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Fergie Jenkins was eager to join his new team after finding out that he had been traded from the Phillies to the Cubs. Jenkins and his wife, Kathy, drove through the night to get from Philadelphia to Chicago. The couple set out at 9 o’clock on the evening of April 21, 1966, and pulled into […]

When the August 15 game between the Boston Americans and Chicago White Sox was rained out, it was rescheduled as the first game of a doubleheader to be played on Wednesday, September 27, at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Grounds. Having won American League pennants in both 1903 and 1904, Boston was the reigning league champion, but […]

Since he became a workhorse pitcher in 1908, Walter Johnson had become a model of both consistency and durability.1 Between 1910 and 1919 Johnson pitched in 454 games; he won 265 of them, including at least 20 in each of those 10 seasons. During the 10 seasons Johnson cemented his legacy as one of the […]

Like all the other major-league teams, the Boston Red Sox had lost many of their best players to military service during World War II. In 1945 five pitchers who had been regulars, Tex Hughson, Joe Dobson, Mickey Harris, Earl Johnson, and Mace Brown, were serving in the military. The Red Sox had finished in fourth […]

Griffith Stadium was death to home runs, yet inside-the-park home runs dictated the results in a game between the hometown Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics. Ty Cobb, playing with the A’s at age 41 in what was his final year, batted second, going 0-for-4 and showing his liability in right field. Cobb hit 46 […]

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 […]

In the twentieth century only two pitchers recorded 40 or more wins in a season. Jack Chesbro accomplished the feat for the 1904 New York Highlanders, finishing the year 41-12. Ed Walsh joined him on that plateau by tallying 40 wins for the Chicago White Sox in 1908. His 40th win was a 6-1 triumph […]

“I’ve seen everything of this sort ever attempted, but this tops them all. It has been an amazing job of promotion, and an amazing show.” — Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.1 After just a handful of seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Bob Feller had become an adopted son of the city. The Van Meter, Iowa, native […]

In 1908, at age 41, Cy Young was pitching about as well as ever.1 This marked his eighth season with Boston’s American League team, now known for the first time as the Red Sox. Young joined Boston in 1901, at age 34, when the AL assumed major-league status, and he brought with him 286 National […]

Rube Waddell approached home plate as Patsy Donovan came to bat in the fourth inning. Donovan, Washington’s right fielder and manager, stepped backward; he had reason to be wary. The Philadelphia pitcher was pulling a bundle out from under his sweater. The 2,000 fans in Washington’s American League Park stirred, then, as Waddell spoke, went […]

After outscoring the New York Yankees 12-6 to take two of the first three games of the 1951 World Series, the New York Giants’ offense dried up after a rainy Sunday led to Game Four’s postponement. As historian Frank Graham observed, “it rained and it was as if the rain cooled the Giants off, for […]

Paul Blair is considered one of the premier defensive center fielders of his era. He made his major league debut on September 9, 1964, and played in 1947 games over a seventeen-year major league career, with his final game coming on June 20, 1980. He batted and threw right-handed but tried switch-hitting for a brief […]

It is an oft-told story that legendary manager John McGraw, who led the New York Giants for 30 eventful years, had photographs of only two former players on his office wall: Christy Mathewson and Ross Youngs, today an almost forgotten Hall of Fame outfielder.1 Youngs personified the type of all-out hustle and will-to-win ballplayer that […]

For decades after they last played together, the Boston Red Sox’ outfield of Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker, and Harry Hooper, who toiled next to each other for six years in the Deadball Era, was often considered the greatest in baseball history. Although all three, especially Speaker, were fine hitters, their reputation was due largely to […]

During the winter of 1911-1912, Dr. William D. Scanlan was obliged to make a life-altering decision. For the past seven years, he had been a pitching mainstay for the woeful Brooklyn Superbas. But during that same period, Doc Scanlan had also completed his medical studies, satisfied New York state licensing and internship requirements, and begun […]

During the first 25 years of the club’s existence, the public face of major league baseball in Brooklyn proceeded from team president Charles H. Byrne to pennant-winning field manager Ned Hanlon to front office functionary-turned-club boss Charles H. Ebbets. Throughout that period, the club’s chronically depleted treasury was regularly replenished by a far less visible […]

Chris Von der Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns in 1892, was known for his irrational and confrontational behavior. Rookie Frank Genins had a puzzling run-in with Von der Ahe to start his career. According to a 1913 Baseball Magazine article by William A. Phelon, Genins was acquired from Omaha over the winter, but […]

Frank E. Bradley, a fireballing right-handed pitcher who played in six seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs before suffering a career-ending wound in World War II, was born on February 3, 1918, in Benton, Bossier Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of June and Adline (Gates) Bradley. If Frank had any siblings, no mention of […]

Art Fletcher was the leader of one of the Deadball Era’s finest infields—Merkle at first, Doyle at second, Fletcher at short, and Herzog at third. “If there be one among the gamesters of baseball who is gamer than the rest, that man be Fletcher,” wrote sportswriter Frank Graham. In the early teens the New York […]

Many of the umpires of the Dead Ball Era made their mark with style and personality, and Frank “Silk” O’Loughlin was among the most stylish and quotable in a crowded field of colorful characters. O’Loughlin was born in 1872 in Rochester, New York, and spent a good part of his youth playing amateur baseball in […]

Remembered for his dazzling performances against John McGraw’s Giants which earned him the nickname “Giant Killer,” Lew Richie’s eight-year career was spent entirely in the National League, where he quietly enjoyed a successful start with his hometown Phillies before emerging as a bona fide starting pitcher for Frank Chance’s powerhouse Cubs teams of the early […]

Had Grover Cleveland Alexander been a writer, the French would have called him a poete maudit, a cursed poet. Alexander had within him the greatness and the frailty that make for tragedy. Except for Ty Cobb among his contemporaries, no other player had to cope with so many personal demons. With Cobb and Christy Mathewson, […]

Boston fans who liked the way Jason Varitek handles the Red Sox pitching staff would have loved Sammy White. Sammy, who was selected as an American League All-Star catcher in 1953, was the team’s number one catcher from 1952 to 1959. White was a credible hitter, averaging .264 during his eight full seasons with the […]

The Boston Unions were one of the few ballclubs to complete the entire 1884 season of the Union Association in its sole year as a major league. The Union Athletic Exhibition Company (UAEC) owned the ballclub, which was admitted to the Union Association on March 17, 1884.1 The UAEC was formed a week later, on […]