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“The East-West Game became the spirit and life of Negro League baseball, serving to entertain, educate, and ultimately provide a forum to integrate our national pastime many years later.” — Larry Lester1   The idea for a Negro League all-star game is attributed to sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of […]

The Tampa Bay Rays were the defending American League pennant winners in 2009. Just 11 years after their expansion season in 1998, the Rays ran through the gauntlet that is the American League East in the regular season, eclipsed Chicago and Boston in the playoffs, and were then crowned AL champs. The ultimate dream of […]

“You won’t see two better pitchers in your whole life than those two today,” declared Chicago Cubs skipper Leo Durocher about the Independence Day 1969 matchup between future Hall of Famers Fergie Jenkins and Bob Gibson.1 While Jenkins went the distance in the Cubs’ 10-inning win over the St. Louis Cardinals, “It was a strange […]

The third time was supposed to be the charm for manager Hughie Jennings and the Detroit Tigers. The skipper had led the Detroiters to the World Series in each of his three seasons at the helm, but unfortunately had dropped the first two against the Chicago Cubs. The 1909 Series pitted two of the best […]

The 1911 season began well for the Detroit Tigers. By May 19 they already had two six-game winning streaks and a nine-game winning streak, and their 27-5 record was 9½ games ahead of the second-place Chicago White Sox. They cooled off with two losses to the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics and another loss […]

In 1911, their 11th year in the American League, the Nationals had yet to have a winning season.  The team had been so lackluster in its years in Washington that its ownership solicited fan suggestions and changed its name from the Senators to the Nationals in 1905 in hopes of inspiring a change in fortunes.1 […]

There are times when our humanity transcends decades-long sports rivalries because something, or someone, bigger than all of us is present. In the City by the Bay, the afternoon of October 2, 2016, was one of those times. The San Francisco Giants were hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers at AT&T Park on the last day […]

Tom Seaver pitched with the precision of a NASA engineer using a slide rule to calculate rocket trajectories. The boyish-looking right-hander led the National League in strikeouts five times; led the major leagues in ERA twice and the National League once; won three Cy Young Awards; and received the highest percentage vote for induction to […]

With the 1908 American League championship on the line at South Side Park in Chicago, Tigers manager Hughie Jennings handed the ball to Bill Donovan (17-7). Donovan, sometimes called Smiling Bill, had every reason to smile after the game. His two-hit shutout of the surprisingly error-prone White Sox gave Detroit a 7-0 victory, and their […]

“World Series, Game Seven.” Words to stir the blood of any baseball player or fan. The whole baseball world (and maybe even the whole world) watches game seven. The 2014 postseason featured a compelling Game Seven between two unlikely teams, the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants. Neither team was a division winner; […]

Pittsburgh’s historic Ammon Field was renamed Josh Gibson Field in 2008 to honor the Baseball Hall of Famer who started his semipro career there in 1928. Harold “Hooks” Tinker, the Ammon Field regular who signed Gibson while player-manager of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, once spoke very fondly of a mutual teammate, middle infielder Charlie Hughes: The […]

Gus Greenlee, famed owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, came from a family that valued education. His three brothers earned medical or law degrees, but Gus left college after a year and moved away from his family at age 19 to work in Pittsburgh. He soon purchased his own taxi and began running bootleg liquor out […]

“When I lost Frank I lost one of my best friends. Baseball lost one of its best managers. He was one of the best catchers we ever saw.” — Buck O’Neil1 Frank Duncan’s legendary Negro League career lasted 27 years and his unquenchable zest for life was etched across each and every one of them. […]

In the early 1900s the fledgling automobile industry sought out connections to the national pastime. The Chalmers Motor Company presented a car to the most valuable player. Ty Cobb considered opening a Hupmobile dealership. According to a newspaper ad, “ ‘Hans’ Wagner, ‘Ty’ Cobb, Sam Crawford and other ball players ride in their own machines […]

“I had a slow ball, a slow fastball, a fast fastball, and a drop ball. You could count the seams on my slow fastball, and you could just barely see my fast fastball. But you couldn’t hit either one of ‘em.” — Lefty Mellix1   By his account, Ralph “Lefty” Mellix pitched in more than […]

With a truncated index finger on his pitching hand,1 southpaw Willie “Three Finger” Gisentaner was the Negro Leagues’ counterpart to the major leagues’ Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Gisentaner moved from team to team in a career that lasted two decades. He was recognized as a smart pitcher and a good hitter. On December 11, 1899, William Gisentaner […]

Every human being who has lived on this Earth has done so with a shaky psychological   underpinning. Most of us manage to hold onto our senses and live out our lives keeping our balance. Then there are those unfortunate ones who lose their psychological balance and go under. Major leaguers are not exempt. Claude Rossman was […]

The 1935 East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago, the third consecutive year of the Negro League version of the midsummer classic, ended on a Mule Suttles three-run homer to drive in Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson. Pittsburgh Courier writer Chester L. Washington, in recounting the contest, made special note of a critical […]

“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]

Sammy Hughes’ name will almost certainly appear on any list of the top players of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s and 1940s. Hughes didn’t draw the attention of some of the bigger personalities of the day like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, but it is generally agreed that he was one of the most […]

When it comes to the Black baseball experience in Pittsburgh’s history, most people will think it starts with the Homestead Grays, incorporates the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and ends after Jackie Robinson and integration. This truncated and incomplete history is the narrative that makes its rounds in discussions and articles about Pittsburgh’s Black baseball history. What most […]

From his debut in the majors to his fifth and final game spanned a mere 11 days in April 1947, despite his getting two hits in that last game. But Frank Strickland Shofner played nine years in the minor leagues. Though both were Texans, Strick Shofner was no known relation to pitcher Milt “Pinky” Shoffner, […]

A diminutive lefty who was one of baseball’s biggest stars of the rollicking 1890s, Wee Willie Keeler continued to “hit ’em where they ain’t” through the first decade of the Deadball Era. The tiny (5-feet-4½-inches, 140 pounds) right fielder’s career covered 19 big-league campaigns, and in 13 of them – every year from 1894 to 1906 […]

Patriarch of a three-generation big-league family, hard-hitting Negro Leaguer Sam Hairston played, coached, and scouted in pro baseball for over half a century. As a scout, Sam brought in at least five men who played for the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared briefly in 1951. Two of Sam’s three sons signed pro contracts […]