Search Results

Jake Stenzel compiled a lofty .339 lifetime batting average in nine major league seasons, and hit over .350 for five consecutive years, but has received little recognition for his accomplishments. His entire major league career was confined to the 1890s when there were so many outstanding hitters that even in his peak seasons he could […]

John Dopson pitched in 144 major-league games over eight seasons from 1985 to 1994. He had a career-high 12 wins with the 1989 Boston Red Sox (against eight losses) – but arguably his best year came with the Montreal Expos in 1988, when he was 3-11. He started 26 games and had a 3.04 earned […]

During Michael Cuddyer’s 15-year major league career, he was an All-Star in both leagues, helped lead the Mets to the World Series, won a batting championship for the Rockies, and was the longtime heart and soul of the Minnesota Twins. Marked for stardom at a young age, Cuddyer battled to establish himself in the big […]

(On arriving at Kauffman Stadium for the first time) “As we drive up we see the Crown. There was a little mist and I’m thinking ‘this is an unbelievable sight.’ The lights are on. It doesn’t get any better than that. Then all of a sudden we pull in, we go into the clubhouse, and […]

More than a few contemporary baseball insiders viewed John Clarkson as the finest pitcher of the 19th century. He won 30 or more games in a season six times, including two of the top four all-time totals, 53 in 1885 and 49 in ’89. In the 10-year period between August 1884 and July 1894, he […]

Smart, tenacious and personable, Nelson (Nellie) Briles attributed much of his baseball success to his strong family ties. He once called his family the “foundation” of his life.1 “With five children in the family,” he once recalled, “my parents managed to somehow keep me playing the game. I’ll never be able to repay them. Words […]

“This game is tough to play,” said 11-year major-league infielder Doug Flynn in an interview with the author.1 Progressing through the Cincinnati Reds’ system in the early 1970s, Flynn was a utilityman on the Reds championship teams in 1975 and 1976 before being traded to the New York Mets in 1977. A Gold Glove winner […]

Tall, lithe-limbed and broad-shouldered, the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Wally Pipp carried himself with an unmistakable air of confidence and distinction, befitting one of the Deadball Era’s premier sluggers. Whether disembarking from a train, haggling with management over bonus money, scooping up grounders around first base, or swatting home runs, Pipp “was a high-class specimen of the […]

By all outward appearances, George Davies was leading the good life in the early autumn of 1906. A dozen years removed from a short but respectable stint as a major leagues pitcher – he had won 10 games for the second-half pennant winning Cleveland Spiders in 1892 — Davies was now an eminent citizen of […]

Owen Wilson is most remembered for hitting 36 triples in 1912, which is not only a major league record, but also a record for all of organized baseball. To the modern fan, that fact conjures up images of a speedy leadoff hitter racing around the bases, but that image does not square with Owen Wilson. […]

Lázaro Salazar was a great two-way player and manager in Cuban professional baseball and the American Negro Leagues, as well as in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, from 1930 until 1957. In addition to winning two MVP awards in the Cuban Winter League, he won four batting championships in three countries, won more than […]

There is a charm to being the first of anything. Most people know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the surface of the moon. Far fewer people know that Buzz Aldrin was the second. The first commissioner of baseball and the first to break baseball’s color line are also remembered […]

“Oh, Gertrude, when sorrows come they come not as single spies but in battalions.” – Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5, a favorite quote of Ned Martin when the Red Sox were having a particularly bad day   “With this back and these knees? Mercy,” Ned Martin asked rhetorically, using his trademark exclamation when asked if […]

Roy Cullenbine’s greatest skill was unappreciated in his time. Cullenbine walked in 17.8 percent of his plate appearances, the seventh-highest rate in history.1 He set a record by drawing walks in 22 consecutive games. But his extraordinary ability to get on base didn’t impress the people who signed his paychecks. One general manager said he […]

Like many of us, Rich Nye followed a winding path before finding his true professional calling. What sets Nye apart from you and me, though, is that his journey included pitching duels with Tom Seaver and Bob Gibson; road trips with Hall-of-Fame teammates Ernie Banks and Ferguson Jenkins; and head-to-head showdowns with the likes of […]

Ohio Governor and Republican candidate for vice president John W. Bricker posed for photographers before the game with two fellow Buckeyes, Cardinals manager Billy Southworth and Browns skipper Luke Sewell. Pressed by a reporter for a series prediction, Bricker simply grinned and said, “I hope St. Louis wins.”1 The first intracity World Series outside of […]

Invented by Harvard College baseball nine captain Fred Thayer, the first catcher’s mask was a brass and leather contraption first worn by Crimson catcher Jim Tyng in the early spring of 1877.1 By mid-April, both Boston’s Wright Brothers store (owned in part by Red Stockings manager Harry Wright and his brother George) and Chicago’s A.G. […]

The 1998 Houston Astros strode into the postseason with the confidence due the franchise’s best team ever. They had won 102 games in the regular season, the only time as of 2015 that the Astros produced more than 100 wins in a season, and most prognosticators and pundits favored them to make the World Series […]

The game was an eagerly awaited rematch of the previous year’s NLDS, which the Dodgers had won 3 games to 2. The Nationals (36-20) had taken the first game of the three-game set from the Dodgers (35-24). The Nationals were coming in hot: This was the third stop on their West Coast road trip, having […]

The 1934 season was an exceptional one for Dizzy Dean. At the young age of 24, he was a 30-game winner with a 2.66 ERA for the St. Louis Cardinals. He appeared in the first of four straight All-Star Games, won Games One and Seven to lead his team to a World Series victory over […]

“Another dazzler,” raved Los Angeles Dodgers beat writer Frank Finch about Sandy Koufax’s six-hit shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 27, 1959, Koufax’s first whitewashing in almost four seasons.1 “He can beat any team and strike out anyone,” declared Dodgers pitching coach Joe Becker about his young emerging ace whose midseason transformation was as […]

The Washington Senators line up on the field for Opening Day festivities, April 5, 1971, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection.)   Related link: Click here to read Part I of the Washington Senators team ownership history, on the original team from […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]

Coors Field opened for baseball on April 26, 1995. The Colorado Rockies had joined the National League two years earlier. They played their first two seasons in Mile High Stadium while Coors was being built. When the National League got the OK in 1985 to expand by two teams, several cities, including Buffalo, Denver, Miami, […]