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The Los Angeles Dodgers had every reason to feel confident as they approached the 2021 National League Championship Series. Not only were they the defending World Series champions (albeit in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season), but they had also amassed an impressive 106-56 regular-season record, second only to their division rivals, the San Francisco Giants (107-55). […]

The San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies launched their 2005 seasons with vastly differing sets of expectations. The Padres were coming off of an 87-75 record during the previous season and had aspirations of winning the National League West championship and advancing to the playoffs for the first time since 1998. The Rockies, on the […]

The 1918 season did not start well for either the Philadelphia Athletics or the Detroit Tigers. After a month the two teams found themselves at the bottom of the American League standings. On May 20 they met for the first time to play a four-game series.1 For the A’s, the games provided an opportunity to […]

The final day of the 1895 National League season, September 30, saw four games played in the 12-team league. The Baltimore Orioles, who had already locked up their second of three straight pennants, defeated the New York Giants, 8-3. The Philadelphia Phillies edged the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in a slugfest, 10-9. And the sixth-place Boston Beaneaters […]

The Buffalo Buffeds1 were already 10 weeks into their first season,2 but along with other members of the upstart Federal League, they were still trying to fortify their respective lineups with players willing to walk away from their American and National League teams and “jump” to contracts in the Federal League.  One of the prime […]

Pete Vuckovich was a menacing figure. He was big: 6-feet-4 and 220 pounds (or more). He glowered over a Fu Manchu mustache and often had a few days’ growth elsewhere to go with his long, unkempt hair. While pitching, he had “a streak of calculated weirdness.”1 Rasputin comparisons arose, and he encouraged them, applauding the […]

From 1950 to 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies won five National League pennants and two World Series. Only one man was a part of the Phillies organization during each of those five pennant years — Maje McDonnell. McDonnell joined the team in 1947 as a batting-practice pitcher and, except for the period 1966-1973, was with the […]

Friday evening, October 2, 1908: Billy Murray walks the streets of Philadelphia. Cigar in mouth, immersed in thought, he continues mile after mile, hour after hour.1 The fourth-place Phillies team he manages is well out of contention. But as one of the most famed pennant races in baseball history draws to a close, one of […]

To date, there has only been one woman who played baseball with a team of major leaguers in a big-league ballpark. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Murphy and on August 14, 1922, she played for a team of “all-stars” in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Lizzie Murphy’s team beat […]

One of the best pitchers of the 1970s, Dock Ellis feared success nearly as much as he feared failure. He both angered and amused. His antics cut across racial and cultural lines, as he challenged old prejudices and “normal” ways of doing things. Ellis pitched a no-hitter in 1970 and the next year led the […]

In 1941, the book on 23-year-old Eddie Pellagrini was as a “good field, no hit” shortstop. “[He] may not hit as well as [others] but he’s certainly a fine prospect … ‘Pellagrini is a faster fielder than [most],’” said San Diego Padres player-manager Cedric Durst. It thus came as a surprise five years later when […]

Very few people have the ability, adaptability, and ambition to rise to the highest leadership level of two distinctly different professions. A. Bartlett Giamatti was one of them. As a child Giamatti was passionate about literature and baseball. As an adult he became a noted scholar and teacher of English and Italian Renaissance literature at […]

The pitching staff of the 1905 Boston Beaneaters holds the unenviable distinction of including no fewer than four 20-game losers: Irv Young (20-21); Vic Willis (12-29); Chick Fraser (14-21), and Kaiser Wilhelm (3-23).1 Aside from this unfortunate quartet, the only other Boston hurler to post a victory that season was 30-year-old rookie right-hander Dick Harley.2 […]

Dick Hughes had a memorable rookie season in the big leagues in 1967. He led the world champion St. Louis Cardinals with 16 wins, while losing just 6 and posting a 2.67 ERA. At age 29, Hughes was runner-up to Tom Seaver for 1967 National League Rookie of the Year honors. The bespectacled right-hander, who […]

Perhaps no Virgin Islander made a greater lifetime contribution to baseball than Elrod Hendricks (1940-2005). The native of St. Thomas also embodied Baltimore Orioles tradition; only Brooks Robinson wore the orange and black for even half as many games. Ellie’s major-league career spanned 12 seasons from 1968 to 1979, but he also spent a remarkable […]

Roy Evans was an impressive prospect; he had a devastating curveball and worked his control and change of pace with authority. For a big guy, he wasn’t noted for his fastball. Regardless, Evans was routinely striking out 15, 20 or more hitters a game as a teenager playing semipro ball in his hometown of Emporia, […]

In his 19-year big-league career, Mark McLemore never won a batting title or Gold Glove Award, nor was he named to an All-Star roster. But he could draw a walk, swipe a base, move a runner up, and provide steady defense at multiple positions. For this skill set, the oft-injured player known as Mac was […]

When you examine the life of Abner Doubleday you eventually have to come to the point expressed by classic detective Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” Okay, so here are two facts about General Abner Doubleday’s life. First, his military career was lengthy and he “was the highest ranking officer in the […]

In the midst of the 1908 pennant race, Sporting Life declared that “Robert S. Rhoades of Cleveland is one of the most dependable of modern pitchers. … His habits are good, his conduct exemplary, and in all ways is he a credit to his club and profession.”1 Embodied in this passage are two hallmarks of […]

Tommie Agee was one of the key components to the 1969 Miracle Mets, solidifying the defense and serving as the club’s chief power source, albeit from the leadoff spot. His on-field heroics during the ’69 season—including socking the only home run to ever reach Shea Stadium’s upper deck—helped propel the Mets to their first postseason […]

Bob Emslie, National League umpire and newlywed in 1893. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)   Robert Daniel Kean Emslie, the least-known famous umpire in baseball history, made his earthly debut on January 27, 1859, in Guelph, Ontario, the fourth son and seventh of eight children born to Alexander and Mary Graye,1 immigrants from […]

Wilmington, Delaware’s earliest professional baseball team, the 1884 Quicksteps (50-12) of the disbanded Eastern League and “major league” Union Association (2-16, .111), played at “Wilmington Ball Grounds” on the southwest corner of Front and Union Streets, a semi-rural area on the southern edge of town. The 1913 Wilmington Chicks of the Tri-State League were the […]

“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]