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Cuban entrepreneur Roberto “Bobby” Maduro was a singular baseball man. When he passed away in 1986, the news made the front page of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish newspaper of Miami, where he and so many of his countrymen made their home after Fidel Castro took power. In that story, Fausto Miranda (the dean of […]

Carlos Beltrán jump-started his terrific career in 1999 by winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award. He rose to national stardom in 2004, when he turned in one of the greatest postseason performances ever, batting .435 with eight home runs in 12 games. Possessing a rare combination of power and speed, Beltrán is one […]

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 […]

One can sensibly argue that Hugh Mulcahy was one of the hardest-luck pitchers in baseball history. At first glance a pitcher with a 45-89 career record and a lifetime earned-run average of 4.49, one who was twice the league leader in losses, is not exactly a player one thinks of as a victim of bad […]

More than five decades later, his legend has not faded. The people who saw Harry Agganis play or knew him still talk both of the joy he gave to New England and of the devastating grief brought by his tragic end. Their children might know of him by walking on Harry Agganis Way, by attending […]

Long before catchers crouched behind home plate in padded armor, Fergus George “Fergy” Malone was redefining toughness—and the game itself—with nothing but bare hands, Irish grit, and a bat-ready stare. Largely forgotten today, Malone was a baseball pioneer and recognized and respected in his time as a pivotal figure in the game, especially in the […]

Sportsman’s Park was home of the St. Louis Browns from 1902 to 1953. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.)   Introduction Achieving on-field success has often proved elusive to owners of the Baltimore Orioles and its predecessor teams, the St. Louis Browns and Milwaukee Brewers. The franchise, dating back to the inception of the American […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández.   Major-League Spring Training in Puerto Rico The 1936 Cincinnati Reds “The Cincinnati Reds put on the first major league baseball game in Puerto Rican history yesterday” was lead of an AP wire story on February […]