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“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In Detroit’s Briggs Stadium on April 17, 1951, Opening Day, 43,470 fans braved 39-degree weather to watch the Detroit Tigers host the Cleveland Indians. For the Tigers, veteran third baseman George Kell was out with an injury. Indians first baseman Luke Easter, also was injured but started and played five innings (two singles) before being […]

In four years of high school and two in college, Daryl Spencer won just one varsity sports letter. In his first season of Ban Johnson baseball, he hit about .260. Not a single major league scout even nodded toward him until well into his first season of professional baseball. Yet he was in a major-league […]

In 1956, the fall of my freshman year at Ohio State, I went out for the frosh basketball team. (Freshmen then were still not eligible for varsity sports at major colleges.) I had no great expectations considering my modest portfolio of high school hoops exploits. My primary motivation was to meet the head freshman coach, […]

Sam Williams was born in a small, poor town in segregated Alabama, served his country in World War II, played in the last Negro League World Series, and then pitched for minor-league teams from California to Canada and from Mexico to the Dominican Republic. “It didn’t matter who I pitched against, I was going to […]

Mike Blyzka was part of one of major-league baseball’s biggest trades – a 17-player mega-swap between the Orioles and Yankees in the fall of 1954. Headlining New York’s acquisitions were future Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley and Don Larsen – the pitcher who later twirled the only (as of 2022) perfect game in World […]

On September 28, 1908, at the end of his tenth game as an American League umpire, John “Jack” Kerin was coldcocked by a furious Chicago White Sox fan who broke his nose.1 This incident makes a fitting introduction for two reasons. It reminds us that Kerin worked in an era when umpires faced physical threat—and […]

At least 23 major-leaguers have been nicknamed “Deacon” as of 2022, all but two of whom debuted before 1952.1 So, it was not Ray “Deacon” Murray’s sobriquet that made him stand out during a big-league career spanning all or parts of six seasons (1948, 1950-1954) with the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. Instead, […]

Guy “Moose” Morton Jr. made his major-league debut with the Red Sox on September 17, 1954. It was the only day he appeared in a big-league box score. His father, Guy Morton — the “Alabama Blossom” — was a right-handed pitcher in the majors for 11 years (1914-1924) with the Cleveland Indians, overcoming a 1-13 […]

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 […]

There died a myriad of them, And of the best, among them, For an old bitch gone in the teeth, For a botched civilization, … — Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920)   Friday, May 9, 1919. The Armistice ending the Great War was nearing its six-month anniversary. The Spanish influenza pandemic hadn’t loosened its […]

In Game Four of the 1946 World Series, the visiting St. Louis Cardinals had rapped out 20 hits. In Game Five, they got only four.1 It was the Red Sox who hit into double digits this time — but won only thanks to a three-run flurry in the seventh inning. Unheralded Joe Dobson, 13-6 during […]

Brilliant pitching by Dizzy Dean, Carl Hubbell, and Lon Warneke led the National League to its first All-Star win. The 4-3 triumph was played in 89-degree weather, Boston’s hottest July 7 since 1883. However, while thousands of Bostonians chose to spend the day at nearby beaches, it was not the weather that was responsible for […]

The Cincinnati Reds played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of a three-game series on Friday, September 23, 1938, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. With 10 days remaining in the regular season, manager Pie Traynor’s Pirates were in first place in the National League with a 3½-game lead over the second-place Chicago Cubs. The […]

In a “valiant effort to prevent defeat,”1 Philadelphia’s Chuck Klein hit for the cycle, capping off his offensive performance with a home run in the top of the 13th inning, but the Phillies’ pitchers could not hold the lead, allowing a tying run in the bottom of the inning and then surrendering a walk-off run […]