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Nicknamed “The Mayor” because of his enthusiasm for meeting and helping others, Sean Casey proved to be one of baseball’s best ambassadors through his determination to benefit his teammates and community at large. Leading through his competitive spirit, the lefty-hitting first baseman batted .302 over 12 major-league seasons (1997-2008). After his playing career, he became […]

Written in blue ink on his minor-league questionnaire was Wayne Granger’s ambition in baseball: “To be a steady starter in [the] major leagues.”1 In a major-league career that spanned nine seasons and seven teams, the right-hander never started a game. But his sinkerball and lanky, 6-foot-2 build helped Granger become the model of durability as […]

At age 25, Bob Elson had the ideal attributes to appeal to a fledgling radio industry. With a clear voice, an engaging personality, and the innate skill to immediately convert the action before him into words, he was able to parlay a radio contest in St. Louis into a broadcasting career in Chicago covering more […]

With their first-round pick in the 1978 amateur draft, the Minnesota Twins selected Lenny Faedo, a high-school shortstop from Tampa, Florida. Sixteen rounds later, the Twins selected Kent Hrbek, a first baseman from Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minnesota. Faedo and Hrbek both rose through the Twins farm system quickly. Faedo made his major-league debut […]

Because he was born on an Indian reservation, Bob Johnson was considered a ward of the government. He and his older brother Roy Johnson, whose career began in 1929 with the Detroit Tigers, were both born in Pryor, Oklahoma (some 35 miles east of Tulsa) – before Oklahoma became a state.1 Roy was the eldest […]

“I don’t care for Rockefeller’s millions and I have no desire to share Wilson’s honors,” Heinie Wagner once quipped to a group of players during a long, hot train ride out west. “But I would like to be as good a pitcher as Walter Johnson and always be able to pitch for a team as […]

He describes himself as a very easy-going guy, but in the next breath he’ll tell you he’s a full-blooded German with a hot temper that sometimes explodes.” — Earl Lawson, The Sporting News1 The Kansas City Royals gathered in February 2008 at their spring facility in Surprise, Arizona. One coach, rumbling around on a golf […]

Newly recruited from the Pacific Northwest League, boyish left-hander Jimmy St. Vrain pitched capably for the Chicago Cubs in early part of the 1902 season. Plagued by poor defensive support – more than one-third of the runs surrendered by St. Vrain were unearned – he posted a hard luck 4-6 record, with a fine 2.08 […]

Nearly 1,700 ballplayers have appeared in but a single major league game. Ray Kennedy, a catcher by trade, was one of those one-game wonders. At age 21, on September 8, 1916, he pinch-hit for the St. Louis Browns at Detroit’s Navin Field. Yet despite only three minutes on that hallowed diamond, Kennedy gave his heart […]

Sam Nahem was a so-so pitcher who logged a 10–8 won-loss record and a 4.69 ERA in four partial seasons with the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Phillies between 1938 and 1948. Despite this unremarkable record, Nahem was a remarkable major leaguer in many ways. He was the only Syrian and one of the few Jews in […]

Son of a great baseball man, scout and executive Mel Didier, Bob Didier has been in the game for more than five decades, almost as long as his father. He was a professional catcher from 1967 through 1976, including one full season and parts of five others in the majors. He has since served as […]

Although he was overshadowed by four future Hall of Famers on the same team, shortstop Don Kessinger played an integral role on the pennant-contending Chicago Cub squads of the late 1960s and early 1970s. After a short stint with the St. Louis Cardinals afterwards, he ended his career on the South Side of Chicago as […]

In Jeff Plympton’s major-league pitching career, he never gave up a run – earned or unearned. Reading a statement such as that, one might correctly guess that his time at the top level was brief. He pitched in 279 games as a professional, but only four in the majors, for the 1991 Boston Red Sox. […]

Don Richard “Richie” Ashburn, a Hall of Fame outfielder, who made the most putouts of any outfielder in major-league baseball during the 1950s, started out as a catcher, which should not be surprising because throughout his long career in baseball, Richie Ashburn had always been his own man. His independent quality even emerged during his […]

Terrence Jon Francona, colloquially Terry, has seen baseball from just about all of its vantage points. From that of a highly touted first-round pick. As the last man to make a 25-man roster. And then during a lengthy but mostly successful managerial career, including two championships in Boston. It has not come easy for Tito, […]

Lew Simmons was a popular performer as a minstrel entertainer both before and after his time in baseball management. One of many persons who linked the theater with nineteenth-century baseball, Simmons was a noted banjoist, a professional comedian of great repute, and an end man with the tambourine in the minstrel show.1 There is considerable […]

Frankie Frisch may have been playing possum, or just being coy. But after the St. Louis Cardinals won Game Six of the 1934 World Series, the big question was which pitcher manager Frisch would send to the hill for the seventh and deciding game. His star pitcher, Dizzy Dean, was coming off a loss in […]

At the turn of the 20th century, baseball truly was America’s game. The Boston Daily Globe put it this way. “Once more baseball is king. From the National League to the [local] nine purchasing uniforms on the instalment [sic] plan, all is bustle. Never was [sic] there so many leagues and independent teams in existence […]

When Mel Harder guided 13 Indian arms through an astonishing 111-win season, there was no “How-To” book for pitching coaches. That’s because he was still writing it. During Harder’s two-decade stint as an active hurler, pitchers were often treated like zoo animals—objects of curiosity, the care and feeding of whom was left to whichever coach […]

Pitcher Dustin Hermanson routinely switched back and forth between starter and reliever roles throughout his 12-year major-league career. He had moderate success in both roles, saving his best season until the end of his career, when he recorded a career-high 34 saves for the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who won their first World Series since […]

“He has a brain in his arm.” – Syd Thrift1 That high baseball IQ was a critical part of Rick Reuschel’s success. It led him to trust a pitch-to-contact approach that was not flashy but required supreme control and unwavering confidence. He defied the stereotypes of a star pitcher. “Big Daddy” was unathletic-looking, with an […]

Talk about your quick-starting careers. Billy Pierce didn’t play organized baseball until he was 15. Born in Detroit on April 2, 1927, Pierce attended Highland Park (Michigan) High School, but originally he was not a pitcher. As he recalled to Mark Liptak, “I was a first baseman when I was 14, and the kid who […]

Underappreciated in his late-19th-century heyday and largely forgotten for decades thereafter, Roger Connor was baseball’s first great slugger, the game’s career home-run leader prior to the arrival of Babe Ruth. A fastball-loving left-handed batter, Connor spent virtually every season between 1880 and 1894 among league leaders in a wide array of offensive categories. Over time […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]