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Pitching in a pennant race must have seemed tame to Skinny Brown; when he was 19 years old, he jumped out of a shot-up bomber into the cold waters of the English Channel. Brown took the game seriously, but not himself. He said, “It takes a lot of guts to walk out there with the […]

We’ve all had job evaluations, those nerve-racking meetings with the boss where he tells you how well, or poorly, you have done and what to work on to reach the next level. Bobby Winkles found out where he stood one day in 1958 from Walker Cooper, his manager with the Indianapolis Indians of the Triple-A […]

A live bat, good speed, and a solid work ethic should have afforded a substantial major-league career to the World War I-era outfielder who played under the name Jim Kelly. But Kelly was handicapped by a belated start in professional baseball and owed his relatively brief tenure as a big leaguer to forces far larger […]

Occasionally, a player is taken out of the lineup due to personal misfortune. But in 1930 a scheduled pitcher didn’t take the mound (or ever pitch again) because he died an agonizing death on that very morning. Hal Carlson was a right-handed journeyman who pitched for three teams in the National League. He was a […]

Whenever American League President Joe Cronin was asked to rank big-league third basemen, he always gave the same answer: “Well, you start with Bluege.”1 Of course shortstop Cronin was referring to his old partner on the right side of the Washington Senators teams of the 1920s and ’30s, Ossie Bluege. At the 1970 World Series, […]

Jim Willis began his baseball career with the New Orleans Black Pelicans in 1926 and ended it in 1949 as player-manager of the Evansville (Indiana) Dodgers. Over the 23-year arc of his life in baseball, Willis spent at least 12 seasons in an Elite Giants uniform. He made his last appearance on the mound for […]

Jackie Robinson in a portrait with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took […]

Tom Butts stood 5-feet-8 and weighed just 142 pounds, but his size was not the reason he acquired the nickname Pee Wee. Rather, the strong-armed shortstop’s defensive prowess reminded observers of his White contemporary, Pee Wee Reese.1 “I’d compare Butts with Reese or [Phil] Rizzuto or anyone I’ve seen in the big leagues,” opined Roy […]

“Some people say he was the greatest African American player ever. That may be so — I don’t know — but what seems clear is that he was the best black player of his time.” — Monte Irvin   The story of John Henry “Pop” Lloyd has many facets. It is a story of communities […]

Wendell Smith built a media career that would eventually be recognized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s best known for his campaign to integrate major league baseball, which resulted in Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Wendell Smith, however, was more than an activist. During his 35-year career, he evolved […]

In the first years of Tommy Lasorda’s Hall of Fame career as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he kept several large photographs on the walls of his office at the team’s spring-training complex in Vero Beach, Florida. There was one of himself and Walter Alston, his legendary predecessor, and another with Hall of Fame […]

Stories about Art Quirk’s golden arm and Ivy League degree accompanied the left-handed pitcher on his rise to the major leagues. There were double-digit strikeout games and a no-hitter. Most newspaper profiles mentioned the rarified source of his college diploma. But the excitement of his 1962 debut was short-lived when he was bumped from the […]

Tommy Barrett hit for some very good averages and stole a lot of bases in the minor leagues. Originally a New York Yankees farmhand, he broke into major league baseball with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1988, making 36 of his 54 big league appearances. He got into 14 more games for the Phillies in 1989 […]

Hawaiian left-hander Fred Kuhaulua pitched in just eight major-league games, coming in a pair of trials four years apart, with the California Angels in 1977 and the San Diego Padres in 1981. He won his only decision at the top level with San Diego, outdueling Fernando Valenzuela as the season wound down. That was his […]

Pittsburgh’s historic Ammon Field was renamed Josh Gibson Field in 2008 to honor the Baseball Hall of Famer who started his semipro career there in 1928. Harold “Hooks” Tinker, the Ammon Field regular who signed Gibson while player-manager of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, once spoke very fondly of a mutual teammate, middle infielder Charlie Hughes: The […]

Life isn’t always a fastball down the middle. Sometimes it is unpredictable, with all the ups and downs and erratic sharp curves of a Wiffle Ball thrown into a still breeze. An original Seattle Mariner, Danny Meyer experienced the full gamut of life’s changes both on and off the field. Through it all, Meyer adjusted, […]

The children of the elite often will have difficulty establishing their own identities and achieving success, particularly if their interests parallel those of a parent. Such was not the case with Joe L. Brown, whose father was Joe E. Brown, the popular comic actor, film star, and baseball aficionado who (unlike practically all celebrated sports […]

Like many New York Yankees from their late 1960s and early 1970s nadir, Jerry Kenney suffered from the curse of expectations that media and fans had for the once dominant franchise. Winning 29 pennants and 20 World Series in 44 years, from 1921 to 1964 inclusive, was proof to many fans that winning was an […]

Bill Veeck’s one-man carnival came blaring into Chicago on March 10, 1959. He and an investor group bought a majority interest in the Chicago White Sox from Dorothy Comiskey Rigney, granddaughter of the franchise’s founder, Charles Comiskey. The 45-year-old Veeck was coming home. He liked to say, “I am the only human being ever raised […]

“[T]he first major-league pitch I ever called for [was] a curve ball to Wally Moon,” recalled catcher Chris Cannizzaro. “I didn’t catch it. Moon hit it over the left [field] screen of the Coliseum in Los Angeles.”[fn]“’Young Ideas’ by Dick Young,” The Sporting News, June 30, 1973, 14.[/fn] Despite this inauspicious debut, Cannizzaro would go […]

Paulino Casanova — known to English speakers simply as Paul — enjoyed his two best big-league seasons straight away. In 1966, the Cuban set a career high in homers with 13 and was named catcher on The Sporting News American League All-Star team. In 1967, he went to the midseason All-Star game for the AL. […]

“Carmen Fanzone always led a double life.” That’s how Jerry Crowe led a story about the former ballplayer and trumpeter that ran in the Los Angeles Times.1 Primarily a third baseman on the diamond, Fanzone played in parts of five seasons (1970-1974) for two major-league teams that suffered nearly century-long droughts between World Series wins: […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]

Organized Baseball faced challenges on several fronts during World War I. Naturally, the able-bodied men employed in baseball were also wanted and even expected to perform in the service, like other men throughout the country. While it is true that many ballplayers performed in battle and other essential tasks, some were placed with their athletic […]