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“Clem Labine was one of the main reasons the Dodgers won it all in 1955. He had the heart of a lion and the intelligence of a wily fox.” – Vin Scully1 By definition, the relief pitcher is “a substitute pitcher who enters the game, often in a critical situation, to take over for the […]
The Detroit Tigers’ dreams of their first World Series title were evaporating after a tough 4-3 Game Six loss in the 1934 World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals were favored in Game Seven and ticket demand wasn’t as strong. The sun shined bright and a cool northeast wind blew in over the right-field wall at […]
As the small Sunday-afternoon crowd of 10,813 settled into their Tiger Stadium seats, it’s doubtful anyone realized they were about to witness a special moment in baseball history. The previous day’s game between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox was a 1-0 pitchers’ duel. Since the turn of the century, more than 130,000 […]
In the days of two eight-team major leagues, “division” meant something quite different from the three regional designations currently used in the National and American Leagues. Back then, fans and writers alike tended to dwell at some length on which teams were in each league’s “first division” – among the top four teams in the […]
Ted Williams went on a bit of a homer-hitting spree over a 2½-week stretch early in the 1950 season. He homered twice on April 30 (both of them three-run homers), hit six more from May 2 to 13, and had another two-home run game on May 16. Twelve more homers followed in June. By midseason, […]
“Dependable Al is Brooklyn’s second line of defense behind the plate. He’s as smart a backstop as you’ll find in baseball and handles pitchers expertly.” – 1957 Topps Al “Rube” Walker card (#147)1 As their battle with the Phillies for the 1950 National League pennant came down to the last day of the season, […]
Wait ’til Next Year! The phrase became a euphemism for a baseball season gone awry and nowhere did it receive greater play than in the 1940s and 1950s with the Brooklyn Dodgers and their long-suffering fans.1 The Dodgers had never won a World Series and in those two decades leading to the 1955 season, they […]
The 1953 season was a tough one for both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Giants. For the Pirates, it was yet another losing season in a post-World War II era that Pittsburgh fans would like to forget. In the 12 seasons from 1946 through 1957, the Bucs endured 11 losing campaigns, including seven […]
“When going through hell, keep running” – Winston Churchill1 “Beware of advice from experts, pigs and members of Parliament” – Kermit the Frog2 Mickey Cochrane was going through hell as he rounded the bases on his June 4 inside-the-park grand slam against the Philadelphia A’s in Shibe Park. He made it home, but he […]
Don Black reached the end of the line in Philadelphia. A’s manager Connie Mack was a patient man. But the Tall Tactician had his limits. For Don Black was an alcoholic. It was a disease that Black could not control, and like all diseases, there were residual effects that were equally damaging. Black showed promise […]
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and manager Billy Martin in the late 1970s (SABR-Rucker Archive) When major-league baseball added four franchises for the 1969 season – the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres in the National League and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots in the American League – it also expanded […]
On June 6, 1945, Tommy Holmes of the Boston Braves began a hitting streak that ended as a modern National League record of 37 games; the record lasted until 1978 when Cincinnati’s Pete Rose established the current (as of 2014) mark of 44 games. The Braves connection remained: Atlanta’s Gene Garber stopped Rose in Atlanta […]
“It would be so easy to believe, had you not seen it, that there couldn’t possibly be, ever, such a game as this. Having seen it, you know you never had seen one like it before and that you never could forget it. Never as long as you live.” – Frank Graham1 Writing about […]
On June 1, 1954, Brooklyn shut out the Braves, 2-0, in the first game of a crucial three-game series at Milwaukee. It was the third straight loss for the Braves, and afterward skipper Charlie Grimm devised a platoon system for the next game and beyond, saying, “I gotta do something to get some hitting.”1 The first-place […]
Pitcher Don Newcombe (right) and catcher Roy Campanella were the battery for 183 starts as teammates with the Brooklyn Dodgers. (SABR-Rucker Archive) Immediately after the All-Star Game in July 1954, the Brooklyn Dodgers traveled to Milwaukee’s County Stadium for a five-game series against the Braves. The defending National League champion Dodgers were struggling to […]
When 21-year-old Charlie Beamon debuted for the Baltimore Orioles on September 26, 1956, he became the youngest of the majors’ 15 pitchers of color since Jackie Robinson integrated the sport in 1947.1 The righthander throttled the mighty Yankees, 1-0, with a complete game, but earned only two more victories in his three-year (1956-1958) big league […]
For more than 70 years, pitcher Joe Cleary was the last native of Ireland to play in the major leagues. Appearing in just one game in 1945, Cleary had the misfortune to post a lifetime 189.00 earned run average, the highest on record for pitchers who retired at least one batter, when he yielded seven […]
Johnny Lazor was a ten-year veteran of the minor leagues and a wartime major-league outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, playing for four seasons from 1943 through 1946. Why he never appeared in the ‘46 World Series is a matter of conjecture, but there appear to have been a couple of good reasons. He was […]
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure to those who stared face to face with it. It will simply tell of a generation of men who even though they may have avoided the shells were destroyed by the war. –Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on […]
Ford Garrison “came into the big leagues on a postage stamp and rode to Philadelphia on a waiver list.” He was “a Paul Revere of baseball.”1 So wrote former major-league pitcher Stan Baumgartner, who later became a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The postage stamp was affixed to a letter which Scoops Latimer, sports editor […]
Rip Russell came through in the biggest moment of his career, with a pinch-hit single leading off the top of the eighth inning in Game Seven of the 1946 World Series. Four batters later, both he and Catfish Metkovich scored on Dom DiMaggio’s double and the Boston Red Sox had tied the game against the […]
“Berardino is one of those intense fellows who believe the greatest shame in the world is not doing your best every time. He hustles until the last out of every game, and he doesn’t sit around crying about his hard luck.” — Bill Veeck, 1948.1 Known to generations of television viewers as Dr. Steve Hardy […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the SABR BioProject Committee April 2016 (Special Sidd Finch Edition), Volume 1, Number 4 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley From the Editor From the Director Advice from the Experts Project Profile: Jacob Pomrenke Project Poobahs From the Editor Welcome to the latest High and Inside, all the news you […]
High and Inside The Newsletter of the BioProject Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) December 2016 (Special Festivus Edition), Volume 1, Number 7 Past newsletters Editor: Stew Thornley From the Director From the Editor Guest Columnists: Norm King and Rory Costello Project Profile: Leslie Heaphy Project Poobahs From the Director Would you like […]