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Winning 20 games in a season was once a hallmark of excellence for major-league pitchers. Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four that if he could, he would take five years off his life for a pill that would guarantee him a 20-win season.1 Four pitchers since 1901 – Christy Mathewson, Warren Spahn, Walter Johnson, and […]

Contrary to popular belief, Frank Rooney wasn’t Irish-American. He was born on October 12, 1884, in Poděbrady, a town on the river Elbe about 25 miles east of Prague, which was at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.1 His surname at birth was Rovný, although he played baseball in the United States as Rooney, […]

The Toronto Blue Jays experienced three consecutive losing seasons after back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993. General manager Gord Ash, who oversaw two of the losing seasons, decided to overhaul his roster for 1997. Among Toronto’s top acquisitions was veteran catcher Benito Santiago,1 signed to a two-year, $6.5 million contract after hitting 30 […]

The Minnesota Twins had grabbed first place in their division by the end of April 1969. They stayed atop the standings until May 15, when they lost to the Baltimore Orioles to fall behind the Oakland A’s. The team returned to Metropolitan Stadium in hopes of reclaiming the top spot in the AL West. The […]

The longest game of the 2015 season for either the Colorado Rockies or the Los Angeles Dodgers started with consecutive bunt base hits and ended after an extra-inning home run. A crowd of 45,311 came out to Dodger Stadium to see their team creep closer to clinching the National League West Division for the third […]

Even though he preferred the comforts of home, whether in his California birthplace or his eventual hometown of Tucson, Arizona, Cam Carreon’s batting stroke never showed signs of homesickness. Reaching the majors at the age of 22, he contributed to a contending White Sox team for several seasons (1959-64) and played briefly for the Indians […]

The stage was the fifth game of the World Series, on October 15, 1970. The Baltimore Orioles had taken a three games to one Series lead over the Cincinnati Reds. Brooks Robinson had already delivered a game-winning home run in the opener, robbed Tony Perez and Johnny Bench of base hits with a pair of […]

A strong, quiet leader. Steady and determined. One of the best minds in baseball. All apt descriptions of the often-overlooked player, coach, and manager Bob Lillis. In 1928, Perry Reed Lillis, born in Michigan, married Lillian Pearl Porterfield, from Oklahoma. The couple had two sons: Jack Howard Lillis, born in 1928, and Robert Perry “Bob” […]

In baseball history, few major leaguers have turned to sports writing as a full-time profession after their playing days. Sam Crane and Tim Murnane were nineteenth-century players who then wrote for, respectively, the Boston Globe and the New York Evening Journal. Charley Walters twirled in a half-dozen games for the 1969 Twins before becoming a […]

Having lost no fewer than nine pitchers to the armed forces during World War II, the St. Louis Cardinals invited 28-year-old rookie Ken Burkhart to spring training in 1945. Owning a 91-64 record in seven minor-league seasons, Burkhart became one of the season’s big surprises, winning 18 games, third best in the senior circuit. But […]

Bob Burda appeared in 388 major-league games, spread widely across seven seasons from 1962 to 1972. Nearly half of those appearances (185) were as a pinch-hitter. He played first base in 106 games and the outfield in 97. He was always surrounded by established stars, which limited his opportunities. Only once, in 1970, did he […]

Rube Foster was the star of the 1915 World Series, pitching two complete-game wins for the Boston Red Sox in a five-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies and going 4-for-8 at the plate. His ninth-inning single won Game Two. Foster played pro ball for just one team in the big leagues, the Red Sox, with […]

David Earl Nelson was born on June 20, 1944, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He loved sports and played in the Little League, the Babe Ruth League and Connie Mack ball. Basketball was also a favorite sport. Nelson’s idols growing up were Oscar Robertson and Jackie Robinson. Nelson graduated from Junipero Serra High in Gardena, California, […]

Few 20th-century politicians had a more impressive résumé than Albert Chandler. During the course of his political career he served as Senator, Lieutenant Governor, and two terms as Governor of his home state of Kentucky. It can also be argued that few non-players had a greater impact on baseball. His support of Branch Rickey‘s signing […]

This article is #1 in a series of three about the Brooklyn clothier-turned-politician and his iconic sign that adorned the right field fence in Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. It remains perhaps the most famous ballpark sign in baseball history. This article is a biography, focusing on Abe Stark’s life and achievements. For a […]

If it were not for bad luck, Creepy Crespi may not have had any luck at all. The infielder with one of baseball’s great alliterative nicknames played parts of five seasons in the big leagues, all with his hometown Cardinals, including the World Series title club of 1942. An ankle fracture sustained while playing baseball […]

On August 2, 1907, a young man later described by Frank Graham as “beyond doubt, the greatest pitcher that ever scuffed a rubber with his spikes”1 made his big-league debut for the Washington Senators, losing a 3-2 decision to the pennant-bound Detroit Tigers. The great Ty Cobb admitted his fastball “made me flinch” and “hissed […]

John Fowler was one of the true pioneers of American baseball, one overlooked by the National Baseball Hall of Fame for more than a century after his death until he was elected in 2022 to Cooperstown — the same village where he had grown up as a teenager. In Black baseball history, he is the […]

“YOU CAN’T MAKE IT!” Bob Humphreys once wrote that in large letters on the wristband of his baseball glove. The words summarized an early 1963 evaluation of his pitching skills by a major-league team.1 Although the glove subsequently wore out in 1963 winter ball,2 Humphreys continued to use those words as a motivator to fashion […]

Charles Joseph Riefenhauser was born on January 30, 1990, in Yonkers, New York, to Chuck Riefenhauser, an elevator mechanic, and Mary Lou, a nurse. He was raised in Mahopac (population 7,755), 47 miles north of New York City. Unlike some ballplayers who get their nicknames after establishing a career, Riefenhauser was named for his father, […]

Native Philadelphian Monte Cross played short for the Phillies and Athletics during a particularly successful era in his city’s baseball history. After several earlier major-league stops, he manned the position for the slugging, first-division Phillies from 1898 to 1901. Then, jumping to the American League in 1902, Cross helped the Athletics to two pennants over […]

The St. Louis Cardinals won a World Series championship in 2006, their first season at the new Busch Stadium. (Kevin Ward/Flickr.com. Used by permission: CC BY-SA 2.0.)   Introduction The St. Louis Cardinals have achieved a level of success in Major League Baseball that has been outdone only by the New York Yankees. Through the […]

In conjunction with SABR’s Eight Myths Out project, here are specific examples of factual errors or misinformation that appear in Eight Men Out, both the 1963 best-selling book written by Eliot Asinof and the 1988 film directed by John Sayles. Certain entries on this list may seem like pedantic nitpicking: surnames misspelled, Abe Attell’s boxing […]

This article appears in SABR’s “The 1883 Philadelphia Athletics: American Association Champions” (2022), edited by Paul Hofmann and Bill Nowlin.   On Friday, September 28, 1883, the Philadelphia Athletics clinched the American Association pennant, defeating the Louisville Eclipse 7-6, in a game that went 10 innings.1 It was an exciting conclusion to a hard-fought season: […]