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Hank Steinbacher amassed 170 hits in his three-season big-league career. Fully 10 percent of them came in a seven-game flurry in June and July 1938. In that spate, the 25-year-old lefty hitter came to the plate 34 times and pounded out 17 hits, including four doubles, a triple, and a home run. He knocked in […]

George Dixon, called Tubby most likely due to his stoutness, was a talented catcher who played for 15 years in segregated professional baseball. Most notably, he played with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants during the 1920 season, the initial foray in organized Negro League baseball. That iteration of the NNL later folded, but after the […]

On June 12, 1996, the Birmingham Barons returned to historic Rickwood Field after an eight-year absence for the first Rickwood Classic. Before the game with the Memphis Chicks, the team honored former Baron Walt Dropo and Birmingham baseball legend Lorenzo “Piper” Davis. As the capacity crowd of over 10,000 cheered Davis, he must have reflected […]

August 1945 was a whirlwind month for US Army Air Corps Sergeant Ed Walczak. At the beginning of the month, he was a soldier with no Organized Baseball experience. By month’s end, he was signed to a major-league contract by the Philadelphia Phillies. And September was no less remarkable for Walczak, as he earned the […]

Joe Schultz, a catcher in his playing days, spent over 40 years in professional baseball. His career included five full seasons and parts of four others as a fringe reserve in the majors. That paved the way for 13 years as a minor-league manager and another 14 as a big-league coach. He was there for […]

Some major league players are blessed with good fortune. Their talents are discovered early, they remain relatively healthy throughout their careers, and they always seem to be in the right place at the right time. Bob Ramazzotti was not one of those guys. His career began late, was interrupted by war, and was stifled by […]

Ralph Houk was the first manager to have two World Series championships in his first two seasons, piloting the 1961 and 1962 New York Yankees to triumphs over the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. His Yankees won a third consecutive pennant in 1963, but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers. A […]

Right-hander Don Erickson pitched for 10 minor league seasons around two years of service in the U.S. Army. His major league career consisted of nine relief appearances for the Philadelphia Phillies in September 1958. Donald Lee Erickson was born on December 13, 1931, in Springfield, Illinois, the last of Charles “Todd” and Mary (Jacaway) Erickson’s […]

In his only season in professional baseball, Frank Bowes manned seven different positions for the Brooklyn Gladiators of the 1890 American Association. The Gladiators, however, were a hapless club, and when the tail-end (26-73-1, .262) franchise disbanded in late August, Bowes reverted to his former obscurity. His name mostly vanished from newsprint until January 1895, […]

Paul Robert Burris was born on July 21, 1923, in the small town of Hickory, North Carolina, population at the time approximately 6,000. At the age of one, he moved with his family to Charlotte, 50 miles southeast of Hickory. He grew up in Charlotte, and graduated from high school in 1941, having attended both […]

For most of pro baseball’s first century, when a “sore arm” sidelined a pitcher for an extended period, it began a descent in skill too often resulting in an untimely exit from the game. Frequently, these players were victims of whisper campaigns, having their courage and valor called into question. Surgeons were unable to repair […]

Gustave “Gus” Getz was perhaps the personification of the “good field, no hit” player. Typical of the Deadball Era, Getz relied on his glove, his ability to make contact with the bat, and his speed on the base paths to make it in professional baseball. Though he never achieved outstanding baseball success, he possessed a […]

In a life that spanned 101 years, Shan Deniston made a mark as an athlete, a Marine, a high school and college coach, a teacher, and a husband and father. From a baseball standpoint, though, Deniston owes most of his notability to a single night of work – a two-hour, 27-minute sliver of his lengthy […]

“In my estimation, the greatest black pitcher ever to pitch for Detroit — that’s for the Stars or the Tigers.” — Negro Leagues historian Dick Clark1   Left-hander Andy Cooper, one of the Negro League greats with a Hall of Fame plaque to his credit, ticked nearly all the boxes in his illustrious baseball career. […]

A tall (6-foot-2), brown-haired, blue-eyed, Christy Mathewson look-alike, Walt Smallwood finished two September games on the mound for the sixth-place New York Yankees in 1917 before heading off to Siberia and France as an army sergeant during the Great War. The Maryland native played in six more games with the Yanks in 1919, toiled in […]

Philip Henry Niekro Jr. was born in Blaine, Ohio, on April Fools’ Day — April 1, 1939. That was appropriate, for he spent much of his career fooling batters with a pitch that most other pitchers wanted no part of. The first of the Niekro family in America were Jozef Niekra, from Slodkow, Polish Russia, […]

The neighborhood surrounding 11th and Wharton Streets in South Philadelphia is known for producing entertainers Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Fabian Forte, and Chubby Checker. John Marzano wasn’t a teen idol. He didn’t star in Beach Blanket Bingo and he didn’t invent “The Twist.” However, at one point in his baseball career, Marzano was considered the […]

“Sleepy Bill” Burns pitched for five major-league teams in five seasons from 1908 to 1912. At his peak, he beat Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson. The great Ty Cobb, a left-handed batter, said he would rather bat against the right-handed Johnson than face Burns, a tough lefty.1 Burns was blessed with natural ability, but he […]

Lou Kretlow displayed outstanding stuff over parts of 10 seasons (1946, 1948-56) with the Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Kansas City Athletics. Yet the right-hander finished with a major league record of just 27-47 and walked an average of six batters per nine innings. Late in Kretlow’s career, his […]

“That young man was in baseball in the wrong era. In the ’90s he would have been a second Willie Keeler, but he entered the majors when baseball was home run mad. If an outfielder could not hit the wall or drive the ball out of the park in the Ruthian manner he never had […]

The manager of the Hotel del Comercio in Caracas, Venezuela, summoned George Genovese for a phone call from the San Francisco Giants in November 1963. It sent Genovese’s hopes soaring. “Maybe I’m their new manager,” he said to his wife, June. When the call was completed, Genovese was crestfallen. His career as a manager was […]

The 1918 season did not start well for either the Philadelphia Athletics or the Detroit Tigers. After a month the two teams found themselves at the bottom of the American League standings. On May 20 they met for the first time to play a four-game series.1 For the A’s, the games provided an opportunity to […]

The headline writer for the front page of a daily newspaper is challenged to provide the reader with glimpses of tragedy and joy, victory and defeat, worry and elation, all appropriately befitting the day’s news. When Pittsburgh awoke on the morning of July 26, 1956, the headline spread across the front page of the Pittsburgh […]

It was the 101st game of the 1933 season for the Philadelphia Athletics. They were consistently average, having spent much of the first four months of the season around the .500 mark.1 Manager Connie Mack’s dynasty was beginning to end. From 1925, when Mack added future Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove […]