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During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a time when black baseball was wide open and strapped for cash, Curtis Harris was in his element. Arriving in Kansas City as a 29-year-old rookie out of Texas in 1931, the good-looking Harris hacked his way from one end of the circuit to the other, leaving opponents, […]
The earliest known connection between dentistry and the Boston Red Sox is Fred Anderson, a pitcher. You’ll find him in the record books, as playing for the Red Sox in 1909 and then again in 1913. It is said that he passed up an opportunity to join the Red Sox until he finished his dentistry […]
Fritz Ostermueller was 41 years old when he took the mound on September 30, 1948, to make the final start of his 15-year major-league career. The Pittsburgh left-hander had played with four big-league teams; his lifetime ledger was even at 114 wins and 114 losses. In early September the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, and the surprising Pirates had […]
Marty Krug appeared in only 20 games in 1912, his rookie season, mostly as a pinch-hitter, or a late-inning replacement. He watched the World Series from the superior but disappointing vantage of the winning team’s bench. He never once stepped onto the field against the New York Giants in those eight dramatic games. The knock […]
George Goetz is among those rare pitchers who won his only major-league game. It was in 1889 for Baltimore of the American Association, which existed from 1882 to 1891. In contrast to so many other major leaguers over the decades who played very few games at that level, Goetz had a very short career in […]
When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]
“Caldwell could be as great as Matty or Walter Johnson, but instead of choosing their careers, he is evidently going to be another Rube Waddell.” — Grantland Rice, 1914 “Caldwell might have been the Mathewson of the Yankees, but he turned out to be the Bugs Raymond of the local Americans. His irregular habits destroyed […]
Which New York Yankees player had the highest batting average in 1964? Mickey Mantle hit .303 and Elston Howard .313 – but nobody topped Elvio Jiménez’s .333 mark. “Look it up,” he said.1 Despite batting .309 over 13 seasons in the minors, however, Jiménez appeared in just one major-league game, going 2-for-6. Following a 17-year […]
With almost a century having passed since the end of his fitful professional career, right-handed pitcher Hi Jasper is an elusive subject, a hard man to pin down. But two Jasper characteristics are unmistakable. He had ability — such astute talent evaluators as Jimmy Callahan, Frank Chance, and Pants Rowland recognized his merits. Yet Jasper’s […]
There have been countless cosmetic changes in how baseball has been played during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but the tools and rules of the game — and of the professional sport — have not been radically altered. A spectator from 1901 would recognize the game in 2021. The revolutionary advances occurred in the 19th […]
It is often the fate of those who are the second to complete a remarkable feat to be relegated to the dust bin of history. Any school child can tell you that Ferdinand Magellan was the first explorer to circumnavigate the world. But can you name the second? Most Americans know that Alan Shepard was […]
John Kennedy listed two goals when he completed a questionnaire for statistician William J. Weiss in 1951: “To become a major leaguer & one of the greatest.” Kennedy completed his first goal. He earned a roster spot as a shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1957, becoming the first African American member of the team. […]
Hugh High’s brother, Andy, himself a 13-year big leaguer, once succinctly summarized big brother Hughie’s career: “He played center field in place of Ty [Cobb] for about six weeks one year when Ty held out,” then “he went to New York to help the Yankees out, but the Yankees got to the point where they […]
The Philadelphia Phillies’ World Series victory in 1980 was the culmination of a long rebuilding process. From 1968 to 1974, the Phillies suffered through seven straight losing seasons and had six different managers. While things seemed grim, the Phillies had a plan. They drafted well and stocked their farm system with good players, many of […]
When Orioles’ first baseman Eddie Murray went on the disabled list for the first time in his Hall of Fame career in July 1986, Baltimore turned to a player who had grown up just a 30-minute drive from Memorial Stadium. In Jim Traber’s first 17 games, the brash, left-handed-swinging rookie whacked eight homers, drove in […]
“I watched him go. He never came back…It made me realize how fragile life really is.”[1] – Bob Bailor Righty pitcher Mark “Dutch” Weems displayed promise as a Baltimore Orioles farmhand in the early 1970s. After turning pro in 1969, he reached Class AAA as early as 1971. He was playing winter ball in Venezuela […]
Only one man has played on a team that won major league baseball’s World Series and also on a team that won the championship of the National Football League. That man is Hinkey Haines. Haines’ baseball career, though modest, included being part of several memorable moments. His football career led to a great deal of […]
This French-Canadian pitcher roamed widely but played just three big-league games in his career. During that one adventurous year, 1946, Roy hopscotched around Cuba, Mexico, Brooklyn — and his birthplace, Montréal. There Jackie Robinson played behind him as Branch Rickey’s “Great Experiment” moved forward. Then came a repercussion from Jorge Pasquel’s flashy raids. Roy jumped […]
Charles Radbourn’s pitching achievements were hailed by contemporaries and sportswriters for decades as some of the greatest feats of nineteenth century baseball. Little known today, many considered an 18-inning game in 1882 as the finest athletic contest ever seen on a baseball diamond. That game was won, not by the pitcher Radbourn, but by the […]
During the years between the ownership of the New York Giants by club founder John B. Day (1883-1890) and the tumultuous stewardship of Andrew Freedman (1895-1902), the franchise was controlled by a group of business-minded men with varying degrees of interest in baseball. Although he never held the title of team president, the unquestioned leader […]
Early on Sunday morning, May 2, 1954, a group of 37 people from Chillicothe, Missouri, boarded a chartered bus for the first leg of a round trip to Busch Stadium1 in St. Louis to see a doubleheader between the Cardinals and New York Giants. The Midwestern town’s depot agent, J.E. Brotherton, had arranged the excursion, […]
This article appears in SABR’s “When the Monarchs Reigned: Kansas City’s 1942 Negro League Champions” (2021), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin. The year 1941 marked the beginning of an unforgettable period in American history. While some US soldiers basked in the comfortable confines of a Hawaiian breeze, half a world away […]
This article appears in SABR’s “The Stars Shone on Philadelphia: The 1934 Negro National League Champions” (2023), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin. Ed Bolden’s Philadelphia Stars existed for almost exactly 20 years. They were formed in February 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression and the transition from Herbert Hoover […]
LaGrave Field is the name of two baseball parks in Fort Worth, Texas. The first LaGrave Field was the home of the minor-league Fort Worth Panthers from 1926 to 1958 in the Texas League, 1959 in the American Association, a shared home of the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers from 1960 to 1963 in the American Association […]