincinnati Redlegs on May 18, 1957. The New York Giants won, 6-3, before a ladies day crowd of 8,538 […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros played several high-stakes, season-deciding games in 1980 and 1981. In 1980 the Dodgers needed a sweep of the Astros over the final weekend to force a playoff. They got the sweep but lost the tiebreaker game, and Houston qualified for its first postseason. The split-season format resulting from […]

Father Time remains undefeated, but for one day in June 1966 at Houston’s Astrodome, 35-year-old Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs turned back the clock to a decade earlier, when he was in the top 10 in triples in the National League.1 The Houston Astros (30-25) had won the opening game of the three-game series […]

It was nailbiting time in Cincinnati when the Reds met the Pittsburgh Pirates for the second game of a three-game set at Crosley Field. The Reds unexpectedly found themselves in one of the most contested pennant races in history and appeared headed to an unprecedented three-way with the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. Just […]

The American dream of being a well-known baseball player was firmly established years before Babe Ruth’s major-league debut in 1914. For instance, in 1910 a New York Times article on recreation centers and urban parks asked, rhetorically, “What youngster nowadays dreams of being President of the country when it is just as easy to conjure […]

In the eyes of Pittsburgh Pirates fans, Don Robinson showed up right on time for a city and a team looking for homegrown talent to fill out the Pirates pitching staff and add a piece to a team capable of winning a pennant in the late 1970s. Had the Philadelphia Phillies selected Robinson in the […]

Colombia has been sending more men than ever to the majors in the 21st century. But when shortstop Jackie Gutierrez made his debut with the Boston Red Sox in 1983, he was just the second man who learned the game in that nation to make it to the top level. Way back in 1902, Colombian-born […]

Sportswriters treated pitcher Monte Weaver as a curiosity during his nine seasons with the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox. He was a college professor, a mathematician, a hypochondriac and – most radically – a vegetarian, according to the sports pages. Montie Morton Weaver was born on June 15, 1906, in Helton, North Carolina, a […]

Chuck LaMar once commented, “I’m a baseball guy and my heart lies with the people out in the field. … I was one of those and I started out in professional baseball as an area scout and I drove 50,000 miles a year away from the wife and those kiddos as much as anybody so […]

The first owner of the St. Louis Browns, Robert Hedges was a visionary leader, years ahead of his time. He was also a shrewd businessman who maximized the value of his baseball franchise, in spite of its mostly losing ways. Hedges’ innovations and financial success in baseball contrasted vividly with his teams’ lack of success […]

Aquino Abreu was a diminutive righty who pitched for a decade and a half during the formative years of the modern-era post-revolution Cuban League. That Abreu’s triumphs fell entirely outside the realm of professional Organized Baseball may be a prime reason he remains virtually unknown to North American and Asian baseball fanatics. Few know anything […]

Injury has curtailed the career of major league pitchers since the beginning of the professional game. In the days before rotator cuff and Tommy John surgery, pitchers had to hope for recovery or look for another line of work. Theodore A. Kennedy was one of those pitchers, but he was much more than a couple […]

The son of an All-Star, a two-time All-American at Harvard University, and a first-round draft pick, Mike Stenhouse seemed destined to thrive in the majors. But in a five-year career with three teams that never saw him play in more than half the schedule, Stenhouse never hit. While he did not make the postseason roster […]

Controversial, flamboyant, excitable, volatile, hot-headed, crazy, wild, and emotional are among the many adjectives used to describe Julián Tavárez during his 17-year major-league career spent with 11 teams. Over the course of his career, Tavárez developed a reputation as an unpredictable pitcher who was not afraid to pitch inside. The 6-foot-2, 165-pound right-handed hurler hit […]

Controversy and contrast defined Scott Perry’s brief major-league career. In 1918, his first full season, the Boston Braves and Philadelphia Athletics battled for his services, exposing the increasing inability of Organized Baseball to govern itself in the pre-commissioner era. Philadelphia retained Perry, and he produced a memorable rookie effort, becoming one of only seven pitchers […]

Ponchatoula, Louisiana, in the 1930s was a small town that had suffered a number of lumber mills closing in the previous decade. By the 1930s, it was known primarily as a strawberry farming region. It was into this area that on October 2, 1934, Earl Lawrence Wilson was born. He later changed his name to […]

Three days before World War II ended, Philadelphia Phillies scout Fred Mathews convinced the mother of Stephen George Ridzik that she should let her 16-year-old son become a professional baseball player.1 Julia Ridzik agreed to sign the contract, provided that Steve finish his last two years of high school. Thus began a 22-year pitching career […]

On September 21, 2001, amid heavy security, 41,235 fans1 filed into Shea Stadium for the first baseball game to be played in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Only a week before, the ballpark had served as a staging and relief area for rescue workers, and at the time there was debate […]