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As the 10th annual East-West All-Star Game at Chicago’s Comiskey Park approached, the Black press was abuzz with the expectation that Negro League players might finally have the opportunity to break into the major leagues. This hope stemmed from Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s July statement in which he had declared, “There is no rule in […]

The Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians were coming off second- and fifth-place finishes, respectively, in 1936, and Detroit was just two seasons removed from back-to-back World Series appearances. Each team had high expectations for the new campaign. On Opening Day 1937, Detroit hosted Cleveland at Navin Field before a crowd of 38,200, who saw right […]

Fans in the US capital were thrilled when Major League Baseball announced that the Montreal Expos were relocating to Washington for the 2005 season. Yet sports commentators expected more futility from the franchise that had lost 95 games the previous season. Baseball Prospectus surveyed its staff writers, and all 12 of them predicted that the […]

Fans arriving for the second portion of the Boston Beaneaters’ morning-afternoon Memorial Day twin bill with Cincinnati on May 30, 1894, had reason to anticipate a pleasant afternoon. It was warm and sunny, with a breeze blowing from the south and southwest.1 Beyond the pleasant conditions, their three-time defending National League champions had won four […]

“He was everything a ballplayer should be: dark, handsome eyes, and a raw-boned build – and he hit home runs at a remarkable rate.” — Terry Pluto1 If you were to stroll by a Little League field in greater Cleveland in the late 1950s, you might have seen a trend among the players. You might […]

  Willie Mays sprinted deep into the Polo Grounds outfield and made his most famous catch off a Vic Wertz flyball in Game One of the 1954 World Series. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   “We were beaten by the longest out and the shortest home run of the year,” said an incredulous Al Lopez, skipper of the […]

It was Columbus Day and the biggest crowd of the 1916 World Series. The Red Sox led the Brooklyn Robins three games to one. Some 43,620 came to Boston’s Braves Field to see if the Red Sox could win their second world championship in a row. Brooklyn crowds had been only half the size of […]

In the summer of 1904, the Zanesville, Ohio, baseball team had a game scheduled with a team in neighboring New Concord. “When the time arrived for the boys to take the bus, there was one player missing, so the bat boy had to be used in right field to complete the team. As luck would […]

Roy Partee’s career as a scout rivaled that of his career as a catcher. He caught for the Boston Red Sox for five seasons, 1943-48, and he scouted (mostly for the Mets) for more than a quarter of a century. He also managed in the minor leagues and helped win World War II. Partee was […]

Fred Caligiuri’s career as a major league pitcher was brief, just seven starts and 11 other mound appearances over a little more than a calendar year. But for a day, at the end of the 1941 American League season, he was center-stage as events left baseball with one of its most enduring statistics: .406. And […]

Catcher Charlie Hoover debuted with the Kansas City Cowboys in the American Association on October 9, 1888, one month after he turned 23. “Hoover made his debut behind [Henry] Porter and did well in the field,” wrote the Kansas City Times, despite two errors against one assist.1 Described as 170 pounds and 5 feet 9 […]

Timon1 Bowden had nine at-bats in September 1914 for the second-division St. Louis Browns and manager Branch Rickey, a former opposing collegiate skipper. Yet that wasn’t Bowden’s greatest athletic achievement. Prior to his short time in the majors as an outfielder, he was considered “one of the finest of Southern athletes in his era, 1910-13” […]

The list of National League batting champions from the 1930s and early ’40s contains many familiar names: Hall of Famers like Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, and Stan Musial and stars such as Pete Reiser and Dixie Walker. Amid this listing is an obscure name, Debs Garms. Little known, he is now recalled as the answer […]

Many major leaguers are more remembered for their accomplishments in the minors. Ron Necciai’s 27 strikeouts in a minor-league game outshone his lackluster performance with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ox Eckhardt’s lifetime minor-league average of .367 overshadowed two brief trials in the majors. And Leo Kiely’s achievement of winning 20 games in relief during a season […]

Originally signed by the White Sox as a shortstop, Tom Hurd finally made the majors as a Red Sox right-handed relief specialist some nine years later. He played for Boston for three years in the mid-1950s, appearing in 99 games, all in relief. His lifetime record was 13-10 with 11 saves. In 1955, he led […]

Of all those who proudly wore the uniform of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, Monte Irvin was one of the last surviving players. He went on to a Hall of Fame career as a pioneering African American player in the major leagues. Montford Merrill Irvin was born in Haleburg, Alabama, on February […]

The dreaded trip to the woodshed altered many a young life; however, in the case of a young Washington, D.C., native, the effort was futile. Luzerne Atwell Blue was born on March 5, 1897, in the District of Columbia. Lu always claimed he was the youngest of seven sons; however, a look at the 1900 […]

One might say that Jim Boyle went into the family business – recruited by no less than Hall-of-Fame manager John McGraw himself1 – but ultimately he chose his own path after being the first Boyle to attend college. Jim Boyle followed his uncles Jack Boyle and Eddie Boyle as a catcher into the major leagues. […]

Jack Sanford got his start in baseball with a push from his big sister. Sanford was named National League Rookie of the Year, won sixteen straight games one season, and started three times in the World Series, but he never got over being labeled “no prospect” when he was a teenager. John Stanley Sanford was […]

A catcher’s close proximity to the home plate umpire doesn’t bode well for a receiver with a propensity for umpire baiting and “rowdy tactics.” This was the case for Harry “Spike” LaRoss, whose many fines and suspensions, along with many injuries, necessitated a move to the outfield early in his career. The 5’11”, 170 pound […]

Paul Gillespie was a high school second-team catcher at 17, a minor-league all-star outfielder at 19, and a major-league catcher at 21. In a career that spanned 89 games from 1942 to 1945, he became the first big-leaguer to hit a home run in both his first and last regular season at-bat. Only one other […]

John Joseph Sevcik may have only 12 major-league games on his baseball résumé but those 12 games took place in 1965 when the Minnesota Twins won the American League pennant by winning a franchise-record 102 games and advanced to the World Series. The Twins lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, and Sevcik […]

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John Leovich excelled at baseball, football, and hockey with the talent to play each sport professionally. He made national headlines in 1941 when he decided to leave college to pursue a baseball career with the Philadelphia Athletics. That same summer Leovich joined the elite fraternity of players who have […]

On May 1, 1983, the Philadelphia Phillies celebrated their 100th anniversary in baseball. The festivities that day included 93-year-old John Enzmann, the oldest living member of the team. He was invited to toss out the ceremonial “first pitch.” Former Phil Bill Peterman was also on hand to take part in the festivities.1 Peterman was one […]