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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 […]
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 […]
The 1949 season was nearing the end of August. The Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox both had 122 games in the books, entering play on August 27. The American League standings showed Chicago in sixth place (51-71), 15 games behind the fourth-place Philadelphia Athletics and nearly 10 ahead of the seventh-place St. Louis […]
Pitcher Troy Herriage’s big-league career was notable for both its duration and its difficulty. The Kansas City Athletics, who selected Herriage in the Rule 5 minor-league draft in November 1955, were required to either keep him on their roster for the entire 1956 season or return him to his old club.1 They not only kept […]
The 1948 Detroit Tigers finished in fifth place, snapping a string of four consecutive top-two finishes, including a World Series win in 1945. The hopes for a Tigers turnaround in 1949 rested in part on a player who had played in only 12 major-league games in his career, 22-year-old center fielder Johnny Groth. Groth first […]
The Detroit Tigers headed to Cleveland for a three-game, two-day set with the Indians in August 1958. The Tigers were holding down fourth place in the American League. The Indians were right behind them in fifth. Both clubs, as well as the whole league, were double-digit games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Nobody was […]
“Getting the American league franchise formerly held by Philadelphia was a glorious triumph for the Kansas City spirit. … [H]undreds of thousands of supporters are atingle for the opening of the big league era the A’s now bring.” — Kansas City Star, April 11, 19551 Philadelphia had been home to Connie Mack’s Athletics since […]
Opening Day is often celebrated with significant pageantry and optimism for new beginnings. The first day of a new baseball season carries even more meaning for those overcoming substantial hurdles during the journey back to the diamond. When Herb Score walked to Cleveland Stadium’s mound on Opening Day in 1958, he returned to the same […]
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 […]
Gene Crumling always envisioned himself as a baseball player. “He dropped the ‘b’ from his name when he started playing professional baseball because he said it looked better in print. Our folks didn’t mind,” said his brother Bill.1 Crumbling turned into Crumling in 1941 when Gene kicked off his 12-year professional-baseball career, spent primarily in […]
Hot Doggers!Four homers in a row we got,A new league mark, last word in swat.The Yankees never saw the dayOr night when they could slug that way. That was the ditty written by James E. Doyle in the August 1, 1963 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Four Cleveland batters hit consecutive home runs in […]
Fred Merkle had his boner and Steve Bartman his bobbled foul ball. For Candy Maldonado, a momentary lapse and blinding lights contributed to a play less infamous but just as devastating for the unfortunate protagonist. It was October 13, 1987, as Game Six of the National League Championship Series pitted Maldonado’s San Francisco Giants (90-72) […]
Tuesday, October 8, 1929, should have been the peak day of 68-year-old William Wrigley, Jr.’s life. His Chicago Cubs had throttled the rest of the National League, winning the pennant by 10½ games after leading by as many as 14½ in mid-September. The thunder in the lineup, led by prize acquisition Rogers Hornsby’s .380 average […]
Bill Renna was a journeyman outfielder who played in 370 games over six seasons for four American League teams. He batted over .300 for the Yankees, served as a backup for Boston’s Ted Williams, and in 1954 led the league in turning double plays as a right-fielder. His career, Rich Marazzi once wrote, was “a […]
“Baseball had always been in my blood,” said versatile infielder Frankie Gustine, who signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a 16-year-old athletic prodigy in 1936. One of the most popular Pirates of his era, Gustine debuted as a September call-up in 1939 and was named to three consecutive NL All-Star teams (1946-1948) as a second […]
By the time Carl Scheib pitched his final major-league game in 1954, the big righthander from Gratz, Pennsylvania, had risen from the youngest player in American League history in 1943 to a solid performer who won 45 times and fashioned a lifetime 4.88 ERA. During his 11 major league seasons, he played all but two […]
At least 23 major-leaguers have been nicknamed “Deacon” as of 2022, all but two of whom debuted before 1952.1 So, it was not Ray “Deacon” Murray’s sobriquet that made him stand out during a big-league career spanning all or parts of six seasons (1948, 1950-1954) with the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. Instead, […]
Paul Lehner grew up in a coal-mining family and likely was headed for a life in the mines, but a talent for baseball brought him to the big leagues and gave him the opportunity to play for five different teams over the course of seven seasons. He was a left-handed outfielder and occasional first baseman […]
In a brief major-league career, he appeared in only 92 games. Yet Buzzy Wares played an important role in helping the St. Louis Cardinals win seven National League pennants and five World Series championships. Clyde Ellsworth Wares was born on May 23, 1886, the younger of the two children of Rosa Wares and Frank Wares, […]