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“You have a great year, and you can run into a buzz saw. Maybe this year, we are the buzz saw.” – Stephen Strasburg1   It can’t be otherwise. You are writing a story about Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg and your mind, filled with baseball memories, wanders back to June 8, 2010. The atmosphere […]

It was a “titanic struggle,” declared sportswriter Jack Ryder about the longest, and surely one of the most exciting, games of the 1934 major-league season.1 It featured seven lead changes, clutch hitting, sensational defense, rubber-armed pitching, and some luck. The Cincinnati Reds were having another abysmal season when they engaged the St. Louis Cardinals in […]

Lou Criger batted .211 for the Boston Americans in 1904 — which was nearly a 20-point improvement over the prior year. He managed an OPS+ greater than 100 only once in his 16-year career and never made more than 377 plate appearances. No, Criger was not in the big leagues because of his bat, but […]

The Boston Red Sox had finished 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators in the American League standings. The New York Giants had finished 10 games ahead of second-place Pittsburgh. Though the 1912 Red Sox had won 105 games, the Giants weren’t going to be pushovers. They’d won 103 themselves. They had driven in more […]

Rockford Peaches manager Bill Allington needed a starting pitcher for Game Seven of the 1950 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) championship series. The ace of his pitching staff, Lois “Flash” Florreich, was out of commission after injuring her shoulder sliding into home plate in Game Three of the series.1 Allington’s decision wasn’t difficult. Fortunately […]

July 1976 was filled with breathtaking events. Operation Sail’s parade of Tall Ships in New York Harbor marked the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.1 NASA navigated the Viking 1 lander onto the surface of Mars to search for evidence of life.2 And Israeli commandos freed 103 hostages from a hijacked […]

The Chicago White Sox exploded, according to sportswriter Robert Markus of the Chicago Tribune, “like so many 4th of July skyrockets” on Wednesday, July 7th, knocking off the Detroit Tigers, 7-0.1 This game signaled the emergence of a new offensive threat, 23-year-old Harold Baines. The third-year player walloped three consecutive home runs, one of which […]

A generational talent made his first postseason start in Game Two of the 2009 National League Division Series. A veteran big leaguer, extending his career for a few days, struck the game-winning hit. From beginnings to endings, Game Two between the Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals had all the elements of a great postseason game, […]

Pete Rose’s return to the Cincinnati Reds on August 17, 1984, marked a high point in a desperately low season for the team. At 51-70, the Reds had little left to play for and only the San Francisco Giants gave the Reds a cushion from the dampness of the NL West basement. Rose, Cincinnati-born and […]

The 2007 Washington Nationals were plodding along a dozen games under .500 when the team arrived in Minnesota late on June 7 for an interleague weekend series. The Twins were playing .500 ball, clearly a disappointment a year after they had won the division behind Most Valuable Player Justin Morneau, batting champ Joe Mauer, and […]

When the Yankees took the field at Comiskey Park on Chicago’s South Side, the question wasn’t whether the Bombers would capture their seventh pennant in eight years since Casey Stengel took over as skipper in 1949, but rather when they would clinch. Catapulted by a 27-6 run, which ended on July 30, the front-running Yankees […]

Anticipation grew with each home run. It was late summer 1998, and Roger Maris’s single-season record of 61 homers appeared in reach by not one but two players: the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and the Chicago Cubs’ Sammy Sosa. But throughout that two-man race to 62, few had acknowledged another milestone possibility: two perfect […]

With the Atlanta Braves’ unprecedented playoff run one defeat from expiration, 21-year-old left-hander Steve Avery’s second dominant start of the 1991 National League Championship Series kept the Pittsburgh Pirates scoreless through eight innings of Game Six on October 16 at Three Rivers Stadium. Clutch play by Ron Gant, Greg Olson, and Alejandro Peña then secured […]

“El Presidente! El Perfecto!” That was broadcaster Dave Van Horne’s call on July 28, 1991, at Dodger Stadium, after Dennis Martínez completed the only perfect game in Montreal Expos history. Other Montreal pitchers had thrown no-hitters – Bill Stoneman in 1969 and 1972, and Charlie Lea in 1981. Also, just two days before Martínez’s gem, […]

Managing a baseball team is a roller-coaster experience, and Bobby Cox saw plenty of ups and downs during 35 seasons as a professional manager. The high points included a World Series championship and 14 division titles with the Atlanta Braves, as well as an International League Governor’s Cup crown with the 1976 Syracuse Chiefs. Low […]

Hall of Famer Don Drysdale won 209 games and hit 154 batters. He won the Cy Young Award in 1962. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale was known to inflict fear in batters. At 6-feet-5-inches tall, he was intimidating on the mound, unafraid to plunk a batter with one of his fastballs. […]

Erv Palica, a laconic Californian, was little more than a bit player during the 1947 season, but four years later he was at the epicenter of a midseason controversy that may have cost the Dodgers the 1951 pennant. Palica was born on February 9, 1928, in Lomita, California, a small town west of Long Beach. […]

If it were not for bad luck, Creepy Crespi may not have had any luck at all. The infielder with one of baseball’s great alliterative nicknames played parts of five seasons in the big leagues, all with his hometown Cardinals, including the World Series title club of 1942. An ankle fracture sustained while playing baseball […]

Whenever the subject of best baseball names comes up, Scipio Spinks is sure to be on the short list. A classic wild flamethrower, Spinks was breaking through to success in 1972. If he hadn’t torn up his knee in a collision with Johnny Bench, he would have more to show than a career record of […]

At the close of his maiden season in 1917, right-hander Oscar Horstmann loomed large in the plans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Effective as both a starter and reliever, the young hurler displayed an excellent fastball, an outstanding overhand curve, and exemplary work habits for the long-downtrodden Cards who were finally making some progress in […]

Oscar Dugey, a utility player, was called “the luckiest kid in baseball” after playing on two straight pennant winners, in 1914 and 1915. One of the best infielders to come out of the Texas League in the 20th century’s first two decades, the 5-foot 8, 160-pound right-hander hit just .194 in 195 games during his […]

Handsome, well educated, and a gifted athlete, pitcher Carl Lundgren led a life blessed with good fortune. He was born into a prosperous, stable household in northern Illinois and raised in comfortable circumstance. Initially as a schoolboy, and thereafter at the University of Illinois, Carl excelled both in the classroom and on the playing field. […]

Hard-throwing Bill Caudill pitched in the majors from 1979 through 1987. The righty struck out a batter per inning at a time when that was much less common. “Caudill doesn’t have much finesse,” said The Scouting Report annual for 1983, the year after he emerged as a closer with the Seattle Mariners. “He throws a […]

Norris O’Neill, one of three nineteenth-century baseball figures nicknamed Tip, made a name for himself on the West Coast, where he captained the Oakland squad for several years. He played and/or managed in the minors from 1885 to 1899. In his youth, O’Neill was an acclaimed catcher, but after turning pro he tired of the […]