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Dick Fowler (left) and Phil Marchildon (right) at Philadelphia Athletics spring training in the late 1940s. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) It was no coincidence that the Philadelphia Athletics’ two best pitchers in the 1940s were from the province of Ontario.1 There was a simple reason for it: Connie Mack’s Athletics had […]
The first Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game of 1946 took place before 16,268 fans at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. This was the first time the East game would be played in the nation’s capital, inspiring sportswriter Sam Lacy to hope it also would be “the first time to put on an Eastern version of […]
When fireworks launched on America’s 196th birthday, the nighttime celebration was an afterthought for Mets fans. Earlier in the day, Tom Seaver gave them another reason to rejoice when he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres; Leron Lee’s one-out, broken-bat single prevented the Mets ace from getting his first […]
It was Juan wild night in an otherwise sad and dreary 2004 season at Olympic Stadium as the balls were flying out, even if the fans weren’t filing in. And it’s a game neither the Expos’ Juan Rivera nor the White Sox’ Juan Uribe was likely to forget. This was a weird one in many […]
“I was a character in baseball. I saw it as an interim type of career,” Lou Skizas told Bill Gleason.1 Skizas, known as “The Nervous Greek” during his four-season major-league playing career, was perhaps best known for an unusual ritual that he followed before coming to bat. Before reaching the plate, the right-handed-batting Skizas dropped […]
In the late 1940s, Dick Fowler was one of the American League’s top pitchers. He tossed 61 complete games between 1946 and 1949 — only three AL pitchers threw more — and posted back-to-back 15-win seasons despite an aching shoulder.1 He played in an era when sore-armed hurlers were expected to keep throwing.2 That’s exactly […]
Gene Crumling always envisioned himself as a baseball player. “He dropped the ‘b’ from his name when he started playing professional baseball because he said it looked better in print. Our folks didn’t mind,” said his brother Bill.1 Crumbling turned into Crumling in 1941 when Gene kicked off his 12-year professional-baseball career, spent primarily in […]
Tommy Lasorda. You could almost say he needs no introduction. Famous and familiar for his nearly 20 years as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Lasorda was the personification of the Dodgers and baseball’s best-known ambassador. Profane or charming, pugnacious or proud, outrageous or simply outspoken, Lasorda could be all these and more. Lasorda’s major-league […]
The Brooklyn Dodgers had great teams in the immediate post-war years, teams that would win pennants or fight for them until the last day of the season (and sometimes beyond). No team can be successful, though, without a significant presence behind the plate. In the early part of the 1946 season, the Dodgers were struggling […]
Failed phenoms are commonplace in baseball, since it is the game of failure. Dick Wakefield, the first bonus baby, was the most expensive flop the game had ever seen. When he signed with the Tigers in 1941, he was hailed as another Ted Williams, even — blasphemy in Detroit — the second coming of Ty […]
Baseball history is filled with all variety of wonderful-sounding names. But has there ever been a more perfect name for a baseball player than Champ Summers? “With a name like that, you gotta be halfway decent anyway,” Champ would say years later. “If my name had been George, nobody would have noticed me, but Champ?” […]
“I’ve seen a lot of powerful hitters in my time but for sheer ability to knock a ball great distances, I’ve never seen anybody better than Easter — and I’m not excepting Babe Ruth.” — Del Baker1 Luscious “Luke” Easter was born August 4, 1915 at 8:15 PM in Jonestown, Mississippi. During his playing […]
Harry Simpson first saw life as a child in the segregated South. He went on to be one of the first black players to break the color line. Born in Atlanta, Georgia on December 3, 1925, (many accounts list his birth year as 1923 or 1924), Harry was the fourth child of Frank and Maggie […]
“That’s the hardest hit ball I ever saw.” – Terry Moore1 The ball came off the bat of Walter Sessi, the unlikeliest of heroes for the 1946 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Sessi debuted with the Cardinals in 1941 and was hitless in 13 at-bats. After missing four seasons while serving in World War II, […]
During his five full seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Babe Ruth established himself as one of the premier left-handed pitchers in the game, began his historic transformation from moundsman to slugging outfielder, and was part of three World Series championship teams. After he was sold to the New York Yankees in December 1919, his […]
Shortstop Al Naples’ major-league career was limited to two back-to-back games at the end of June 1949. He doubled to right field his first time at bat. It turned out to be the only base hit of his brief time in the big leagues. Naples was born on August 29, 1926, in Staten Island, New […]
Bullet Jack Thoney was once called “the unluckiest player in the history of baseball.”i Boston Red Sox owner John I. Taylor had paid what was thought to be the most money ever paid for a player at the time, but it seemed as though every time Thoney made a major-league team, he broke a limb. […]
Played out before the empty seats of Washington’s Griffith and D.C. Stadiums in the early 1960s, the “breath-takingly impressive”1 launch of Ken Retzer’s career was nearly “invisible to the [national sports]writers … [to the point that he was] mistakenly identified as Dick Retzer” in a Sporting News article about the rich crop class of rookie […]
Johnny Lucadello was a hard-hitting and versatile infielder who, like many of his generation, saw a promising Major League career fizzle after he lost four prime years to military service. John Lucadello was born on February 22, 1919, in Thurber Texas.1 At its peak, in the early 1900s, Thurber, situated between Fort Worth and Abilene, […]
Countless Illinois high-school basketball players knew Bob Freels as “Mr. Steps,” the hawkeyed referee who made sure no traveling penalty went uncalled.1 Freels apparently became so fond of the nickname that he carries it for eternity: It’s etched into his gravestone in his hometown of Mascoutah, Illinois, in the southern part of the state, about […]
“No manager really wants a knuckleball pitcher … until he wins 15 in a row.” – Charlie Hough1 Charlie Hough pitched at the major-league level for a quarter of a century on the strength of his knuckleball – a pitch, coincidentally, that he learned in the minor leagues as an attempt to reinvigorate his […]
Joseph John Brovia, who starred on California sandlots and in high school as a righthanded pitcher and a lefthanded-hitting outfielder, signed his first professional contract before he turned eighteen in 1940. When he joined the San Francisco Seals for the 1941 season, he was already a rising star. By the time his playing days were […]
“(Curt) Motton has been Baltimore’s best pinch-hitter ever since I’ve been managing this club. He was an automatic choice in this spot.” — Orioles manager Earl Weaver after Motton’s game-tying double helped Baltimore come from behind to beat Oakland’s Vida Blue in the 1971 American League Championship Series1 Curt Motton grew up in the […]
Connie Creeden’s life in baseball was defined by two events seven and a half years apart. The first gave him a solitary moment of major-league glory. The second tarnished his reputation and sent him to prison. On May 2, 1943, at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, Creeden’s ninth-inning pinch-hit single drove in the winning run in the […]