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In 1961 writer Bill Libby penned an article titled, “Portrait of a Baseball ‘Failure.’”1 The subject of his treatise was Nick Testa. who had spent 14 years as a ballplayer with just one major-league appearance to show for his efforts. Libby’s goal was to show fans that a man who does what he loves, and […]

This outfielder was the first member of the Lumbee people of Robeson County, North Carolina, to play in the majors. Throughout his playing days, Gene Locklear’s skill as an artist also got attention. “They are both individual things, and you have to have talent. You can’t just have desire,” Locklear said in 2005.1 One of […]

A journeyman who spent parts of seven seasons in the American League, Wally Mayer joined the Red Sox in 1917 and spent two campaigns as a reserve catcher.   Although he did not appear in the 1918 World Series, “Kid” Mayer did help Boston get there by smacking a pair of 12th-inning game-winning hits against AL […]

One might think Ed Kenna was a genteel soul who overachieved in his baseball life by appearing in two games with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902. After all, the “poet pitcher” was a well-educated son of a US senator who authored two volumes of verse.1 Yet for years after his Philadelphia stint, Kenna starred in […]

Baseball has always loved an underdog. Rugged southpaw Wally Hebert gave fans across the nation during the Great Depression what they craved, at least for a short while: a story about David defeating Goliath. Hebert went from the sandlots of Louisiana in 1929 to the St. Louis Browns and the big leagues in 1931. In […]

In the autumn of 1956, slightly more than three years after his minor league debut helped break the color barrier in the Piedmont League, Charlie Peete’s life seemed full of promise. He had won the American Association batting crown for the just-completed season, hitting .350 for Omaha. Beyond that, his parent club, the St. Louis […]

Roger Craig and “split-finger fastball” will forever be linked in baseball history. It was Craig’s work teaching first Jack Morris and then Mike Scott how to throw the pitch that gave the former right-handed pitcher lasting fame. “People think I invented that,” Craig said. “I did not. Bruce Sutter did. I just found a way […]

Standing only 5 feet 11 inches tall, Billy Wagner did not look the part of an intimidating closer and yet he was often mentioned in the same circles as the Yankees all-time closer Mariano Rivera. In fact, both closers entered games to the same song, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” letting home fans know the game was […]

Baldomero Almada — “Melo” or (to Americans) “Mel” — was the first native Mexican ever to play in the majors. Almada was born in Huatabampo in the state of Sonora on February 7, 1913, but he grew up in Los Angeles from an early age. On September 8, 1933, less than two months after a […]

Jim Bagby Jr. was a second-generation major leaguer, his career neatly echoing that of his father, James “Sarge” Bagby, Sr. Both were right-handed pitchers; both at various times led the American League in innings pitched; and both spent the bulk of their careers with Cleveland. Both compiled some memorable seasons. Twice Jim’s pitching merited his […]

In Walt Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane was all arms and legs. Andy Boswell was a real-life version of that unique character, but unlike Ichabod, Boswell, whose 6’1” 165 pound frame was unusual for the times, was a talented athlete. Sadly in later life chronic arthritis would rob him of the use of […]

After several years in the military, Long Jim Gilmore spent his life as a successful, if conventional, businessman. For two years in the middle of his life, however, Gilmore was at the center of the baseball world as one of the most visible and quoted men in the industry. As president of short-lived Federal League, […]

It is one of those records that may never be equaled, much less broken. For 75 years a handful of pitchers have come close to tying Johnny Vander Meer’s record of pitching two consecutive no-hitters. But it has proven elusive for even the most elite hurlers throughout major-league history. His first no-hitter came on June […]

Silvio García was a shortstop and pitcher who played in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Canada, and his native Cuba, as well as the American Negro League and organized minor leagues, from 1931 to 1954. Known for his powerful right-handed line-drive swing and rifle arm, he won two batting championships in the Cuban […]

Rudolph Ash played in eight league games for the 1920 NNL champion Chicago American Giants, though he also may have participated in a few exhibition games. Subsequently, it took another three years before Ash’s name again was mentioned in association with baseball in the press. At that time, he was enrolled in the University of […]

Ron Necciai is the real-life Sidd Finch, the greatest pitcher who never was.1 The right-hander struck out 27 batters in a nine-inning game when he was 19. The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the governing body of the minors, called it “the greatest individual performance in the history of baseball.”2 Instead of walking away […]

In the locker room celebration after the New York Mets won the 1969 National League pennant, he was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying, “I’ll walk down the street in New York now and people will say, ‘There’s Art Shamsky of the Mets.’ People used to laugh. They won’t anymore.’”1 Indeed, after his performance […]

After nearly a century, many baseball historians still wonder how Shoeless Joe Jackson’s career might have turned out were he not permanently banned from baseball after the fixing of the 1919 World Series. The same question remains for another slugging outfielder who was also thrown out of Organized Baseball after he was accused of taking […]

After World War II, Frank Jobe followed the proverbial American dream: college, medical school, marriage, and a family. Even though he said he never planned it that way, he pursued a career that helped make the world a better place — particularly the world of baseball, as the developer of the procedure known as Tommy […]

A strong, quiet, and athletic 205-pounder who stood 6-feet-2, wore glasses, batted from the left side, and threw right-handed, Norm Siebern split time between first base and the outfield for six major-league teams. Originally a Yankee, he played in two World Series for New York, and was part of the package the Yankees sent to […]

Should a midseason exhibition be included among the greatest games in Metropolitan Stadium history? After all, as the United Press International wire service candidly pointed out, by the end of the game, “many of the Twins had left the dugout, showered and gone home.”1 If the players left early, how could the game be all […]

In January 1949, the St. Louis Cardinals sold right-hander Murry Dickson, a mainstay since their glory years earlier in the 1940s, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $125,000. Dickson defeated his former club five times in eight decisions that season, with one victory especially harmful to St. Louis’s championship aspirations. His complete-game 7-2 win at Pittsburgh’s […]

The Minnesota Twins occupied fifth place in the American League West Division when Labor Day weekend 1971 arrived in the Twin Cities. After spending most of June and early July in third place, the Twins dropped into fifth in a 13-15 August. Preseason prognostications placed Minnesota atop the AL West1 after winning both the 1969 […]

Paid-admission Sunday baseball came with relative ease to the District of Columbia. On May 14, 1918, “the District Commissioners, after careful consideration of the needs of the Capital, lifted the [Sunday] ban on professional sports.”1 Without the extensive legal, referendum, and legislative maneuvering that was ultimately necessary to bring Sunday baseball to New York, Massachusetts […]