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Joseph J. Lannin owned the Boston Red Sox for less than four full years, but in that short span, the team won two world championships in the back-to-back years 1915 and 1916. A native of the Province of Quebec, he came to the United States at a very young age – the story says he […]

In September 1959, after the Buffalo Bisons, the Philadelphia Phillies Triple-A affiliate, captured the International League pennant, The Sporting News noticed Jimmie Coker, the club’s All Star catcher. He “has the assets to become … the top catcher produced in the International League since Roy Campanella graduated from the Montreal Royals,” Cy Kritzer predicted in […]

Some said that baseball owners found Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis on the federal bench, but Leo Durocher got it right when he said, “They got him right out of Dickens.”1 Ruth put the fans back in the parks, but Landis made sure what they witnessed was honest. The Sultan and the Czar worked different sides […]

Although he spent just two full seasons in the major leagues, Dave Pope played in one of the most memorable games in baseball history. It was the game that featured “the catch,” Willie Mays’s spectacular play on a ball hit by the Cleveland Indians’ Vic Wertz in the eighth inning of Game One of the […]

In the spring of 1913, 20-year-old Claude Cooper was impressive in his audition with the National League champion New York Giants. Hailed as “another (Tris) Speaker” when he came out of the Texas League to play for John McGraw, Cooper possessed good speed afoot, had a strong throwing left arm, and was an outstanding fly […]

Long-limbed southpaw Graeme Lloyd became the first Australian to win a World Series ring. The 6’8”1 reliever joined the New York Yankees bullpen late in the 1996 season and remained with the club for the 1998 championship too. Through the 2011 season, this distinction remained unique among Aussies. Just one other of Lloyd’s countrymen, Grant […]

In a major-league playing career that lasted only seven seasons, Bill Lange made an indelible impression on those who saw him in action. A star outfielder on the also-ran Chicago Colts of the 1890s, Lange could do it all: run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit for power by the standards of his time. […]

Simon Rosenthal was one of only 16 Red Sox players who was actually born in the city of Boston and — joining Jack Slattery — one of only two to both live and die in Boston. He garnered more at-bats for the Red Sox than any other Boston native, 357 of them during the years […]

After several years in the military, Long Jim Gilmore spent his life as a successful, if conventional, businessman. For two years in the middle of his life, however, Gilmore was at the center of the baseball world as one of the most visible and quoted men in the industry. As president of short-lived Federal League, […]

The list of cities he played in reads like Hank Snow’s popular 1962 country hit, “I’ve Been Everywhere.” In 14 years of professional baseball, Bobby Keppel pitched for 14 different teams. Although the grass did not grow under his cleats anywhere for long, Keppel made the big leagues with the Royals, Rockies, and Twins (2006-2009), […]

Floyd Baker was primarily a third baseman who played a good number of games at second base, too, though he began as a shortstop. He batted from the left side, but threw right-handed. He was a Virginian, relatively small of stature: 5-foot-9 and listed at 160 pounds. He played in 13 major-league seasons, with 2,692 […]

James Edward O’Neill, the original “Tip,” was one of the most extraordinary Canadian batsmen in the history of baseball. He was born on May 15, 1860, in the village of Springfield, Ontario, the second eldest of four sons and three daughters of Irish Canadian innkeepers James and Mary O’Neill (nee Jeffrey).1 His parents owned the […]

George Kaiserling was born to a German immigrant couple, Frederick and Johanna (Becker) Kaiserling, on May 12, 1893, in Steubenville, Ohio. He was the sixth born of eight, six sons and two daughters. His father worked as a millhand in the basic steelmaking industry and his mother was a homemaker.1   There is only data […]

In the early spring of 1912, it seemed possible that Ralph Capron’s future would take him to Chicago for the United States Olympic Trials, then maybe to Stockholm, Sweden for the Summer Games as a member of the sprint team. However, rumors of professionalism cast a shadow over those aspirations. After three years without making […]

Alex Gaston was noted as the poor-hitting catcher who broke up his own brother’s no-hitter. It was on September 12, 1926, in the second game of a doubleheader in St. Louis. Milt Gaston was pitching for the Browns and brother Alex was playing for the Red Sox. Boston had won the first game, 11-3. Milt […]

“Willie Foster was the greatest left hander that I ever played with and he was a gentleman on and off the field.” — Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe   If there was a signature moment for a baseball player, Willie Foster’s complete-game victories in both ends of the doubleheader for the Chicago American Giants to decide […]

“Where is the furniture?” To Luis Rivera and his five Latino teammates, it must have seemed like a cruel prank. More than a decade before the dot.com boom made the San Francisco Bay Area an outlandishly expensive place to live, they expected their rented home to be furnished. Wasn’t that common? Their already-stretched $600 monthly […]

One of the fastest men in the South, Wilson Collins could cover 100 yards in 9.8 seconds. A baseball, football, and track star at Vanderbilt University, he was called major-league baseball’s first designated runner (he was a pinch-runner in at least half of his games) by Clifford Blau in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal.1 In two […]

In 1889 the Cincinnati Enquirer ran a human-interest story about Yank Robinson’s entry into professional baseball. The story centers on a “stickily-built lad of about 18 years whose ragged clothing caused much unfavorable comment.” He had just come to an unspecified Massachusetts town that day and asked to be part of practice as the town […]

“He was a beautiful person. Yes he was. Cool Papa Bell. He was a lovable person. And still is. And always has been. I love him. My goodness, that’s one beautiful man.” – Dave Barnhill (hard-throwing ace pitcher and all-star of the New York Cubans)1 “He had time for everybody. Never hurried. Signed autographs, talked […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in SABR’s “The National Pastime,” Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 1987. To read more from the TNP archives, click here.   Conceived and nurtured by Information Concepts Incorporated (ICI), a systems company, and published by The Macmillan Company, The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Official Record of Major League […]

New York Giants manager John McGraw, left, and team owner Charles Stoneham in the early 1920s. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   INTRODUCTION The New York-San Francisco Giants baseball club is among the most storied franchises in the annals of professional sport. To fans, mention of the club’s name promptly evokes images of Willie […]

When the Washington Senators1 were founded in 1891, they played their games at Boundary Field in Northwest Washington. Boundary Field was named for its location on the northwest boundary line of the District of Columbia at Boundary Line and Seventh Street. The field is labeled on the 1904 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map as “Athletic Fields,” […]

George Foster experienced American League baseball for the first time in his 18-year career on August 15, 1986, a little over a week after his tumultuous relationship with the New York Mets ended after controversial remarks.1 With 347 career home runs, the 1977 National League Most Valuable Player joined a youthful Chicago White Sox roster […]