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Max Manning was a man of many nicknames. Newark Eagles teammate Jimmy Hill gave him the moniker Dr. Cyclops, by which he became best-known in baseball circles. Hill had just seen the 1940 movie with that title, but he could not recall seeing any other player who wore glasses — especially thick spectacles like Manning’s […]

Catcher Russell “Hack” Ennis played in one major-league baseball game. Though he did not get to bat, he was behind the plate when Ty Cobb got his last hit in a Detroit Tigers uniform. On September 19, 1926, with his Washington Senators ahead, 7-6, Ennis entered in the bottom of the ninth inning of the […]

Gene Krapp, a diminutive right-handed spitballer, holds an iconic spot in the legendary halls of baseball journalism. Celebrated baseball writer Fred Lieb wrote in his memoir about the influence that writer Charley Dryden had upon Lieb’s career. Lieb was especially impressed with Dryden’s ability to occasionally slip a double entendre past an editor. Lieb wrote, […]

“Catchers are in demand,” declared the Fort Worth Record in 1907; they “are scarcer than snowflakes in July.”1 Catchers’ equipment was primitive, and injuries were common. Who wanted to endure abuse from fastballs and foul tips? Tommy Hess was willing. From 1890 to 1911, he caught for minor-league teams in at least 10 U.S. states […]

Elston Howard was born February 23, 1929, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Emmaline Webb and Travis Howard. A schoolteacher in Sikeston, Missouri, Emmaline fled to St. Louis when Howard, her principal, refused to marry her. She worked to become a dietician, and when Elston was 5 years old, she married Wayman “Big Poppy” […]

On June 24, 1970, the Cleveland Indians were visiting New York to play a doubleheader against the Yankees. Tribe catcher Ray Fosse went 2-for-4 with one RBI, one run scored and one walk as Cleveland won the first game 7-2 behind Sam McDowell’s tenth win. Fosse was scheduled to sit out game two, but he […]

Tom Brokaw dubbed Americans who lived through the Depression and served in World War II “The Greatest Generation.” As a member of this group, Charley Stanceu (pronounced STAN- chew) found himself witnessing  some of the iconic events of that period. A rookie pitcher for the New York Yankees in 1941, he was in the dugout […]

In 1947 Clint Hartung, the Hondo Hurricane, was going to be the biggest thing to hit New York baseball since Babe Ruth. Like the Babe, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound giant could pitch and hit home runs out of sight. The Giants signed Hartung in 1941. He had led his high-school team in Hondo, Texas, to the […]

If a young, successful major league pitcher had decided to become an outfielder in 2001, it would have been news. And if he had hit above .300 for the next five straight years, culminating in 2005 by winning the league’s batting crown with a .377 average, he would have graced magazine covers. Finally, if upon […]

“I was mean on the mound,” said Bob Buhl, a tough competitor for the Milwaukee Braves during their heyday in the 1950s.[1] Forming part of the Big Three with Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, Buhl notched 109 of his 166 career wins for the Braves. Self-confident, brash, and sometimes wild on the mound, Buhl was […]

He was the eldest member of a quartet of baseball brothers unparalleled in the history of the game. The youngest, Ben Taylor, is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, his just recognition after a career as one of the dominant first basemen and sluggers of the first part of the twentieth century. […]

“It would be hard to say I am not a typical minor leaguer.  I’ve spent 11 years in the minors, practically my whole career. It doesn’t feel good to say I am a typical minor leaguer. It doesn’t feel good to say it at all, but I suppose it’s the truth. I still keep hoping […]

Mike Palm is one of the relatively few Red Sox players to have been born in the city of Boston. Richard Paul Palm’s date of birth was February 13, 1925. After moving to a suburb, he picked up his nickname in high school, where Belmont High’s baseball coach was Myron “Mike” Palm, a former Penn […]

Handsome, talented, admired, Arthur Rico was a three-sport star who made the majors with a hometown ball club without ever spending a day in the minors. After his return from World War I, he seemed destined to become one of baseball’s great catchers—expectations soon shattered in tragedy. Rico grew up in Boston, the son of […]

In 1935 Cy Blanton broke in with the Pittsburgh Pirates in a blaze of glory. The hard-throwing right-hander with an array of screwballs, curves, and sinkers led the National League in ERA and tied for the lead in shutouts, and was the hardest-to-hit pitcher in the big leagues. In his first four seasons he averaged […]

Roberto Clemente’s saga is the stuff of myth. Chuck Goggin’s saga — less so. That said, their two stories are forever linked in a way that would be possible only in baseball. In a coup of historic proportions, the Pittsburgh Pirates plucked Clemente from the Dodgers organization for next to nothing in the 1954 minor-league […]

Growing up in Covington, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Johnnie Heving enjoyed a long career spanning more than 30 years in professional baseball as a catcher and as a manager. His younger brother, Joe, worked as a pitcher, appearing in 430 major-league games to Johnnie’s 399, but spent fewer years in the […]

Mike “King” Kelly was professional baseball’s first matinee idol: the first ballplayer to “author” an autobiography, the first to have a hit song written about him, and the first to have a successful acting career outside the game. A handsome man with a full mustache and a head of red hair, Kelly through his fame […]

On a comfortable 72-degree evening on July 17, 1965, at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, Bob Sadowski held an equally comfortable 4-1 lead going into the top of the eighth. He also was throwing a no-hitter against his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates with a lineup featuring three future Hall of Famers including the great Roberto Clemente. Another of […]

Catcher Frankie Pytlak was the youngest of eight children born to Polish immigrants Casimir and Antoinette (Niemier) Pytlak. He was born as Frank Anthony Pytlak, in Buffalo, on July 30, 1908. His father, Casimir, had arrived from Poland in 1882 and at the time of the 1910 census worked as a blacksmith for the railroad […]

It was a small story in a national publication, and it suggested the possibility of a baseball first. Under the headline “Brothers Constitute a Battery,” the May 28, 1914, issue of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly wrote, “The Boston Nationals have a battery this season composed of brothers, George and Fred Tyler. It is said that this […]

One of the best-hitting catchers in minor-league history, Everett “Yam” Yaryan batted .357 and slugged 41 home runs in 1920 for Wichita, Kansas, in the Western League. Only Perry Werden and Ernie Calbert had previously hit more homers in one minor-league season, and neither was a catcher.1 Yaryan’s banner year was his springboard to the […]

When the Indianapolis Clowns and the Chicago American Giants battled in a Negro American League game on May 12, 1946, it ultimately was an exercise in frustration for the players. The two teams played 20 innings, and with the game tied 3-3, it was finally called by darkness without a winner. But while the fans […]

Special events were scheduled throughout the senior circuit season of 1951 to celebrate the league’s Diamond Jubilee 75th anniversary. National League ballclubs commemorated this historic event with a variety of ceremonies. The Boston Braves chose to bring back surviving members of the 1914 Miracle Braves World Series championship team as the Tribe’s jubilee contribution. A […]