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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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

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 […]

Doc Prothro never played professional baseball until he was 26 years old. He was a dentist with his own practice in Dyersburg, Tennessee pitching for a town team when he was spotted by a scout and signed, skipping the minor leagues and heading straight to a major-league debut in Washington DC. He spent over a […]

Guerrant McCurdy Scarce — the ornate Southern name could have been a Confederate general’s. Instead, just over a century after the Civil War, it belonged to a tall lefty reliever known simply as “Mac.” The Virginian had a fine college career and a promising start in the minors. In the big leagues, however, he finished […]

Jackie Robinson’s theft of home plate in Game One of the 1955 Fall Classic is widely considered one of the most electrifying moments in World Series history. Standing in the batter’s box as Robinson broke for home was Brooklyn Dodgers pinch-hitter Frank Kellert, who saw up close New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s tag, one […]

The 1923 World Series was tied at two games apiece as the venue moved to Yankee Stadium. The New York Giants were attempting to make it three world championships in a row, the first two at the expense of their neighbors from the Bronx. Perhaps a change of scenery was the medicine the New York […]

For one generation of Pittsburghers, Pie Traynor was that tanned, silver-haired old man on Studio Wrestling. For another generation, he was the monotone voice that came out of the radio every evening to talk about sports. But for an older generation — and for most baseball fans outside the Pittsburgh area — he was the […]

It is the rare man whose co-ownership of the New York Yankees would go unmentioned in his obituary. Yet such was the case for Bill Devery.1 Largely a silent partner in the club from its founding in 1903 until its sale a dozen years later, Devery had a negligible effect on franchise history, having left […]

More than once, Aaron Rowand’s style of play has been described as hard-nosed. The world saw why on May 11, 2006. Rowand was in his first season with the Philadelphia Phillies after five years with the Chicago White Sox, and his team was hosting the New York Mets, who had loaded the bases with two […]

Here are the full SABR Defensive Index™ rankings, through games of August 3, 2014. The SABR Defensive Index draws on and aggregates two types of existing defensive metrics: those derived from batted ball location-based data and those collected from play-by-play accounts. The three metrics representing batted ball data include Defensive Runs Saved from Baseball Info […]

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 […]

Since he became a workhorse pitcher in 1908, Walter Johnson had become a model of both consistency and durability.1 Between 1910 and 1919 Johnson pitched in 454 games; he won 265 of them, including at least 20 in each of those 10 seasons. During the 10 seasons Johnson cemented his legacy as one of the […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   Introduction “Since the August Day in 1933, when ‘King’ Cole of Chicago, Gus Greenlee of Pittsburgh, and Tom Wilson of Nashville, saw a dream, which originated in the minds of Roy Sparrow and […]

Fans cheer on their favorite team on June 29, 2021, at Dodger Stadium. (Copyright: Steven Cukrov / dreamstime.com)   On October 8, 1957, the stockholders and directors of the Brooklyn Baseball Club announced that the franchise would move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season.1 A welcoming parade jammed downtown LA streets.2 On the steps […]