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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 […]

Seven times before 1953, Ted Williams had hit home runs on August 19. The one he hit this Wednesday afternoon at Boston’s Fenway Park was his 327th career home run. He had previously hit homers number 18, 49, 78, 79, 80, 117, and 319 on August 19. This home run provided the run that won […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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) […]

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 […]