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O’Neal Pullen built his reputation in Texas’ largest Black baseball league. During the 1920s, he starred in the California Winter League, playing with some of the iconic Black athletes of that era. He was also a member of the first Black club that played in Japan, and he managed other barnstorming teams that toured parts […]

O’Neal Pullen built his reputation in Texas’ largest Black baseball league. During the 1920s, he starred in the California Winter League, playing with some of the iconic Black athletes of that era. He was also a member of the first Black club that played in Japan, and he managed other barnstorming teams that toured parts […]

Johnnie Dawson’s life was bookended by unknowns. His early life was full of uncertainties and the end of his life passed without mention. Even his date of birth is up for debate. Most sources agree that Dawson was born on November 8, but the year varies from 1914 to 1915 to 1916. The birth year […]

There is nothing more exhilarating or more intoxicating in baseball than the seventh game of a best-of-seven championship series. It is an unforgiving arena where history is written of both the heroes who carry the day and their vanquished opponents. Winning pitchers in a game seven instantly become legends not only to their own team’s […]

It looked, at first glance, like a mistake. The Associated Press’s obituary for Ron Plaza, which ran in newspapers across the US in April 2012, noted that the Oakland Athletics’ roving minor-league instructor was entering his 61st season in professional baseball, but listed his age as only 77.1 There was no error. The prodigious infielder […]

Kid Elberfeld, called “the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most rantankerous [sic], most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes” for his vicious arguments on the diamond, patterned his combative style after that of his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles of the mid-1890s. He believed, like those Oriole players, that an umpire should be kept […]

Dave Baldwin didn’t talk to the baseball or scream at the hitters. Offering no self-styled Mark Fidrych or Al Hrabosky theatrics on the mound, the relief pitcher was a quiet guy to the point of being shy, almost unnoticeable. Yet in 176 games over six seasons with the Washington Senators, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White […]

Eddie “Eppie” Miller, was, by the fielding metrics of his time, the finest fielding shortstop in the National League. He was seven times an All-Star during a career of 14 years.1 His contemporary, Marty Marion, stated that Miller was the best shortstop he ever saw.2 Eddie was always outspoken, managing to talk his way off […]

Dell Darling was a strong, tough catcher during the 1880s when few ballplayers used gloves or meager ones at best. One of the many to rise from the fertile amateur fields of Pennsylvania, Darling had a brief stay with the Buffalo Bisons at age 21 before landing a regular job in the majors with Cap […]

John Park Henry, nicknamed “Bull,” was a catcher for the Washington Nationals from 1910–1917. The team was often called the Senators prior to, during, and after Henry’s career. Henry was recognized for his excellent fielding, throwing arm, and ability to call a game, eventually becoming Walter Johnson’s preferred catcher. The weakest part of Henry’s game […]

José Antonio Zardón Sánchez played just 54 games in the majors during a single season, 1945. However, his career also took him to Venezuela and Mexico, in addition to 11 years in the US minor leagues (1944-54) and five seasons of winter ball in his homeland. The outfielder was known most for his speed and […]

Bobby Malkmus was a small, light-hitting, versatile middle infielder who made his major-league debut for the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 during their frantic midseason search for a second baseman. Poor hitting (2-for 22) and the club’s acquisition of All-Star Red Schoendienst marked the end of the Malkmus experiment after less than four weeks. Malkmus returned […]

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 […]

A smooth-fielding, hard-hitting first baseman, Kitty Bransfield helped form the nucleus of the juggernaut Pittsburgh Pirates that dominated the National League from 1901 to 1903. Yet in the great tradition of baseball superstitions, his departure from Pittsburgh after a dismal 1904 season left such a void that the club’s decades-long quest for another adequate first […]

The cramped wooden ballpark had few admirers. Inconveniently located in the far northern reaches of Manhattan, it had been hastily erected in spring 1903 and was constantly in need of refurbishment. The team that it housed was a fitting occupant, a second-fiddle mediocrity that never won a pennant and only rarely contended for one. Unloved […]

It was nailbiting time in Cincinnati when the Reds met the Pittsburgh Pirates for the second game of a three-game set at Crosley Field. The Reds unexpectedly found themselves in one of the most contested pennant races in history and appeared headed to an unprecedented three-way with the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. Just […]

New York Giants manager Bill Rigney had a simple message for rookie Bill White, who had been called up from the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers hours earlier. “I’ll play you if your glove arrives,” Rigney told him as the 8 P.M. start time approached.1 White learned of his promotion on a midnight phone call to his […]

The headline writer for the front page of a daily newspaper is challenged to provide the reader with glimpses of tragedy and joy, victory and defeat, worry and elation, all appropriately befitting the day’s news. When Pittsburgh awoke on the morning of July 26, 1956, the headline spread across the front page of the Pittsburgh […]

Tommy Brown first gained notoriety as a 16-year-old for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944. His unique opportunity to reach the big leagues at such a young age came about because most of baseball’s regular players were serving in the military during World War II. He would be a part-time player during his entire nine-year major-league […]

This game’s win was secured by Ted Williams’s first game-winning home run off a future Hall of Famer. On May 30, the 20-year-old rookie right fielder had hit a first-inning homer off Red Ruffing — his first off a Yankees pitcher and first off a future Hall of Famer — but it had been Jimmie […]

Losers of seven straight and 14 of their last 15 games, the Houston Astros were desperate to get off the merry-go-round as April 1969 drew to a close. Looking up at the rest of the National League West Division from last place, what they got over the next five days was a round trip for […]

“But Carl Erskine, the way he has been going for the last few months, has certainly been as reliable a pitcher as you would want.”1 – Pee Wee Reese, September 1953   As the 1953 regular season was concluding, the National League pennant-winning Brooklyn Dodgers were about to become part of a conversation. Was this […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates surged into the National League’s crowded pennant race in August 1965 but faced stiffer resistance once the calendar flipped to September: twin aces Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale in a doubleheader with the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers at Forbes Field. In the twin bill’s opener, Koufax broke his own post-1900 NL season […]

His fastball has long since died. He still has a few curveballs which he throws at us routinely. — Nicholas Burns, United States State Department Spokesman   Most baseball fans tend to take their idle ballpark pastimes far too seriously. On momentary reflection, even a diehard rooter would have to admit that big–league baseball’s most […]