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The second-place St. Louis Browns traveled to Beantown for a four-game midweek series against the seventh-place Red Sox. It was still relatively early in the 1944 season. (Boston had played 21 games but had lost nine of their last 12, while the Browns had played 24 and had lost eight of 12 recently.) The Browns […]

One day you will tell your grandchildren “of the glorious deeds of Homer Hank, the big Greenberg boy, of Machine Gunner Charlie Gehringer, of Fire Chief Rogell, the great hop expert, of Marvin Owen, the man with the magnetic mitts.” — Detroit Free Press, August 1, 1935   The Detroit Tigers won the 1934 American […]

Meaningful and meaningless — a combination of both usually characterizes the last game of any regular season, and 2014 was no exception. This game was played with crowded dugouts and bullpens, the result of expanded major-league rosters in September that can often lead to game strategies not otherwise available. The no-hitter is unlike other statistical […]

Denny McLain began the morning the same as he always did. His wife woke him up around 10:30. Breakfast was two eggs and sausage, and a Pepsi, his favorite drink. A half-hour later, a representative from the Hammond Organ Company showed up at Denny’s home, and they discussed business. Denny was a fine player, and […]

Sunday, July 20, 1947, was a sunny day in Detroit after a cool and rainy Saturday. The second-place Tigers were wrapping up a four-game set with the New York Yankees, whom they trailed by 11½ games. Good weather had been in short supply in Detroit. Tigers management was expecting a crowd of 40,000 for Friday’s […]

“I don’t know how you feel about it at the other end of these microphones, whether you are sitting at home, or driving a car, on the beach or anywhere, but I know sitting here watching the Giants and Dodgers apparently playing for the last time at the Polo Grounds, you want them to take […]

On paper the game appeared to be a mismatch between teams on different ends of the continuum of competiveness. The defending National League champion New York Giants, losers of seven of their last nine games, entered the game in second place with a record of 28-15, three games behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers and with […]

The season was on the line for both teams. It was winner-take-all in Game Five of the 2019 National League Division Series. In the bottom of the first, the Braves’ dangerous leadoff hitter, Ronald Acuña Jr., trudged into the batter’s box without his typical cocky swagger. The crowd offered some obligatory applause, but there was […]

By the end of the 1960s, it seemed that the Major League Baseball All-Star Game had turned into an annual exhibition of National League dominance. The senior circuit had won 11 of 13 games during the decade (two games were played in 1960, 1961 and 1962; one game was tied when it was called because […]

It was a new season, the Pirates opening against the 1952 National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh had finished last (42-112-1) in 1952, 54½ games behind Brooklyn. Fred Haney had been brought in as manager. They’d played Opening Day at Ebbets Field the day before and taken a 4-0 lead in the top of the […]

Baseball is different. Among the worldwide variety of “stick and ball” games, baseball (along with its cousins cricket and rounders) is different in that it is the player, and not the ball, which does the scoring—and the ball is often far away when the scoring is done. In field hockey, hurling, lacrosse, shinty, et. al., […]

Before Game One of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson made a statement about Pat Sheridan. Although the Tigers outfielder ended the season 5-for-68 and spent most of the last three weeks on the bench during a tight race for first place, Anderson had […]

Detroit Tigers right-hander Lynwood Thomas “Schoolboy” Rowe “gave one of the most courageous exhibitions of pitching ever seen in World Series,” wrote H.G. Salsinger of the Detroit News.”1 After the Tigers’ demoralizing 8-3 loss to Dizzy Dean and the St. Louis Cardinals in Game One of the 1934 fall classic at Navin Field in the […]

In what was described by Bert Walker of the Detroit Times as “one of the most vicious slugfests seen on the local diamond this year,” the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox combined for 43 hits and 31 runs at Navin Field in the Motor City on Tuesday, June 2, 1925. The Tigers enjoyed […]

Sunday, October 4, 1987, was the culmination of the Showdown Series between the Detroit Tigers and the Toronto Blue Jays, the likes of which, given the wild card format, will not be seen in the regular season again.  The Tigers started the 1987 season 11-19, in sixth place in the American League Eastern Division, 9½ […]

When Charles Comiskey and other investors purchased the minor Western League in 1894, it was with the express intent of transforming the loop into a major league on a par with the well-established National League. Aggressively signing major-league-caliber players and shifting franchises from smaller markets such as Grand Rapids and St. Paul to Cleveland and […]

For both major leagues, 1912 “was a banner year for streaks by pitchers,” as noted at the start of a SABR article on such accomplishments.1 Future Hall of Famers in each league had already tied or set records for consecutive wins as the Tigers prepared to face Red Sox ace Joe Wood during the second […]

As Detroit Tigers first baseman Norm Cash prepared to dig in against California Angels right-hander Nolan Ryan, who was just one out away from a no-hitter, he looked at home-plate umpire Ron Luciano and asked with all seriousness, “Aren’t you going to check my bat?”1 Known for his unusual humor, Cash had sauntered to the […]

For teams already eliminated from a pennant race, the last game of a season typically means very little. In many of these instances, managers, players, and umpires might be more concerned about bringing the final game to a swift end to facilitate an expedited trip back to their offseason homes. For bench players and untested […]

When the fans at Tiger Stadium settled into their seats for a game between the Yankees and Tigers on June 24, 1962, little did they know that history was about to take place at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. The two teams, having played a doubleheader the day before, were looking to finish […]

Walter O. Briggs was definitely old school. As the owner of the Detroit Tigers, he had long believed that the national pastime was meant to be played in the daytime. “Baseball belongs to the sun and the sun to baseball,” he argued.1 But the national pastime was entering a new era. Ever since May 24, […]

After competing for the 1948 National League pennant before finishing in fourth place, the Pittsburgh Pirates, on January 29, 1949, purchased right-hander Murry Dickson from the St. Louis Cardinals for $125,000 in an effort to improve their pitching staff for the 1949 season.  Regarded as one of the craftiest pitchers in baseball, Dickson had made […]

It took quite an odyssey for right-hander Rex Cecil to get into his first major-league game. It was August 11, 1944, and he was in San Diego. It was a Friday. Cecil had been playing professional baseball since 1937, when he was 20 and pitching for the Vancouver Maple Leafs. He’d never played for a […]

SABR BioProject Newsletter – Winter 2015-2016 The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)   Winter 2015-2016, Volume 1, Number 1 Editor: Stew Thornley Howdy Project Profile: Warren Corbett Project Poobahs Howdy This is the newsletter of the Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project (BioProject) Committee. I’m told there have […]