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The 1934 Philadelphia Stars, champions of the second iteration of the Negro National League (NNL2), used a balanced four-man rotation that consisted of two righties and two lefties for most of their league games. Slim Jones, a 21-year-old southpaw, emerged as the team’s ace as he pitched to a 20-4 record and a 1.29 ERA […]
“My big idol was Larry Kopf, who played with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 World Series. They’re still my team. That’s a big thing for a town our size to have a guy in the big leagues.” So said Abraham A. “Abe” Ribicoff, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and a former Governor of […]
“There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer,” said the greatest player of his time, or most any other time — Honus Wagner. He may be the greatest player in National League history. One of five sons and four daughters of the former Katrina Wolf and Peter Wagner, Honus (a diminutive of […]
Jake Brown deserves to be remembered as a profile in courage. A gruesome industrial accident in February 1974 could well have ended his baseball career. Yet even though his left forearm was nearly severed, Brown came back after surgery repaired the limb. A catcher by trade, he could no longer play behind the plate, but […]
A flamboyant playboy and partygoer who dressed impeccably and always had a quip and a handshake for everyone he met, Mike Donlin “may have been the most colorful character in the National League during his playing career. … Prone to late nights after afternoon games, he was a night crawler in the truest sense. … […]
Who’d have thought that almost a decade after Pete Henning’s final major-league game he could run afoul of none other than Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis? What’s more, he was connected to an obscure aftereffect of the momentous 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Yet Henning didn’t even have American or National League experience; he peaked as […]
John Trautwein comes from a baseball family. His father Jack and brother Dave both played minor-league ball, and his son Michael, selected in the 13th round of the July 2021 major-league draft and signed with the Cincinnati Reds, represents the start of a third generation. John pitched in nine games for the 1988 Boston Red […]
Maybe it was Leon Wagner’s bad luck to have been born too soon. A major-league outfielder for 12 years, Wagner was a two-time All-Star who averaged 29 home runs and 87 RBIs from 1961 through 1966. Still, because of fielding deficiencies that were either imagined (his opinion) or real (his managers’ views), he always seemed to […]
Until Rickey Henderson donned New York Yankee pinstripes in 1985, Fritz Maisel’s 74 stolen bases had been the franchise’s single-season record for 71 years. The diminutive Maisel, nicknamed “The Catonsville Flash” for his Maryland hometown, spent all or parts of six seasons (1913-1918) with the Yankees and St. Louis Browns. For 57 years he was […]
His teams won more games than any team in the annals of organized black baseball. “Candy Jim” Taylor’s professional baseball career began in 1904, well before Rube Foster’s first Negro National League was formed, and his managerial tenure ended abruptly, just before the 1948 baseball season began, due to Taylor’s sudden death. In between, Taylor […]
A switch-hitting reserve catcher (.228 career batting average) who came up in the Red Sox farm system, Tim Blackwell had his best season at the plate as a Chicago Cub, hitting .272 and catching full-time in 1980. Blackwell grew up in San Diego and participated in Little League baseball. A star in two sports at […]
Looking back over a century of hometown baseball, a Pittsburgh sportswriter observed that pitcher Nick Maddox “may be the best September call-up in Pirates’ history.”1 No wonder. In his September 13, 1907 major-league debut, the 20-year-old right-hander threw a two-hit, 14-strikeout shutout at the St. Louis Cardinals, winning 4-0. Three days thereafter, he set the […]
I was strictly a submarine pitcher, a lot of junk. I had a good fast one, but I didn’t throw it when I didn’t have to. With the hard hitters, I’d time them. I’d throw mixed pitches – “56 varieties” they used to call me. And then when I showed them a good fast ball, […]
A late-season addition by the Detroit Tigers in 1905, right-hander George Disch posted a 2.64 ERA in eight games. Initial reports were positive, and a bright future was predicted. However, he could not crack a Tiger rotation of George Mullin, Ed Killian, Bill Donovan, and Frank Kitson (116 complete games in 137 starts in 1905) […]
Jimmy Sebring was one of those players who surface ever year or so that are identified as “can’t miss” candidates for major league baseball stardom. Big for his time at 6 feet, 180 pounds, Jim had it all when it came to baseball: instincts, a strong and accurate throwing arm, speed, and a natural hitting […]
A league pennant was squarely on the line under the brutal Mexican sun on September 5, 1938. A team known as Agrario, led by the legendary Satchel Paige, battled Aguila for the championship of the summertime Mexican circuit, a league recently strengthened by the importation of such frontline Negro League stars as Josh Gibson, Ray […]
“They used to say Brantford could put its left-fielder five feet from the foul line, the right-fielder five feet from the other line and Jimmy Wilkes would cover the rest.” — Bob McKillop1 “Riding the bus again!” Jimmy Wilkes said, his voice cracking with excitement. “I love it. Now, that brings back memories.”2 The 69-year-old […]
Frank E. Bradley, a fireballing right-handed pitcher who played in six seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs before suffering a career-ending wound in World War II, was born on February 3, 1918, in Benton, Bossier Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of June and Adline (Gates) Bradley. If Frank had any siblings, no mention of […]
Lázaro Salazar was a great two-way player and manager in Cuban professional baseball and the American Negro Leagues, as well as in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, from 1930 until 1957. In addition to winning two MVP awards in the Cuban Winter League, he won four batting championships in three countries, won more than […]
It’s a trivia question that most baseball fans would struggle with: Who was the first American League or National League batter to have a 7-for-7 game in the twentieth century? Even with the hint that it was a Detroit Tiger, the question is a tough one to answer. Ty Cobb would be a good guess. […]
When St. Louis Browns coach Charley O’Leary pinch-hit in the final game of the 1934 season, the fans at Navin Field in Detroit thought they were witnessing nothing more than a bit of harmless fun to liven up a relatively meaningless contest. At the time, O’Leary, a veteran of 833 games with the hometown Tigers […]
The Atlanta Braves had been spiraling downward. From a division championship in 1982, Atlanta’s plummet to the National League West Division basement was slow but sure. In 1983 the Braves finished in second place, three games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1984 they were second again but looking up at the San Diego Padres, […]
Baseball links geography, and rivalry. In 1908 Philadelphia constructed the sport’s first concrete and steel double-decked field: Shibe Park. Three hundred miles to the west, the Phillies’ main foe turned green. That fall Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss began a search for an idyll that “will make people forget about Shibe,” he told friend and business […]