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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

If Calvin Schiraldi had never been called upon to pitch in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series, we might think of his career in baseball as a story of encountering and overcoming adversity — a series of comebacks. But Red Sox manager John McNamara did call Schiraldi in from the bullpen in the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

As a boy, he rooted for the New York Yankees. Before he became an adult, he was playing for them. Although he left the club for a time, it never left him, and when he got the chance he did not hesitate to return. For the past twenty-five years, in one way or another, he […]

Fritz Ostermueller was 41 years old when he took the mound on September 30, 1948, to make the final start of his 15-year major-league career. The Pittsburgh left-hander had played with four big-league teams; his lifetime ledger was even at 114 wins and 114 losses. In early September the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, and the surprising Pirates had […]

Redheaded lefty pitcher Charlie Perkins got into just 19 major-league games in 1930 and 1934. His record was an uninspiring 0-3, with a 7.50 ERA. “I had one fault,” he said looking back in 1976. “I had a good arm but I was wild. To stay in the big leagues, you had to throw that […]

On a summer afternoon in 1935, 17-year-old Ed Head was on a bus to Mer Rouge, Louisiana. Head, a left-handed pitcher for the semipro Pioneer (Louisiana) team, was on his way to play a game against the Mer Rouge team. He and his girlfriend were seated on the left side of the bus (facing forward), […]

Aloysius “Wish” Egan was one of the top scouts in the Detroit Tigers system. Among the players he signed in his 40 years of scouting were Jim Bunning, Hal Newhouser, and Dizzy Trout. Egan even scouted the Lakeland, Florida, site the Tigers have used for spring training since 1934. All scouts have regrets; one of […]

In an issue published a few days after the grand opening of Forbes Field, Sporting Life extolled Pittsburgh team owner Barney Dreyfuss: “[he] had the mind to conceive and the courage to execute the plans which have given the world the grandest and most costly ball park in existence, deserves the greatest credit, highest praise, […]

Over time, Clarence “Big Boy” Kraft was probably the greatest power hitter to play for the 1914 Boston Braves. Looking at the records of the major leagues, one would never know it. Even though he played for one of the most memorable teams in history and would become one of the most prolific power hitters […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]