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“Tacky” Tom Parrott enjoyed a long and colorful career in professional baseball, showing both great athletic talent and a gift for showmanship. Forgotten today, for a brief time he earned a reputation as one of the game’s best players. He was the second native Oregonian to play in the major leagues, debuting eleven months after […]

After spring training tryouts with the Philadelphia Athletics and Phillies and seven years in the minors, Ed Cole caught on with the St. Louis Browns in 1938. Pitching primarily in relief, Cole won his only big-league game that season in a grueling start against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The rubber-armed pitcher, however, […]

In 1962 the Los Angeles Times veteran sportswriter Braven Dyer offered in three short sentences an apt analysis of the brief career of Ron Moeller: “Moeller is something of a problem pitcher. At times, he seems to have everything. The next time out, he seems devoid of confidence.”1 Emerging on the major league stage in […]

The Washington Senators were losing badly Tuesday afternoon, September 13, 1921, against the St. Louis Browns. The spitball delivery of Urban Shocker had restricted the Senators to one run on six hits through eight innings. With the score a lopsided 14-1 as the top of the ninth rolled around, the Washington fans had become aggravated, […]

At age 22, crafty left-hander Jerry Nops was a budding star, a 20-game winner for the 1897 Temple Cup champion Baltimore Orioles. By age 26, his major league career was behind him, a sterling .637 winning percentage notwithstanding. Undone by alcohol abuse and behavioral issues, Nops – whom Cooperstown-bound manager Ned Hanlon once described as […]

April 10, 1962, is an important date in the history of baseball in Houston, Texas. It marked the culmination of years of effort by George Kirksey, Craig Cullinan Jr., Roy Hofheinz, and R.E. “Bob” Smith to bring major-league baseball to Houston. The newly minted Houston Colt .45s played their first official National League game, defeating […]

“President Harding’s interest in Baseball and his many kind acts toward individual players was [sic] deeply appreciated by all of us.”1 None other than Babe Ruth expressed this sentiment in his handwritten condolences to the widow of Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States. Harding died while in office on August 2, […]

Salty Saltwell was a baseball lifer — not between the lines on a baseball field but in the front office of the Chicago Cubs and four minor-league teams from 1950 to 2005. Along the way, he served as assistant general manager of the Sioux City (Iowa) Soos, executive secretary of the Western League, president and […]

“If we had one game to win, we wanted Leon to pitch.” — Monte Irvin   So much of Leon Day’s story is caught up in his last years and his long wait for the Hall of Fame call. For Day, who spent a lifetime exceeding at his professional calling, punching his card at every […]

Eddie Ainsmith punched above his weight – both in terms of the accolades he received during and after his playing days as a light-hitting backstop who never appeared in the postseason…and as a fierce fighter. His career raises the question of how much credit a player should get for partnering with a legend of the […]

In St. Louis, where baseball is in the blood, many a boy fantasizes about growing up to play for their hometown team. Only a select number really pursue the ambition and even fewer achieve it. Lonnie Lee Maclin III fulfilled this aspiration. Born to Lonnie Maclin Jr. and June (Garner) Maclin on February 17, 1967, […]

Dick Gordon got his start by breaking a national story when he was in college, and parlayed that into a long career as a Minnesota sportswriter. His prodigious memory enabled him to recall facts long after the event happened, and his writing, while factual, contained enough embellishment to make it entertaining for the reader. Charles […]

Babe Martin was born Boris Michael Martinovich, the son of a professional wrestler, Iron Mike Martin (a/k/a Bryan Martinovich). Both of Boris’ parents — Mitar and Vidosava Martinovich — were born in parts of the former Yugoslavia, his father in Montenegro and his mother in Serbia. They each emigrated to the United States and settled […]

Homer Simpson may live forever in baseball history as the man who pinch hit for Darryl Strawberry—who had already hit nine home runs (four-base hits often dubbed “homers”)—in the 1992 City Championship game between Springfield and Shelbyville. It was Simpson who knocked in the winning run, being knocked out in the process, and gave victory […]

Though standing just 5′ 6″ and weighing as little as 135 pounds at the start of his career, “Wee” Tommie Leach was nonetheless one of the better “power” hitters of the first decade of the 20th century. Over the course of a 19-year career in the National League, Leach finished in the top ten six […]

The obstacles a rookie follows to become a major leaguer are daunting. Add to that the pressure of being described as a can’t-miss prospect or the next Joe DiMaggio and that process can be overwhelming. Johnny Groth faced such a situation with the Detroit Tigers in the spring of 1949. He would become and remain […]

When the curtain rose on the New York Yankees’ 1929 season, for the first time in team history each ballplayer wore a numbered jersey. Catching for New York that day was John Grabowski, the large block 8 on his back signifying his spot in the batting order. One of three backstops that Yankee manager Miller […]

His name was Clarence Charles Isreal. That’s Isreal, not Israel. His name should not be conflated with the country of the Middle East. Most of the newspapers of his time did not grasp that distinction. Consequently, often the misspelling has carried over into subsequent baseball records. In his six-year professional baseball career, Clarence Isreal spent […]

Ray Herbert entered professional baseball at the age of 19 with the sinking fastball that major-league franchises dream of, but lacked the knowledge and skill to convert his great “stuff” into immediate success. For 11 years he toiled with mostly second-division teams, both in the majors and minors, rarely winning more than he lost, surrounded […]

In September 1976 Hall of Fame inductees Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn were only the two most prominent names among a large field of managerial candidates available to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays. But the Jays startled the baseball world by selecting the hardly-household-name Roy Hartsfield as the franchise’s first skipper. But the surprise may […]

As a big leaguer, Ed Charles was perhaps the most accomplished player in the brief history of the ill-fated Kansas City Athletics, and he achieved fame as a baseball poet, reciting his poetry on television a few times per year and mailing verse to young fans with requested autographs. But he is best remembered today […]

The year 1962 saw National League baseball return to New York City with a new expansion team, the New York Mets. From its origin, the Mets were very fortunate in that it had a very enthusiastic fan base. While enthusiastic, these fans suffered significant frustration in 1962 as the Mets lost 120 games. Sharing that […]

Philadelphia Athletics left-hander Bobby Shantz – just 5-feet-6 in height and 139 pounds – led the American League with 24 wins, and a .774 winning percentage in 1952; he was the runaway choice as the league’s Most Valuable Player, receiving 16 of 24 first-place votes. But in 1953 a shoulder injury limited Shantz to 16 […]

As many baseball fans know, Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman is the only player to die from an injury sustained during a major-league baseball game. But 27 years after Chapman was struck and killed by a pitch, a Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder came frighteningly close to becoming the second. Long before 1947, Pete Reiser had a […]