Search Results

With the dog days of August 1904 having descended on St. Louis and the Browns well back in the American League standings, manager Jimmy McAleer was looking for something to maintain fan interest in his club. To that end, he placed two local favorites from the semipro St. Louis Trolley League on the Browns roster: […]

Tom Baird was present at the beginning of the Negro National League in 1920 and stayed nearly to the conclusion of the Negro Leagues themselves in 1956. His long tenure was spent solely with the Kansas City Monarchs, the dominant and longest-running franchise in the history of the Negro Leagues. He was the longest-serving club […]

Before Curt Schilling and the bloody sock in 2004, one player who personified toughness in a Boston Red Sox uniform was Butch Hobson. Hobson’s legacy is that of a power-hitting third baseman who brought a football mentality to the diamond in the way he played through pain and gave every ounce of effort on the […]

From 1900 through 2003, 952 players appeared in only a single major league game. Of these, 86 were starting pitchers and Dick Bass, at age 33, was the oldest. His career is of special interest because he managed two minor league teams, coached a team to the World’s Amateur Championship, and was a manager in […]

Described as “an idealist, a dreamer, and a lover of solitude and nature,” Harry Pulliam was an eccentric dresser (one reporter wrote that “all the colors of the rainbow were utilized by him in the color scheme of his fancy waistcoats”) and fabled storyteller who put all around him at ease, rising to high places […]

Nicknamed “Moose” because of his 6-foot-5, 215-pound stature, Mike Marshall spent the bulk of his 11-year (1981-1991) major-league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Batting and throwing right-handed, he was primarily a right fielder, but with a number of games at first base and in left as well. During his nine seasons with the Dodgers, […]

Tom Monaghan has accomplished a great many things in his yet-unfinished life. The billionaire entrepreneur? Certainly. Successful businessman? Sure. Collector? Formerly, but not in any defining sense. Conservative Catholic leader? Definitely. Visionary? Maybe. Twenty-first century evangelist and savior of Western civilization? Possibly, if you talk to him. However you label the owner of the Detroit […]

“When he pitched, he looked like a spider doing aerobics,” one witness said.1 Lanky right-hander Pascual Pérez entertained fans and infuriated opponents with his spontaneous, emotional style over all or parts of 11 seasons (1980-1985, 1987-1991) with the Pirates, Braves, Expos and Yankees. Perhaps best known for getting lost on the way to his home […]

Doug Jones grew up listening to the roar of the 650-horsepower engines and watching as the drivers raced their cars around the dusty dirt tracks of the Indiana sprint-car circuit. Jones’s father was a part-time racer, and young Doug hoped to follow in his father’s tire tracks some day. When the elder Jones thought his […]

When Willie Montanez walked to the plate from the on-deck circle he would flip his bat end over end like a baton. When he swung and missed he had a high, circular finish reminiscent of a matador twirling his sword at a charging bull. At first base, he would sometimes tap runners on the rear […]

Lookin Up It lasted so long it went so fast it seems like yesterday it seems like never — “A Career,” from Days Like This, by Dan Quisenberry1   Sigh. There never was, and maybe there never will be, a major-league pitcher quite like Dan Quisenberry. He literally and figuratively came out of nowhere. Because […]

Since the earliest days of professional baseball, the sport has offered aspiring players not only a chance to fulfill a dream, but also a shot to escape to a better life than what they could imagine in their small towns and urban centers across the country. Perhaps that’s what teenage Al Gerheauser thought. A high-school […]

George Kaiserling was born to a German immigrant couple, Frederick and Johanna (Becker) Kaiserling, on May 12, 1893, in Steubenville, Ohio. He was the sixth born of eight, six sons and two daughters. His father worked as a millhand in the basic steelmaking industry and his mother was a homemaker.1   There is only data […]

Right-handed pitcher Bill Evans had a very brief major-league career, with a total of one decision (sadly, for him, a loss) in the 13 games he pitched over two seasons of big-league baseball. He worked in four games in 1949 for the White Sox, and in nine games in 1951 for the Red Sox. He […]

“Flynn is one of the best natural hitters who ever lived, but booze kept him in the bushes.”1 Don Flinn, the 1915 and 1916 batting champion in the Georgia-Alabama League, was the less famous pitcher-turned-position player on the league’s pennant-winning 1916 Newnan (Georgia) Cowetas. Flinn skyrocketed from the Class D loop to the majors over […]

When Shufflin’ Phil Douglas arrived on the baseball scene in 1910 at the tender age of 20, he brought with him size and a fastball impressive enough to draw comparisons to Walter Johnson’s. Douglas, a product of Cedartown, Georgia, was a big man, especially for that era, standing 6-feet-3 and weighing 190 pounds, who threw […]

Hitting mammoth home runs and striking out ten hitters a game look great in highlights or on the back of a baseball card, but those who excel at these feats are few and far between. The soul of the game is the baseball lifer. Lifers count their number of spring trainings in decades, not just […]

Art Shires arrived on the major league scene in 1928 with much fanfare, almost all of it of his own making.  The Italy, Texas native nicknamed himself “Art The Great,” once boasted that, next to Babe Ruth, he was the biggest drawing card in the American League, and frequently stopped passersby on the sidewalk to […]

For two years, 5-foot, 9-inch Bob Saverine teamed with 6-foot, 7-inch Frank Howard on the Washington Senators. But, that’s not all. The talented pair, along with several other Senators players, formed a basketball team.1 Prior to the 1968 season, newly named manager Jim Lemon watched as they played an exhibition game and defeated a team […]

Fans often remember the ends of seasons more readily than the beginnings. What is often associated with the beginnings of the 1975 season for the Cincinnati Reds is that on Saturday, May 17, 1975, the Reds stood at 19-19 and in second place 5½ games behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers and just a half-game […]

It’s been a long and weary waitSince back in 1888,When we last copped the bunting.So having such a rosy chanceThe fans are prone to look askanceAt pessimistic grunting.So if their hopes don’t fructifyAnd from our pole no pennants fly’Twill be, indeed, a pity.But if the boys should make the gradeWe’ll honor them with a paradeAnd […]

On their way to an abysmal 23-112-2 (.169) last-place finish in the 1890 National League pennant chase, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys auditioned no fewer than 20 different starting pitchers. On June 19 player-manager Guy Hecker handed the ball to new arrival Billy Gumbert, a 24-year-old righty just recruited from the local amateur league ranks. The prospect […]

Ed Delahanty, one of baseball’s most feared sluggers and most tragic figures of the 1890s and 1900s, appeared in what turned out to be his final game on June 25, 1903, seven days before his death in the Niagara River at age 35. It was fitting that Delahanty’s last game was in Cleveland, his hometown, […]