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Many famous major-league players had their careers interrupted by military service in World War II, and we wonder what records men like Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese, Hank Greenberg, and others might have achieved if it hadn’t been for those lost years. Furthermore, a large group of younger men […]

Hundreds of ballplayers, from Jack Graney to Alex Rodriguez, have traded their gloves for microphones. Joe Garagiola, the second-best catcher from Elizabeth Street in St. Louis, was the most successful. Branching out from his roots as a baseball announcer, he filled in for Johnny Carson as host of the Tonight Show, served two terms as […]

It is hard to reconcile Henry Chadwick’s world of gentleman baseball players with the portrayal of New York City in Martin Scorcese’s film The Gangs of New York. One link between these two worlds was John Morrissey; immigrant, “wharf rat”, heavyweight champion, gambler, businessman, congressman and state senator. Morrissey is tied to baseball through accounts […]

The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson estimates that the slowest pitch that could reach home plate on the fly would travel around 30 miles per hour.1 Stu Miller didn’t defy the laws of physics, but he challenged the equation that says Velocity = Success. “He’s got three speeds of pitches – slow, slower and reverse,” the sportswriter […]

Although there isn’t a strong correlation between hair color and personality, it’s fair to say that the stereotypical redhead is hot-tempered, fiery and passionate. With his carrot-topped thatch, Wade Killefer personifies this description and was a natural to be called “Red” from birth. Add to the mix a stocky 5’9″ 175-pound frame, a keen intellect, […]

For someone who always preferred the simple things in life, James Augustus Hunter was a complex man. To most of the world, he was Catfish, the big-game, big-money, right-handed ace who anchored an Oakland A’s pitching staff that won three straight World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. It was Catfish who in May 1968 […]

After World War II, Frank Jobe followed the proverbial American dream: college, medical school, marriage, and a family. Even though he said he never planned it that way, he pursued a career that helped make the world a better place — particularly the world of baseball, as the developer of the procedure known as Tommy […]

Fate: “The supposed force, principle, or power that predetermines events.”[1] Some people believe in it, some do not, though no one can be certain of its existence. But Fred Clarke was a believer in fate. In an interview with a reporter from the New York Herald in 1911, Clarke admitted, “I attribute my success to […]

During his lifetime, Col. Frank Leslie Smith (1867-1950) adhered to a simple credo: the ends justified the means. The motto served him well as he built formidable business connections and amassed political clout on local, regional and national stages. By that same measure, it established the framework for his ultimate downfall. But during his youth, […]

No essay-length biography could possibly do full justice to John Montgomery Ward. His life, both on and off the diamond, was entirely too eventful. His playing career was replete with notable achievements. When he joined the Providence Grays in 1878, an 18-year-old Ward was the National League’s youngest player. During the 1880 season, he hurled […]

While his father spent his life laboring below the ground in Pennsylvania’s coal mines, Bill Hart skied on Bear Mountain with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Because of wartime travel restrictions, the “spring” training home of the Dodgers in 1944 was only about an hour north of New York City.[fn]“S’no Time for Ball Players- But Good Time […]

It was a dreary, overcast day in Brooklyn on April 15, 1954. The visiting Pirates were at Ebbets Field to face the Dodgers. The home team had jumped out to a 7-1 lead courtesy of home runs by Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam and Jackie Robinson. Tex Ricard, the Dodger PA announcer announced a pitching change […]

Bobby Valentine played in the majors for 10 years. After his playing career, he became one of the most colorful managers in baseball during the last decade of the 20th century. Valentine was always candid and outspoken throughout his managerial career. Robert James Valentine was born on May 13, 1950, in Stamford, Connecticut. His parents […]

Chroniclers of the game have rarely been kind to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the New York Giants from January 1895 to September 1902. According to one team historian, Freedman was “naturally arrogant (with) a bad temper at the end of a very short fuse.”1   In much the same vein, Bill James memorably described him […]

Left-hander Jehosie Heard stepped onto a major-league mound for the first time on a chilly Chicago spring day in April 1954. As he walked out to the mound at Comiskey Park, Heard became the first African-American to play for the Baltimore Orioles. The team was in Chicago for a four-game series against the White Sox; […]

Cory Lidle pitched for seven teams in the major leagues, primarily as a starter, during nine seasons from 1997 to 2006. His life was cut short on October 11, 2006, when the Cirrus SR20 airplane he was piloting struck a building while attempting to make a turn over the East River in New York City.1 […]

In 1915, America’s leading syndicated sportswriter, Hugh Fullerton, published a forgettable baseball novel in which a star left-handed pitcher named Williams is bribed and threatened by gamblers to lose the pennant for his team.1 Fullerton, who dedicated the novel to his friend and mentor, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, had been writing about the […]

No compilation of baseball’s all-time top left-handed pitchers is complete without Whitey Ford. Indeed, he is near or at the top of any worthwhile list. His 236 wins made him the winningest pitcher in the storied history of the New York Yankees. He incurred only 106 defeats, giving him a lifetime winning percentage of .690, […]

Given a comical nickname based on his last name and beaky nose, William Dayton “Poll” Perritt had a successful 10-year pitching career, pitched in a World Series, was bribed by Hal Chase, tussled with John McGraw and oil barons, and became a modestly successful Louisiana oilman. William Dayton Perritt was the first child born to […]

A late-inning home run by Willie Mays was the decisive blow in San Francisco’s dramatic 2-1 victory on the last day of the 1962 regular season, clinching a playoff berth for the Giants against their downstate rival Los Angeles Dodgers. Meanwhile, Dick “Turk” Farrell, the right-handed hurler for the Houston Colt .45s who surrendered the […]

  High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) May 2016, Volume 1, Number 5 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley SABR 46 committee meeting From the Editor From the Director Guest Columns: Rory Costello and Warren Corbett Interview with Bill Nowlin Project Profile: Tom Schott Project Poobahs   […]

As a founding franchise of the American League, at least in its major-league incarnation, the Boston club has had its share of colorful and fascinating owners. Though the club enjoyed considerable on-field success at the beginning of each century, it is perhaps most famous for its 86-year championship drought, a period dominated by its most […]

Entrance to Four Mile Run Park in Arlington, Virginia, in the twenty-first century. (City of Arlington)   Take a flood-prone elementary school. Add a peppery, baseball-mad mayor and a group of disgruntled neighbors. Mix in dozens of minor-league ballplayers, ranging from top prospects to unwanted, unsigned good-enough-to-dream types. Oh, and throw in a bunch of […]