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“He’s a superhero without a cape. That’s the way we see him.” — Alex Cora1 Several of the biggest base hits in Boston baseball history came off the bat of “Big Papi,” David Ortiz. He sports three world championship rings and then wrapped up his career with one of the best final seasons any player […]

Tall, powerful, and fleet-footed, Burnis “Wild Bill” Wright was one of the Negro Leagues’ brightest stars for nearly a decade before embarking on a lengthy and successful Hall of Fame career in the Mexican Leagues. A towering 6-foot-4, 220-pound switch-hitter who slashed for average and slugged with power, he bunted effectively, ran like the wind, […]

On Friday, September 1, 1961, catcher Facundo “Cuno” Barragan, age 29, made his major-league debut for the lowly Chicago Cubs. He became the 33rd big-leaguer to hit a home run in his first at-bat. In 2017, he recalled, “When I hit it, I was running like it was going to be a double, and then […]

Floyd Rayford’s soft hands and even softer belly, combined with his underrated athleticism and good nature, made him an Orioles’ fan favorite in the 1980s. With the skills to play six positions — primarily third base and catcher — during his professional career, and what one manager called the “perfect temperament for baseball,” Rayford spent […]

In the 1920s, Harry Kincannon left the coalfields of southern West Virginia and headed north to Pittsburgh, where he developed into a right-handed curveball specialist in the city’s sandlot leagues. He began his professional career in 1929 with the Pittsburgh Crawford Giants. Kincannon remained with the Crawfords organization through 1936, but did not make an […]

Jim Boyer was born and raised in Maryland. He died in Maryland and is buried there. And when he left the American League’s umpiring staff in 1950 after almost seven seasons, it was to take a job in the Old Line State. Unfortunately, Boyer never umpired a major-league game in Maryland, since the St. Louis […]

The resume accumulated by the investor was something less than the model envisioned by Ban Johnson for club ownership in the fledgling American League. Nor was a bankroll amassed via saloon ownership, bookmaking, horse racing stables, casino operation, and service to Tammany Hall the preferred source of the financial wherewithal needed for relocation of the […]

How you remember Dave Parker depends largely on what you remember him for. Do you remember him as one of the best players in the major leagues in the last half of the 1970s? The man who was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1978 and MVP of the All-Star Game in 1979? The […]

“As the son of former major league player, manager and [front-office executive Bob Kennedy]…Terry grew up among baseball…and had the privilege of learning about hitting from the likes of Stan Musial and Ted Williams.”1 This privileged education undoubtedly contributed to Terry Kennedy’s selection as the youngest player on the 1976 College All-America baseball team. He […]

Earl Williams’ career was one marked by achievement and controversy. During his newsworthy career, spanning parts of eight seasons, Williams reached the heights of a 1971 National League Rookie of the Year season, and the low of leaving baseball as persona non grata at the age of 29. Born July 14, 1948 in Newark, New […]

One week in June 1988. Zach Crouch’s major league debut was on June 4, 1988. The young pitcher came into a game at Fenway Park, with the Toronto Blue Jays leading the Red Sox, 7-2, in the top of the ninth. The Jays had already scored four runs in the inning, off ace reliever Lee […]

If the movie Cinderella Man had been about the career of a major league baseball player rather than a boxing legend, the story of Mike Huff would have to be considered. His good friend and former college teammate Joe Girardi would probably agree. “Mike has had a lot of adversity in his life but he […]

“Billy Williams,” said his manager Leo Durocher, “never gets excited. Never gets mad. Never throws a bat. You write his name down, in the same spot every day, and you forget it. He will play left, he will bat third. Billy Williams is a machine.”i This was not wholly hyperbole—at the time Durocher made this […]

“Just call me Hank,” said Henry “Prince” Oana. He didn’t really come from Hawaiian royalty, but there was still a certain mystique about this outfielder-turned-pitcher. In a time when mainstream baseball lacked diversity, Oana was something exotic. When this story was originally published in 2009, there weren’t many men alive who knew Hank Oana during […]

There have been two big leaguers named Joe Morgan — and it’s not hard to tell them apart. Joseph Michael Morgan played fractions of four seasons in “The Show,” finishing with three games for the 1964 Cardinals. He is white. Joe Leonard Morgan’s Hall of Fame career ran from 1963 to 1984. He is black. […]

On October 28, 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals prepared to play Game Seven of the World Series against the Texas Rangers at Busch Stadium. The organization asked Whitey Herzog, the manager of the last Cardinals team to play a World Series Game Seven at home, to throw the ceremonial first pitch. He had fallen ill, […]

Bobby Richardson played second base for the New York Yankees from 1955 to 1966, a key contributor during one of the Yankees’ most successful stretches in their legendary history. Richardson was by all accounts a slick, rangy glove man and a steady stick man. He won the Gold Glove Award five times, he batted over […]

Tried and convicted of murder in a court of law, Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb hurled his best pitches from behind prison walls. The tall, lanky right-hander with a nasty temper and a taste for booze won just a single game as a major leaguer. He won 131 games while playing for teams based at the San […]

Commissioner Ford C. Frick presided over 14 of the most turbulent years in the game’s history: the first franchise moves in half a century, expansion of the major leagues, the near-death of the minors, growing unrest among players, the rise of television, and the exploding popularity of football. With change swirling around him, Frick often […]

Bronson Arroyo played 16 years of major-league baseball and helped the Boston Red Sox end the Curse of the Bambino with the 2004 World Series championship. His controversial tag of Álex Rodríguez in Game Six of the ALCS, when the umpires reversed their original call, spurred the Red Sox on to a victory. Boston closed […]

Tim Teufel, who played mostly at second base but filled in at all three other infield positions, had good line-drive power, with 86 home runs in the majors. After breaking in with the Minnesota Twins in September 1983, he went on to play 10 full seasons. He spent a little over half that time with […]

In over a century of existence, through 2016 the New York Yankees have been run by only five different ownership groups.1 To their great fortune and that of their fans, the three longest tenured were well-capitalized and committed to winning. They also had a terrific knack for finding great baseball men to work for them. […]

For the two major-league baseball teams that called the Bronx home, the 1925 regular season was dreadful. The American League’s New York Yankees suffered their worst season in over a decade, finishing in seventh place, 16 games under .500. The Lincoln Giants won only 7 of their 50 games in the Eastern Colored League and […]