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In 1970 Billy Conigliaro played all three outfield positions for the Boston Red Sox, the majority of them in left field. His brother and teammate Tony played right field almost exclusively. Together they hit 54 home runs (Tony hitting 36 and Billy half as many — 18), the combined total setting a major-league record for […]

An average major-leaguer and a professorial manager who tried to treat his ballplayers like grown men, Steve Boros was a baseball lifer whose career spanned over two dozen teams across six decades. Broadcaster Ernie Harwell called him “one of the most cerebral baseball men I’ve ever known.”1 Born September 3, 1936, in Flint, Michigan, Stephen […]

George Goetz is among those rare pitchers who won his only major-league game. It was in 1889 for Baltimore of the American Association, which existed from 1882 to 1891. In contrast to so many other major leaguers over the decades who played very few games at that level, Goetz had a very short career in […]

The 1940s witnessed a special group of major league shortstops, including the likes of Lou Boudreau, Phil Rizzuto, Marty Marion, Pee Wee Reese and Johnny Pesky. During his own career, Vern “Junior” Stephens was considered to be as good or better than any of his illustrious peers, yet within a few years after his retirement, […]

A two-out, seventh inning single by New York Mets’ right fielder Ron Swoboda was the margin between a 21-year-old left-hander and a no-hitter – a feat that would otherwise have capped the youngster’s fine, 16-win, 1965 season. Possessing one of the greatest curveballs of his time, his immediate splash in the major leagues had the […]

It could be a good question in a serious trivia contest: “Who was the first African-American ballplayer honored by the Hall of Fame?” Rather few people would correctly guess Grover Jones. “My real name is Grover William Jones, Junior,” Deacon Jones explained in a 2008 interview. “Everybody started calling me Deacon because my father was […]

A journeyman for most of his eight seasons in the minor leagues, left-handed pitcher Alpha “Al” Brazle overcame career-threatening arm injuries by reinventing himself as a slick side-arm sinkerball pitcher. After an unexpectedly strong first half with the Sacramento Solons in the Pacific Coast League in 1943, Brazle debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in […]

The small town of Colony, Oklahoma, began as an agricultural settlement for Native Americans trying to adapt to a new way of life. In 1886 about 120 Cheyenne and Arapahos left their tribal lands in an attempt to assimilate themselves into the American culture. They became farmers, growing such staples as wheat and cotton. Six […]

When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]

Baseball history is filled with stories of Irish American players, particularly in the 19th century, whose promising careers were derailed by alcohol abuse. Few stories are more tragic than that of Dan Lally. Called “Handsome Dan,” Dapper Dan,” and “the Adonis of the diamond” during his playing days, Lally was a consistent .300 hitter during […]

Superman had his fortress of solitude. Mike Pérez had the pitching mound. On it, there was no hesitation, no bullying, no talking. Teased by neighborhood kids for his stutter, Pérez found solace on the mound, where his strong right arm balanced the odds and silenced the opposition bats. Drive and determination took Pérez all the […]

Maynard Faye Throneberry was the decidedly less-colorful — and less-celebrated — of the major leagues’ two Throneberry brothers. His younger brother was dubbed “Marvelous Marv”, a player who gained infamy as a symbol of baseball ineptitude, particularly in the field and on the base paths. Faye (he was never referred to by his first name) […]

The cover photo on the Sunday magazine insert of the June 29, 1958, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen was of a young boy wearing a Little League baseball uniform gazing admiringly at an older, bespectacled gentleman who was squatting, a baseball bat in hand. As the accompanying article explained, the man in the photo […]

After the first game of a doubleheader against the visiting Chicago Cubs on July 4, 1928, rookie outfielder Wally Roettger of the St. Louis Cardinals was hitting a robust .341. In the second game, however, he dislocated his right ankle and broke both bones in his lower leg sliding into third base.1 The injury ended […]

If not for two years of military service and four years at the University of Texas, baseball lifer Grady Hatton’s career as player, manager, scout, and front office executive would have surpassed a half century. Mainly a third baseman, he played in 12 big-league seasons (1946-56; 1960). Reflecting on his playing career in 1966, Hatton […]

He was an eight-time All-Star, batted .300-plus seven times, and upon his retirement after the 1988 season, held the major-league record for hits (2,472) and doubles (483) by a catcher, to go along with 248 home runs and 1,389 RBIs. In December 2019, 25 years after receiving only 3.7% of the vote in his first […]

Few paths to organized baseball were as unique as that of Joseph Mitchell Tysko’s. A collegiate pitcher in West Texas, the right-hander captured the attention of the Abilene Blue Sox after stymieing the team in an exhibition match; no other hurler had held the hard hitting Class C club to so few runs. In May […]

“He is another Vance, another Dazzy, I’m telling you. Hasn’t the best disposition in the world. You know some of those Carolina fellows get funny ideas sometimes, but he certainly can buzz that ball over. Best young pitcher I’ve seen since Rube Marquard. Only he is faster than Rube was. Say, maybe he is another […]

More than a few contemporary baseball insiders viewed John Clarkson as the finest pitcher of the 19th century. He won 30 or more games in a season six times, including two of the top four all-time totals, 53 in 1885 and 49 in ’89. In the 10-year period between August 1884 and July 1894, he […]

Through the 2016 season, Chris Guccione has been a major-league umpire for eight full seasons. Before that, he was an “up and down” umpire, for the eight prior seasons (2000 through 2008), and he had worked five years in the minor leagues, from 1995 through 1999. Like most umpires, he had to work many years […]

The Cincinnati Reds won consecutive pennants in 1939 and 1940 and a World Series championship the latter year thanks in no small part to the stellar play of their little-remembered right fielder, Ival Richard Goodman. Outstanding in the field as well as at bat, he typically hit third a lineup that also featured 1940 National […]

One more hit or one less at-bat would have given Frank Demaree a career .300 batting average in the big leagues. The 12-year major-league outfielder finished his career with a batting average of .299 – more precisely .299469, on 1,241 hits in 4,144 at-bats. One more hit would have raised his batting average to .2997, […]

The second Puerto Rican to play in the major leagues was outfielder Luis Olmo, who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943, a year after Hiram Bithorn made his debut with the Chicago Cubs. These men led the way for more than 200 boricuas who have since followed. Bithorn’s life ended suddenly at the age of […]

Don Richard “Richie” Ashburn, a Hall of Fame outfielder, who made the most putouts of any outfielder in major-league baseball during the 1950s, started out as a catcher, which should not be surprising because throughout his long career in baseball, Richie Ashburn had always been his own man. His independent quality even emerged during his […]