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The Dodgers hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates for a Thursday afternoon doubleheader at Ebbets Field, with the Pirates only one game behind the Boston Braves in the National League standings. They’d been in third place for most of the season, but had tied for first for one day, June 16. The second game was a makeup […]

“Preacher came to Dodgers in a trade that sent Dixie Walker, Hal Gregg and Vic Lombardi to Pirates after spending four seasons with Pirates – winning 34 and losing 47. Became a steady pitcher in 1948 for Dodgers and wound up season with 12 games won, 8 lost. Entered OB in 1938 as a Card […]

The 1938 season was a good one for the Pittsburgh Pirates: a second-place finish, just two games out. But it was the heartbreaking September collapse that made it a season Pirates fans don’t enjoy talking about.1 The team featured four future Hall of Famers: manager Pie Traynor, shortstop Arky Vaughn, and outfielders Paul and Lloyd […]

 When Pie Traynor reached the major leagues1 as a 21-year-old rookie with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1920, his manager was George Gibson, a rookie skipper and a local fan favorite throughout his Deadball Era tenure as the team’s catcher. Although Gibson delivered a positive overall 201-171 record in two-plus seasons at the Bucs’ helm, by […]

It was a perfect September afternoon for a ballgame in Washington: 78 degrees and sunny. A sellout crowd of 40,493 awaited the game and a postgame concert by Dierks Bentley. The Nationals fans were hoping to see Gio González (19-8, 2.95 ERA) become the first 20-game winner of the season. While at the ballpark the […]

On August 15, 1943, Stan Musial was not yet The Man. That would come later. Even so, the 22-year-old already had established himself as one of the game’s bright stars. He was now in his second full big-league season. The Cardinals promoted him to the majors in mid-September 1941, and he hit .426 in 47 […]

Dave “Boo” Ferriss, an ex-G.I. discharged from the Army Air Corps in February 1945, began his major-league career with an astonishing eight consecutive wins for the Boston Red Sox in 1945. His achievement was even more remarkable given that he had only one season in the minor leagues before becoming a major leaguer. In his […]

Baseball folklore has it that Abner Doubleday “chased the cows out of Elihu Phinney’s cow pasture on an afternoon in 1839”1 and thus was inspired to invent the game of baseball. While home on leave from the United States Military Academy, as the story goes, Cadet Doubleday (Class of 1842) drew up the rules and […]

Once described as the “Heinz of Baseball” because of his variety of pitches and deliveries, Elmer Ponder tossed a two-hit shutout for his first big-league win as a late-September call-up with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1917. After missing almost a season and a half because of World War I, Ponder went on to post a […]

Hank Severeid caught for four major-league teams between 1911 and 1926, appearing in 1,390 games, and for almost a dozen minor-league clubs before and after the majors. A tough, durable backstop, he caught in at least 100 games a season for in eight of his ten years with the St. Louis Browns, one of the […]

Walt Tragesser’s career could be defined by the things he missed out on. A Boston Brave in 1913 and 1915, Tragesser did not play for the 1914 “Miracle Braves” that upset the heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics to win the World Series and enter baseball legend. And he missed the chance to catch a no-hitter thrown […]

One can sensibly argue that Hugh Mulcahy was one of the hardest-luck pitchers in baseball history. At first glance a pitcher with a 45-89 career record and a lifetime earned-run average of 4.49, one who was twice the league leader in losses, is not exactly a player one thinks of as a victim of bad […]

In literature’s most famous soliloquy, Hamlet agonizes: To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? Hamlet chose to be. Willard Hershberger chose not to be. Why? The slings […]

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 […]

Umpiring provided Joe Linsalata with employment across five decades, from the 1940s through the 1980s, though he spent only one of those seasons working in the major leagues. The veteran Triple A ump got the call to the American League for the expansion season of 1961, then was sent back to the minors the following […]

From 1934 to 1951, the name Johnny Hayes appeared in newspaper sports pages and box scores for seven Negro baseball teams. His career, interrupted by service with the US Army during World War II, was split between the second Negro National League (NNL2), the Negro American League (NAL), and the short-lived United States League (USL). […]

“The biggest thrill was being able to step on the field,” Harry Danning said.1 His 10-year big-league career, all with the New York Giants, gave him plenty of thrills: three World Series, four All-Star Games, and a memorable nickname, “Harry the Horse.” Danning was the answer to the Giants’ prayer for a Jewish star, but […]

Before Pedro Martinez arrived, scout Danny Doyle could laugh that he had signed every Red Sox Cy Young winner: Jim Lonborg and Roger Clemens. In 1988, Danny Doyle was named Midwest Scout of the Year by the Scout of the Year Foundation. Danny Doyle was a catcher, called up to the major leagues right at […]

Marvin Eugene Rackley was born on July 25, 1921, in Seneca, South Carolina, a mill town just up the road from Clemson University in the northwestern corner of the state. (Like many professional players of his time, Rackley would later take a “baseball age,” claiming to have been born in 1922). Marv’s parents were Thomas […]

Recounted and savored over generations, four iconic moments share a single connective thread. In each tableau, Chicago Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett was not only present at the moment, but was an active participant in the various scenes.  Even without those brushes with what came to approach mythological status, Gabby Hartnett was a Hall of Fame […]

Paul Hardy was a defensive-minded catcher who played in the Negro leagues for nearly three decades, from 1931 to 1959. He stood 5-feet-10 and weighed just 162 pounds — a slight build for a backstop — but he developed a reputation for durability and regularly caught both ends of doubleheaders during his career. Nicknamed “Piccolo,” […]

After hitting .314 to help the Charleston Senators win the Middle Atlantic League title in 1942, Johnny Blatnik was invited to spring training by the Cleveland Indians the next year. But Uncle Sam had different ideas, instructing the 21-year-old to head to basic training with the United States Army. Blatnik, who grew up in the […]

Speedy outfielder Morris Nettles played parts of just two seasons in the majors: 1974 and 1975 with the California Angels. He was only 23 when he played his last big-league game, though he hung on through 1982 in Mexico. Yet several decades later his remarkable skills and rapid rise from obscurity to the big leagues […]

As a baseball coach at Army, Eric Tipton amassed a record of 234-201-5 during the years 1958 through 1977. Tipton, known in the big leagues as Duke or Blue Devil, debuted on June 9, 1939, for the Philadelphia Athletics, as an outfielder. He played in 501 games for Philadelphia and the Cincinnati Reds from 1939 […]