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Right-handed pitcher George Shelby Smith enjoyed a very good year in the minors in 1925, going 17-5 for the Toronto Maple Leafs . His most outstanding achievement in baseball, he said years later, occurred that year. He hit an inside-the-park home run in the eighth inning of the May 30 game against Rochester, the only […]

Josefa Antonia Nepomucena Pascuala Estrada’s grandson played for six major-league teams from 1907 through 1917. Her son Manuel Adolfo Wolter was a stable keeper in Monterey, California. He married Lucretia “Lucy” Little and the two had seven children – Charles, Mary Mamie, Lucy Eleanor, Manuel, Milton John, Grace, and Harry. Their youngest, Harry Meiggs Wolter, […]

0-10, 10.32. That is the major-league career line for one William T. Stecher of Riverside, New Jersey. If you look it up, the record book tells you that Stecher holds the records for the “most career games by a pitcher who lost all his games (0-10) and the most career innings pitched by a pitcher […]

James Joseph Cooney from Cranston, Rhode Island, played in three seasons for two teams in the National League. He was with the Chicago Colts during 1890, 1891, and the first part of 1892; he then joined the Washington Senators for the remainder of 1892. Cooney played shortstop in the majors but was originally a catcher […]

A Marist College star, starting shortstop candidate for the 1914 Philadelphia Phillies, and 1919 Atlanta Crackers swatting savior, future Army lieutenant Milt Reed was a fellow Peach State Ty Cobb look-alike from the 1910s. Milton D. Reed Jr. was born on July 4, 1890, in Atlanta to Milton Reed Sr., a railroad depot clerk and […]

The Chicago White Sox’ historic 2005 season can be told in many ways, but few shared it as personally as one of the teams radio voices, Ed Farmer. Born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Farmer – affectionately known as “Farmio” – grew up watching and rooting for the […]

Selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the second round of the 1983 MLB amateur draft, Bob Milacki garnered little attention with a pedestrian record of 16-21, 3.79 in his first 290 innings in the minor leagues. “I’d been in the organization [three] years and never impressed anybody,” the right-hander later acknowledged.1 In 1988, as the […]

George Grosart had a short and tragic baseball career. He played seven games with the Boston Beaneaters in 1901 before joining the Dayton Old Soldiers in the Western Association. He went to spring training with Toledo in 1902 even though he was suffering from typhoid fever, and died on April 18, 1902, just a week […]

Lefty Sullivan had everything a pitcher could want: a blazing fastball, a knee-buckling curve, a disappearing spitball, and pinpoint control. The one thing he couldn’t do was field. Because he felt dizzy every time he picked up a bunt – a lifelong heart condition cut off the flow of oxygen to his brain when he […]

Each one of the three years he played as a big-league infielder, Homer Ezzell hit better than the year before, but even the 1926 Red Sox didn’t feel they had a position for him.  He had a great name: Homer Estell Ezzell. It was bestowed on him, of course, by his parents, George and Leila, […]

A.J. Bushong was better known as Doc or Bush in baseball circles. The Bush nickname is self-explanatory. The doctor reference denotes his degree in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained the degree early in his major-league career but only dabbled at the profession until his baseball career ended nearly a decade later. As […]

Red Barrett made a solid contribution to the 1948 Braves pitching staff, as both a spot starter and reliever. He appeared in 34 games with a 7-8 record and an impressive ERA of 3.65 (although he did not qualify for the ERA title), besting both ace hurler Warren Spahn’s earned run average of 3.73 and […]

Equally at home rounding the bases or rounding up cattle, Dave Philley played major-league baseball with the same no-nonsense efficiency he successfully utilized in operating his 557-acre ranch and managing his other business enterprises. David Earl Philley was born on May 16, 1920, in Garret’s Bluff, a suburb of Paris, Texas, in the northeastern part […]

George Kihm learned to play ball on the diamonds of the Ohio Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Columbus. The school sent more than a handful of men into professional baseball. By looking at Kihm it was hard to see any physical imperfections. He was gentlemanly, good looking and tall with […]

Jerry Standaert was an infielder who hit almost the same in the majors (.318 lifetime) and minors (.320 lifetime); while he enjoyed a good long career in minor-league ball, he had little opportunity to play in the big leagues. Third base was his preferred position in the minors, with over 90% of his games played […]

To paraphrase one nineteenth-century baseball scholar, Charlie Buffinton, while perhaps not a truly great pitcher, was unquestionably a very good one.1 Possessed of poise, baseball intelligence, and a knee-bending 12-to-6 overhand curve (then called a drop), Buffinton racked up 233 wins in his 11-season major-league career.2 He also appeared in over 200 more games as […]

For decades, professional baseball players surnamed Weaver were routinely dubbed Buck by the sporting press. The game’s two most prominent Buck Weavers – the Black Sox third baseman and the late-19th-century outfielder also called Farmer Weaver – are already the subject of excellent BioProject portraits. The following is a biography of a lesser-known Buck Weaver, […]

It might have been the coal mines or baseball. Dee Miles had the talent and probably made the right choice. His father, Gustavus Miles, was a coal miner from Alabama who worked a couple of decades in the mines, becoming a mine foreman by 1920. He and his wife, Idella, a Tennessean by birth, had […]

“You look out and you’re in a big-league park, you’re on a big-league field, you’re going to pitch. It’s a hundred emotions going through you.” – Abe Alvarez, on his major-league debut with the 2004 Boston Red Sox1 Abe Alvarez pitched four games in the major leagues, including his debut for the 2004 Boston Red […]

It took a special type of athlete to play for Chicago American Giants manger Rube Foster. He liked to engage in small ball and built his teams around speed and bunting. He wanted only smart competitors on his team. Foster was known to say, “If you haven’t got intelligence enough to fit into this play, […]

Overview The origins of the Negro League All-Star Game date from 1933 when sportswriters Roy Sparrow of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and Bill Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier championed the idea. Not coincidentally, their brainchild surfaced around the same time as the inaugural major-league All-Star game, which was to be held at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in […]

Willie Mays became just the fourth major leaguer to hit at least three home runs twice in one season. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   One week after a legendary four-homer performance,1 the Say Hey Kid stood on the steps of Connie Mack Stadium, looking out at a cool, foggy May 6 night. He patiently […]

Blowout games take on many different forms. There are blowouts when one team consistently bludgeons the other into submission by scoring early and consistently adding on to the score over the course of the game. Two in the first, three in the second, and so on. And, then there are blowouts that are the result […]

Search online for a definition of the word incongruous and among several provided on the Merriam-Webster website is “inconsistent within itself.” Well, that’s perfectly clear. In other words, something that just seems out of place. Now, consider this: In one of baseball’s most iconic photographs, a batter, a catcher, and the home-plate umpire, each frozen […]