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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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Some former major-league ballplayers are remembered for hitting an unforgettable home run, while others are remembered for a very successful business career after retiring from playing baseball. Charlie James, a St. Louis native who played for the Cardinals from 1960 to 1964, is remembered for both. Charles Wesley James was born on December 22, 1937, […]

When young Jim Owens first came up with the Philadelphia Phillies in the mid-1950s, the predictions were that he would be Philadelphia’s “next Robin Roberts.”1 He had dominated hitters in the minor leagues, was voted the best pitcher in the International League for 1954, and possessed what Phillies general manager Roy Hamey called, “the best […]

Bill Killefer began his 48-year career in Organized Baseball in 1907 as an unlikely professional, weighing only 125 pounds when he played with Jackson of the Southern Michigan League. According to his brother Wade, “the bats he used were almost as big as he was.” It would be years before he grew to be 5’10 […]

On August 28, 2009, John Hester made his major-league debut in a way kids can only dream of, hitting a home run in his first major-league at-bat. Hester became, according to MLB.com, the 102nd player to start his batting career that way.1 But despite the dreamlike quality of his debut, his first home run was a […]

“Dwight Evans was the best Red Sox right fielder I ever saw.” — Johnny Pesky A member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame, Dwight Evans was voted Red Sox MVP four times by the Boston Baseball Writers. It might not be a stretch at all to agree with Herb Crehan, who writes, “Dewey might […]

A few guys populate Baseball’s Hall of Fame who deserve the title of “hard luck hero.” Addie Joss comes to mind, a superb right-handed pitcher from the first decade of the 20th century who died of tuberculosis at the age of 31 after nine seasons, 160 wins, a perfect game, a no-hitter, seven one-hitters, and […]

In 1957, cricket star turned baseball player André Rodgers became the first major leaguer from the Bahamas after Negro Leaguer Ormond Sampson. By the end of the 2022 season, seven other Bahamians had followed him, although there was a gap from May 1983 to September 2011. Rodgers had by far the most extensive big-league career […]

He was the Bill Buckner of his era. Mickey Owen only committed four errors during his best year as a major league catcher, the 1941 campaign with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Three came in the regular season and one in the postseason. That last error, a dropped third strike with two out in the ninth inning, […]

In March 1993 Rafael Ramirez was trying to secure a bench spot on the rebuilding Oakland Athletics. He was among the first cuts, nursing a sore arm and having been outplayed by another veteran, Dale Sveum.1 The 35-year-old shortstop’s career was effectively over. He spent 13 big-league seasons fielding grounders on two of the most […]

Some baseball players have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Many others never do. A few, however, momentarily have this kind of good fortune in their grasp, then see it taken away. Shortstop Rey Quiñones was a May call-up for the 1986 Boston Red Sox, a team destined to […]

When introducing the Orioles’ new manager in 1968, general manager Harry Dalton said, “In short, I believe Earl Weaver is a winner.”1 Weaver was short. And he was a winner. For the next 14½ seasons the Orioles won more games than any other team, piling up six division titles, four pennants, and one World Series […]

In Jim Bouton’s revelatory 1970 book Ball Four, he describes a late September 1969 scene at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. “A group of terrorized pitchers stood around the batting cage watching Willie McCovey belt some tremendous line drives over the right-field fence. Every time a ball bounced into the seats we’d make little whimpering animal […]

One can sensibly argue that Hugh Mulcahy was one of the hardest-luck pitchers in baseball history. At first glance a pitcher with a 45-89 career record and a lifetime earned-run average of 4.49, one who was twice the league leader in losses, is not exactly a player one thinks of as a victim of bad […]

“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 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 […]

Interleague play brought National League clubs to American League ballparks – and vice versa – during the 1997 regular season, an occurrence previously limited to the World Series and exhibitions. The first interleague game at Minneapolis’s Metrodome was played on June 16, when the Minnesota Twins hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates. Mark Smith, the first-ever designated […]

In 1997 Todd Helton was one of baseball’s most prominent prospects – and a subject of controversy in the Colorado Rockies’ struggle to sustain their early-expansion success. Mundane matters triggered his big-league debut that summer: one player’s looming disciplinary action, another’s batting slump, and a calf injury to a third. But Helton’s takeover of the […]

Sandy Koufax’s final shutout was the 40th of his career and fifth of the 1966 season. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   He had walked up the small hill 391 previous times in his big-league career. Standing atop that mound, he had accomplished so much: four no-hitters, including the only perfect game in Dodgers history, and 39 total […]