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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 […]
“I was born in 1912 [sic] in Giddings, Texas, a little town between Austin and Houston. Rube Foster came from about twenty-five miles from my house, a little town right above me.” — Hilton Smith 1 Something must have been in the air as the state of Texas produced eight Negro League Hall of […]
Consider the two nearly identical rookie seasons below: AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Player #1 464 59 127 22 5 20 68 .274 Player #2 482 75 128 23 5 20 56 .266 These highly acclaimed prospects started 18 years apart. Both were center fielders, blessed with power and speed. […]
On All Saints’ Eve 1906, 17-year-old Southern California native Elmer Rieger made his professional baseball debut in the highest level of minor leagues at the time, for the local Los Angeles Angels in the Class A Pacific Coast League. Unsurprisingly, a good audition it was not. Yet a little over three years later, the spitballer […]
Bob Watson of the Houston Astros touches home plate to score what was widely reported as the 1 millionth run in Major League Baseball history on May 4, 1975. (COURTESY OF THE HOUSTON ASTROS) Like many youngsters growing up in urban America in the 1950s, Bob Watson’s first at bat was in a game […]
The small town of Colony, Oklahoma, began as an agricultural settlement for Native Americans trying to adapt to a new way of life. In 1886 about 120 Cheyenne and Arapahos left their tribal lands in an attempt to assimilate themselves into the American culture. They became farmers, growing such staples as wheat and cotton. Six […]
William Orange Forman, who pitched briefly for Washington in 1909 and 1910, was born on October 10, 1886, in Venango, Pennsylvania, the youngest of William (Billy) and Almira (Myra) Forman’s three children. The elder Forman came to northwestern Pennsylvania during its oil rush, and made a living drilling wells and refining their product. Young Will […]
Morris “Red” Badgro is best known as a Hall of Fame end on the 1930s New York football Giants. His professional baseball career lasted six years and included two seasons as an outfielder on the 1929-30 St. Louis Browns. At the University of Southern California 1923-27, he starred in baseball, football, and basketball. Born December […]
Tall, powerful, and fleet-footed, Burnis “Wild Bill” Wright was one of the Negro Leagues’ brightest stars for nearly a decade before embarking on a lengthy and successful Hall of Fame career in the Mexican Leagues. A towering 6-foot-4, 220-pound switch-hitter who slashed for average and slugged with power, he bunted effectively, ran like the wind, […]
Most famous for his wildly successful tenure in the New York Yankees front office from 1920 through 1945, Ed Barrow left his mark on the Deadball Era as well. Though he never played a game of professional baseball, the ubiquitous Barrow was a key participant in the careers of countless players and a major actor […]
Right-handed pitcher Jim Dorsey spent 11 years in professional baseball, six years in the Angels system and five in the Red Sox system. Both Los Angeles teams had been after him as a prospect. The Angels drafted him out of Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda (California) in the 21st round (486th overall) in June […]
“(For Dykstra) no dare was too bold, no drink too strong, no car too fast, no poker hand too big.” — Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won!1 “The Dude would be an experience even if it had nothing to do with baseball. You could meet the Dude away from the field and come […]
When Jackie Robinson debuted with the Montreal Royals on April 18, 1946, he became the first Black player to appear in what was then known as Organized Baseball in nearly 47 years. Canadians feel a special connection to Robinson because of his year spent in Montreal. What many Canadians don’t know is that they have […]
Kid Elberfeld, called “the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most rantankerous [sic], most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes” for his vicious arguments on the diamond, patterned his combative style after that of his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles of the mid-1890s. He believed, like those Oriole players, that an umpire should be kept […]
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, […]
One evening in the summer of 1947, the National League’s best and worst teams put on a display that a future baseball commissioner labeled “a farcical exhibition which was a disgrace to baseball and a complete travesty of all the rules of sportsmanship.”1 The Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers spent 12 anarchic minutes in Philadelphia […]
The Detroit Stars held first place in the Negro National League when they arrived in Ohio to play the Columbus Buckeyes in July 1921. The Stars appeared set to maintain their pace when they took an early lead in the series opener at Columbus’s Neil Park on July 9, but the Buckeyes capitalized on shaky […]
Overview The origins of the Negro League All-Star Game date from 1933 when sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier championed the idea. Not coincidentally, their brainchild surfaced around the same time as the inaugural major-league All-Star game, which was to be held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in […]
The first major-league baseball game this writer ever saw was at the Polo Grounds in New York City on May 24, 1946. Since then he has visited major-league and minor-league parks from Boston to San Diego and many places in between. But he has never seen games anywhere that rival the pageantry of those at […]
In the midst of a successful career in the major leagues, Jim “Nixey” Callahan quit the Chicago White Sox after the 1905 season, pinning his fortunes on a plan to establish a semipro club in Chicago. He first purchased the rights to an old amateur playing field in Logan Square, a section of Chicago. Then […]