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Buddy Gilbert is rarely, if ever, mentioned among baseball’s greatest hitters. Yet he holds a claim to baseball fame: His 10 percent ratio of home runs to at-bats is technically the highest in major league history (given a cutoff of 20 at-bats). The outfielder played in just seven big league games with the Cincinnati Reds […]

Butch Nieman had a short but productive major-league career. Considered a replacement player during World War II, Nieman patrolled the Boston Braves outfield on a regular basis from 1943 to 1945 and can best be described as a streak hitter with a penchant for delivering the big hit in the clutch. In his three-year stint […]

Well, what difference does it make what name you play under so long as you get your money? “Bell” is a good baseball name and an easy one for the sporting writers to remember. 1 — New York Highlanders manager Clark Griffith (1907)   Contract jumper, manager, umpire, scoreboard operator, and weekly fungo wielder baseball […]

Right-hander Bill Yerrick pitched in a total of five games for the late nineteenth-century Boston Beaneaters. He was 1-0 for the team in 1895 but didn’t see his surname in a newspaper story or box score because he earned his first and only major league win as an “experimental pitcher” playing under the pseudonym “Banks.” […]

Located approximately 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Uniontown is the largest city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Beginning life as “The Town of Union” in 1776, many notables have come from this quaint settlement that sits in the shadow of Chestnut Ridge.1 In the latter part of the 19th century, two friends who played baseball together […]

“In the morning he won a bride . . . and then proceeded to win the ball game, with a couple of home runs, much to the delight of the bride who sat in the stands and cheered his efforts.”1 On the morning of June 19, 1914, Vella Chloa Glasman, an accomplished 22-year-old singer living […]

Two-time minor-league batting champion Ralph Sharman enjoyed a productive late-season tryout with the 1917 Philadelphia Athletics. Eschewing a potential full-season roster spot for 1918, Sharman instead enlisted in the Army in order to serve his country. Tragically, the 23-year-old soldier became the second player who had reached the major leagues to die while serving in […]

The 1914 home run leader in professional baseball wasn’t Gavvy Cravath or even Frank “Home Run” Baker, but an unassuming 21-year-old Georgia lumber farmer named Everett Bankston, who banged out 31 homers with Cordele in the Class D Georgia State League in his very first professional season. He never came close to matching that production […]

In 1969 the expansion Seattle Pilots hired Eddie O’Brien as bullpen coach. His role was to assist manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie. Asked at the start of the season to specifically describe his duties, O’Brien offered “Well, I look in to Sal or Joe, and they let me know when I’m supposed […]

Frank Aloysius McCue had his cup of coffee in the majors, but his baseball life was more illustrative of the hopefuls who struggled in the bushes for years without much more than a sip. McCue’s statistical record is somewhat incomplete, but the infielder kept returning to the Class B leagues. In the nine seasons from […]

  “Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win! … Braves Win!!” That call still gives fans of the Atlanta Braves goosebumps.1 That’s how Skip Caray ended his description of the play that sent the 1992 Braves to their second consecutive World Series. He repeated his signature “Braves Win!” line a few times more than […]

He was not as flashy as his predecessor, Buck Weaver. But he was as refined and polished as a third baseman as one could find. He had quick and sure hands and outstanding range, and threw perfect strikes across the diamond. Hall of Fame pitcher Charles “Chief” Bender said he was the best third sacker […]

Catcher Bill Conroy was one of several ballplayers who found that World War II provided them the opportunity for a second shot at a major-league career that would otherwise have eluded them. He had played in one game for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1935 and another in 1936, then appeared in 26 games in ‘37. […]

There have been many famous husband-wife teams who shared a career, each partner making contributions to their success. George Burns and Gracie Allen. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Johnny Cash and June Carter. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Isis and Osiris and the six wives of King Henry VIII to name a few. In a male-dominated […]

Remember Mathewson, Ames, and Donlin,Buck Ewing, Rusie, Smiling Mickey Welch?Remember a left-handed catcher named Jack Humphries,Who sometimes played the outfield, in ’83? — From Rolfe Humphries, “Polo Grounds.”1   By the usual baseball benchmarks Jack Humphries’ major-league career was the definition of forgettable: backup catcher with the New York Gothams and the Washington Nationals in […]

Hal Kolstad had an unfortunate record as a major-league pitcher, losing four games without a win to his credit. It certainly didn’t help that he pitched for the eighth-place Boston Red Sox in 1962 and the seventh-place Sox in 1963. But he had a very solid 67-67 record in minor-league baseball, mostly at a high […]

In the early years, baseball had its share of Buck Weavers, but the most famous among them was not the “original.”  That distinction, according to sportswriter Fred Lieb, goes not to the White Sox infielder, but to William Clinton Bond Weaver, known more commonly today by his other nickname, “Farmer.”1 This Buck Weaver started his […]

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, […]

Over his 16 major league seasons, Stan Bahnsen was a regular rotation starter, a workhorse in a three-man rotation, a closer for a while, and finally an all-purpose reliever and spot starter. Fans at the University of Nebraska named him “The Bahnsen Burner” for his blazing fastball; later in his career he would be “Stanley […]

By the end of the 1957 major-league season, Ed Bouchee had made good on all his early athletic promise with a fine rookie season as the first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. His slash line was .293/.394/470, with 17 home runs and 76 RBIs. The 24-year-old Bouchee, a former high school sports hero from Spokane, […]

Good things come in small packages. Bob Durnbaugh was listed at 5 feet, 8 inches tall during his career but the measurements must have been done with his cleats on. He endeared himself to fans and teammates by being “the hustlingest baseball player (they) ever saw.”1 Hustle and attitude are one thing, but Durnbaugh had […]

When the Baltimore Orioles hosted the Louisville Colonels for an American Association doubleheader at Oriole Park on June 17, 1889, the visitors hadn’t won a game in almost four weeks. After defeating Baltimore on May 21, the Colonels had lost 20 straight, more than any other Association or National League team. Louisville’s 19th and 20th […]

In the mid-1960s, noted artist Norman Rockwell lived and painted in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts.1 The baseball-related events that took place there on Thursday, May 13, 1965, seem perfectly suited to his brush—wholesome, all-American, small-townish, and, to a twenty-first-century eye, vanishingly obsolete. Schools in the small city of North Adams let out at […]

Editor’s note: On July 25, 1987, SABR placed a grave marker at the previously unmarked grave of John W. Jackson. Known in the baseball world as Bud Fowler, the New York native was a Black baseball pioneer who played, managed, and promoted teams during the late 19th century. The dedication ceremony at Oak View Cemetery […]