Search Results

In the long history of professional baseball, almost 100 major-league players were nicknamed “Doc.” About half of them were medical professionals: physicians, dentists, an optometrist, a pharmacist, and even a veterinarian. Among the physicians was John Lavan, a graduate of the University of Michigan medical school who also earned a doctorate in public health. Lavan […]

Infielder Billy DeMars broke into professional baseball at age 17, had his career interrupted by service in the Navy during World War II, then came back and played parts of three seasons in the majors (80 games with the Athletics and Browns), and extended his minor-league career by turning to managing through 1968. He assigned […]

At 15 Victor Rodriguez started playing competitive adult baseball against men twice his age. Before the season was over, he was a minor leaguer with the Baltimore Orioles. He spent parts of two seasons in the major leagues and played in Organized Baseball for 19 years. Victor Manuel Rodriguez was born on July 14, 1961, […]

“How does it feel to be the smallest player in the majors,” a Houston reporter asked Fred Patek in 1968. “A heck of a lot better than being the tallest player in the minors,” countered the rookie shortstop.1 Patek’s quip matched his quickness on the field and the basepaths for 14 years in the major […]

If charted, the seven-season American Association career of shortstop Frank Fennelly would present an intriguing picture: a slightly above-average baseline with peaks of circuit-best and valleys of circuit-worst performance. When he broke into the major leagues in 1884, Fennelly had a live bat. His .311 batting average placed him in the AA’s top ten. The […]

Tommy Thevenow earned a place in the record books for the home runs he didn’t hit. He never cleared the fences in 15 big league seasons. He hit three inside-the-park homers in 17 days in 1926 — two in September and one in the World Series — then didn’t manage another for his last 3,614 […]

Right-handed pitcher Bill Pertica was a prospect who showed promise early in his career, had one prime season with the Cardinals, and ultimately faded into obscurity. He was born in Santa Barbara, California, on August 17, 1898, and made the big leagues (albeit about as briefly as possible) in his first year of pro ball. […]

Viola Thompson’s contribution to World War II was a rather unusual one. She didn’t do war work in a factory, or enlist in the armed services. Rather, she became a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), and helped to keep the national pastime going during the war years. She was modest about […]

If you’re a fifth-place team like the 1908 Boston Red Sox, and you have a pitcher who was a 20-game winner in the minors and appears in one game for you, throwing a late-season 4-0 shutout against New York, don’t you bring him back? Jim Brady threw that shutout – but didn’t return to the […]

An intelligent player whom both teammates and opponents respected, 29-year-old first baseman Dick Hoblitzell opened the 1918 season as the Red Sox’ captain and cleanup hitter, but an early-season slump and his June induction into the Army Dental Corps marked an inglorious end to an otherwise distinguished 11-year career in the major leagues. Though he […]

Standing 6-feet-1 and weighing 189 pounds, young Johnny Lewis had all the raw tools necessary to become a baseball star. Lewis could run, throw, field, and hit both for average and power. St. Louis Cardinals manager Johnny Keane once described the left-handed-hitting Lewis as “one of the few five-point players I have ever seen,” and […]

In 1958, a 20-year-old left-hander from rural Oklahoma was making a name for himself pitching for the Rochester Red Wings. Cal Browning was dominating the International League for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate, using his fastball to lead the league in strikeouts and earn a spot on the league’s All-Star team. He and Bob […]

Midway through the 2001 major-league baseball season, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded right-hander Jason Schmidt to the San Francisco Giants. Schmidt, who compiled a 49-53 record throughout the first six years of his career, would blossom into one of the elite pitchers in the National League during the mid-2000s. Jason David Schmidt was born on January […]

It doesn’t take long to make a lasting impression that sticks with someone throughout his professional baseball career. Some of the things Derek Bell said over the course of his career surprised many and outraged others. This did not seem to faze Bell in the slightest. “What can I say?” Bell would ask. “I just […]

Every major leaguer dreams of making the postseason and hoisting the World Series trophy. A few will get to not only hoist the trophy, but be the hero of the World Series. Not many players can say that they hit a home run to win the deciding game of the World Series, or that they […]

A first-round draft pick by Pittsburgh in the 1973 amateur draft, Steve Nicosia made his major-league debut with the Pirates on July 8, 1978. Plagued by injuries throughout his eight-year career in the majors, Nicosia had a lifetime batting average of .248 and hit 11 home runs in 938 at-bats. Though he was mainly a […]

Statistics and anecdotes of early black player Charlie Grant are minimal and sketchy at best. The difficulty in seeking reliable evidence is compounded by the fact that many during his time and still today have consistently confused him with the great Frank Grant, who played in several white leagues during the nineteenth century and was […]

Preceding by two decades the “Fernandomania” craze, Von McDaniel’s splash on the major-league scene in the summer of 1957 earned him the nickname Mr. Vonderful. Weeks removed from delivering his high-school valedictorian address, McDaniel tossed a two-hit shutout against the defending champion Brooklyn Dodgers in his first professional start, while a month later a two-base […]

The 1945 Washington Senators1 intrigued war-weary baseball fans with an improbable pennant run. The team’s success stemmed largely from a unique pitching staff, dominated by four knuckleballers. The top performer was Roger Wolff, a journeyman right-hander who led the team with a career-high 20 wins. The second of ten children born to Leo and Eleanor […]

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” This remark has been credited (dubiously) to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, a contemporary of Boston pitcher Jim Sullivan. This saying could apply to Sullivan starting in the mid-1890s, when he experienced deep sorrow repeatedly. At least […]

The last-place Detroit Tigers went to New York to meet the reigning World Series champion Yankees in August 1952. After Detroit lost the first game of the series, Virgil Trucks started Game Two. The veteran right-hander came in with a 4-15 record, but he had pitched a no-hitter and a one-hitter for two of his […]

It took right-hander Johnny Welch more than five years to get his first major-league win for the Chicago Cubs. After 172 big-league games, he was 35-41 with a career 4.66 earned run average, all but two of the wins being for Boston Red Sox teams in the early to middle 1930s. He was born as […]

This article was originally published in SABR’s Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series (2017), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   It has been asserted that baseball makes an effective metaphor for the history of the United States, reflecting the changing circumstances and values of […]

But Mr. Jinx was on the job, Determined he would slyly rob Young Woodburn of his fame; For, when V. Campbell hit the ball, He made Konetchy slip and fall, And spoiled that no-hit game. – L.C. Davis, St. Louis Post-Dispatch1   Perhaps it was a jinx. Perhaps nerves. Or perhaps just bad baseball luck. […]