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Lon Knight’s career was one of firsts. He threw the first pitch in National League history, was likely the first player of Italian descent to play professional baseball, and was the first to hit for a natural cycle in major-league history. So who better to lead the Athletics into the 1883 season than the Philadelphia […]

Middle infielder Rey Sánchez spent 15 years in the major leagues and worked just 10 games shy of 1,500. About two-thirds of the games were at shortstop and one-third at second base. He hit .272 over the course of a career spent with nine big-league ballclubs, though his first seven seasons were spent with the […]

Stan Williams worked in professional baseball for more than 50 years. The Dodgers signed the big, tall, right-handed fireballer after he completed high school in the 1950s, and he was still on a major-league payroll as a scout as late as 2010. Williams had a knack for contributing to winning teams. In just his second […]

Joe Black helped lead the Brooklyn Dodgers to the 1952 pennant, going 15-4 with 15 saves, and a 2.15 ERA. He won the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. “Let’s put it this way,” Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen told reporters, “Where would […]

Three days before the start of the 1990 season, Omar Vizquel, the Seattle Mariners’ slick-fielding shortstop, sprained his left knee during a collision in a Cactus League exhibition. The injury sidelined him until July. That same day, April 6, the Mariners signed utility infielder Mike Brumley to fill the void. Before the signing, Brumley had […]

The 1928 Red Sox, very anxious to work their way out of the American League cellar, used 17 pitchers in the course of the season. Only five of the 17 won a game, and the team featured a 25-game loser in Red Ruffing. There were also five pitchers with decisions who had nothing but losses: […]

As a devoted fan of major-league baseball in Boston for more than a quarter-century, Lolly Hopkins was widely known as the “Woman with the Megaphone.”1 Hopkins was one of the last bipartisan baseball fans in Boston, who followed the Braves and Red Sox with equal fervor until Boston ceased to be a two-team city in […]

Those fans who don’t remember Bob Johnson as a member of the 1969 Mets can certainly be excused. Johnson, 26, pitched in all of two September games that season—notching one save in the team’s 100th win of the year and allowing no runs—before being rendered ineligible for postseason play. Still, those brief Mets appearances represented […]

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 […]

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.” […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

On the Saturday before graduating from high school in June 1961, 18-year-old Lew Krausse Jr. watched from a box seat at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC, as hurler Norm Bass tossed the Kansas City A’s first shutout of the season.1 Sitting with Krausse was his father, former major-league pitcher Lew Krausse Sr., and their host, […]

Ban Johnson conceived the idea of a more gentlemanly major league because he figured baseball enthusiasts of the early 1900s would respond well to that style of play. But even Johnson, the guiding force for the American League’s emergence in 1901, was stunned by the throng of rooters who turned out to Columbia Park when […]

Many fathers refer to the birth of a child as one of their most memorable days. That was the case for shortstop Lennie Merullo on September 13, 1942, when his son Lennie Jr. was born. But it was also a day Merullo would just as soon forget, after he committed four errors in one inning […]

Andy Van Hekken is not listed among the who’s who of Detroit Tigers legends. But on one day late in the 2002 season, he captivated baseball with a brilliant outing – the likes of which had not been seen in the American League since 1975 – to etch his name into Tigers lore alongside a […]

Though both men were amazingly talented on the field, the Yankees’ Home Run Twins couldn’t have been any more different. Babe Ruth was a brash and boorish free spirit who had a casual and often defiant way of dealing with authority. He was also fun-loving and charismatic, with an ego that craved the spotlight. By […]

The 1965 baseball season was one of great excitement for fans in Houston. Their National League team had moved into the newly built Astrodome and renamed itself the Houston Astros. The novelty of indoor baseball brought fans from all over the area to see major-league play in the modern air-conditioned comfort of the “Eighth Wonder […]

“Life moves pretty fast,” the title character of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off says after fooling his parents into thinking he is too sick to go to school. “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Ferris, a high-school senior from a Chicago suburb, refuses to miss that day’s […]

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 […]