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Before the 1953 season, pitcher Alva “Bobo” Holloman predicted great things for himself. Acquired by the St. Louis Browns from the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs the previous October, he immediately started a campaign to assure himself a spot as a starter, telling team owner Bill Veeck that he would be his number-one pitcher and asking, “Am […]

Born in Slovakia and an immigrant to the United States a child, Elmer Valo was better known for drawing walks and making contact than hitting for power in his 20-season major-league career. In more than 1,800 games with six different clubs, Valo walked 942 times but hit just 58 home runs, topping out at 10 […]

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, […]

Both starters worked into the ninth inning, and it seemed like a game the Red Sox didn’t want to let get away. Three times they had to take the lead, even in those first nine frames. And then they had to do it once again in the 12th, with one swing from their venerable left […]

As their 1954 season staggered toward its conclusion, the Philadelphia Athletics would host the New York Yankees in the home finale at Connie Mack Stadium. The game, however, was bereft of suspense for either team. For the Yankees, winners of the previous five World Series, their dethroning by the Cleveland Indians was complete. The day […]

New York Yankees infielder Billy Martin celebrated his 29th birthday on May 15, 1957,1 at Manhattan’s Copacabana club. Celebrating with him were teammates Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer, and Johnny Kucks. What happened that night has become a part of baseball lore. Exact details of the alcohol-fueled fight involving the Yankees players […]

Between April 21 and June 19, 1951, the city of Detroit was mired in a transit strike. Downtown businesses suffered. The work stoppage may have been part of the reason only 2,723 fans showed up at Briggs Stadium for the Tigers’ game against the visiting Philadelphia Athletics.1 The A’s came into Detroit to begin a […]

It was time for Ted Williams to unload. He came into the Tuesday night game in Detroit hitless in his last six at-bats. He was facing Jim Bunning, against whom he had been 0-for-7 to this point in 1958. Nine days earlier, Bunning had no-hit the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Williams was 0-for-4 in […]

“You see, it’s like this. You get the guy out a couple of times and the law of averages is bound to catch up with you.”  – White Sox starter Billy Pierce.1   Left-hander Billy Pierce led both leagues with a 1.97 earned-run average in 1955. His 20 wins led the American League two years […]

The 1959 Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant — the franchise’s first in 40 years — with a “small-ball” team that ranked sixth in the eight-team American League in runs scored (669) while allowing the fewest (588). Chicago’s 9-7 Opening Day win over the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium1 on April 10 was […]

The Chicago White Sox exploded, according to sportswriter Robert Markus of the Chicago Tribune, “like so many 4th of July skyrockets” on Wednesday, July 7th, knocking off the Detroit Tigers, 7-0.1 This game signaled the emergence of a new offensive threat, 23-year-old Harold Baines. The third-year player walloped three consecutive home runs, one of which […]

Manager Casey Stengel was back at the helm for the fourth consecutive season as the American League took on the National League in the 1953 All-Star Game at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. Stengel’s Yankees had won their fourth consecutive World Series the prior October, and his star young center fielder, Mickey Mantle, was elected by the […]

On the evening of July 1, 1952, the Chicago White Sox were in a three-way tie for second place with the season almost half over. They did win the last game of a three-game series in Detroit on the 2nd. And after two victories over the St. Louis Browns in a pair of games on […]

It was a “Veeck” of a ballgame for the St. Louis Browns and their 1,115 managers in the stands at Sportsman’s Park on August 24, 1951, in yet another amazing stunt pulled by the Browns’ legendary owner Bill Veeck Jr. Since winning the American League pennant in 1944 and finishing third in 1945, the only […]

His name was John Edward Robinson, and his nickname was Jack. Jack E. Robinson? A Red Sox player? Jack Robinson was a right-handed pitcher from New Jersey, not the Jackie Robinson rejected by the Red Sox at an April 1945 Fenway Park tryout. He appeared in three games in eight days for the Red Sox […]

At five feet seven and 158 pounds, Vic Lombardi was hardly an imposing figure on the mound. But the left-hander had enough talent and guile to pitch in 509 games over a seventeen-year professional career, including six seasons in the majors with two starts in the legendary 1947 World Series. He was also a good […]

A five-year veteran of the Negro Leagues, Ernesto Vibert Clarke was a one-hit wonder who followed the adage If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The phrase may be a cliché, but in Clarke’s case it’s an accurate one.  The native of Panama recorded his first and only hit in the major leagues […]

Elmer William Valo was born in Slovakia but lived the American dream during nearly sixty years in professional baseball. He insisted he was not a “natural athlete,” saying, “Being a baseball player is not a glamorous job, it’s hard work.”1 In twenty years as a major league player, he reached base as often as Joe […]

When asked to make a list of the best hitters of the late 1940s and early 1950s, few would mention left-handed slugger Ferris Fain, but perhaps they should. Fain broke in with the Philadelphia Athletics as a 26-year-old rookie in 1947 and established a reputation as a daring first baseman with a discerning eye at […]

Sid Gordon was a solid ballplayer with the New York Giants, the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. A powerfully built man, he came to play every day no matter whether the manager played him in the outfield or third base or where he inserted him in the lineup. An amiable and well-liked […]

Though a renowned power hitter in 12 seasons in the Pacific Coast League and a bit player in a handful of films at midcentury, Frankie Kelleher’s top billing as a slugger and a star is perhaps dubiously enshrined in a one-night performance he sparked on a hot Los Angeles Sunday afternoon in 1953, a scene […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda.   The Go-Go Sox were born on Opening Day at Comiskey Park in 1951, children of a fast-talking general manager and a slow-talking manager. After the Black Sox were banned, the White Sox recorded only seven winning […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in “A Palace in the Nation’s Capital: Griffith Stadium, Home of the Washington Senators” (SABR, 2021), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. I grew up at Griffith Stadium and have great memories of mammoth home runs by Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize, and Larry Doby, great catches by Mantle and […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Pride of Smoketown: The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords” (2020), edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.   Baseball spring training had a long run in Hot Springs, Arkansas, from 1886, when the Chicago White Stockings came to town, to 1955, when the Detroit Stars prepared there for their season. Within […]