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In 1906 rookie right-hander Vive Lindaman’s 12-23 record for the Boston Beaneaters gained him admittance to an undesirable fraternity – the 20-game-loser club. But Lindaman was not without company, as three other hurlers on that hapless Boston team (Irv Young, 16-25; Big Jeff Pfeffer, 13-22; and Gus Dorner, 8-25) posted similarly dismal marks, giving Boston […]

Neil Allen enjoyed three good years as a closer with the New York Mets in the early 1980s. However, over the course of his 11 years in the majors (1979-1989), the righty bounced back and forth between starting and relieving. Yet despite a rocky road professionally and personally, Allen’s native enthusiasm remained intact. That made […]

Few players have been as coveted by professional clubs as Paul Pettit was in the spring of 1949. During that high school season, the hard-throwing left-handed pitcher drew crowds to the small southern California town of Lomita. They echoed the influx to the region after oil was discovered there in the early 1920s. Pettit’s powerful […]

“I have a personality that some people call a flake or crazy or insane,” Larry Andersen acknowledged.1 “But if I thought about nothing except what I’m going to be doing that night when I pitch, I’d be a basket case. Of course, I’ve been accused of being close to that anyway.”2 “How come fat chance […]

Harry O’Neill played in just one major-league baseball game, had no times at bat, and no putouts or assists. Still, he won a measure of immortality as one of only two major leaguers who lost their lives during World War II. He was killed in action on March 6, 1945, during the battle for the […]

Baseball suffered during the depression years of the 1930s and was further affected by the player shortage during World War II. The war ended and veterans returned to a free country with a robust economy. Peace and prosperity meant it was time to fill rosters and take in a game. Joe Mayer was a young […]

This French-Canadian pitcher roamed widely but played just three big-league games in his career. During that one adventurous year, 1946, Roy hopscotched around Cuba, Mexico, Brooklyn — and his birthplace, Montréal. There Jackie Robinson played behind him as Branch Rickey’s “Great Experiment” moved forward. Then came a repercussion from Jorge Pasquel’s flashy raids. Roy jumped […]

Leon Brown’s older brother Curtis was a one-game major-leaguer, appearing with the Montreal Expos in May 1973. Leon, who was also an outfielder, didn’t have a whole lot more time at the top level. He got into 64 games for the New York Mets in 1976. Yet both of the Brown brothers pursued their dream […]

Over a 50-year career in baseball, a man is likely to pick up a few nicknames, and for Jack Onslow this was no exception. He liked to call himself “The Travelling Man,” and the logic to that will become obvious. He also was referred to as “Happy Jack” and “Honest John,” names that could have […]

Thousands of baseball players have been labeled with a nickname. Some depicted the player’s size like “Rabbit” or “Jumbo”. Others were based on where they came from: “The Hoosier Thunderbolt”, “Vinegar Bend”, “Dominican Dandy”. Some became iconic like “The Babe”, “Joltin’ Joe”, “Hammerin’ Hank”. Some nicknames were so obvious that a player could not help […]

He is, perhaps, the most exquisitely talented writer ever to focus sustained attention on the subject of baseball. Yet Roger Angell was never a “baseball writer” in the normal sense of the term. Instead, his work on baseball has been an extension of his keen observation and appreciation of the sport as a fan. Moreover, […]

There’s a saying that if you play a game in the major leagues, you can live on that fame for the rest of your life. To some extent, Regis Leheny may have done just that. He appeared in two major-league ballgames, with the 1932 Boston Red Sox, and played – apparently – but a handful […]

In 1884, Henry Lucas upset the baseball world with the Union Association, a self-proclaimed major league he established to challenge the reserve rules of the times, as well as to get himself the major-league franchise he was unable to secure in one of the existing leagues. His club, the St. Louis Maroons, were easily the […]

Maurice Joseph McDermott, Jr. was a hard-throwing southpaw teenage “can’t miss” prospect who devolved into a journeyman reliever. Slated as the next Lefty Grove, Mickey McDermott played 12 seasons in the big leagues with the Red Sox, Senators, Yankees, Athletics, Tigers, and Cardinals. He spent the first half of his MLB career in Boston where […]

It was early in the evening on March 9, 1934, as the City Light truck made its way down Fourth Avenue South in downtown Seattle. The driver saw a rotund older man step from the curb to cross the street a short distance ahead. The truck slowed to allow him to cross, but when he […]

Red Thisted never saw a professional baseball game until he was 20 years old. He made up for lost time, though. Over the course of four decades, he attended every home game played my Milwaukee’s ballclub, plus all of the away games when not prevented by wartime travel restrictions. From the start of the 1926 […]

Pitcher Joe Slusarski rolled with a lot of punches in his career. The college star won medals with Team USA in the late 1980s and made Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list in 1990. Two years later, arm problems rooted in a freak accident left “Slu” a journeyman. From 1993 through 1999, he spent roughly […]

To many in the game, Ron Negray’s talent portended something better than a 6-6 lifetime record over less than 200 innings in the majors, scattered over four seasons from 1952 through 1958. Front office executives at times questioned his competitiveness. Maybe he was just too nice a guy. Ronald Alvin Negray was born February 26, […]

“A little more experience is all you need.”1 So wrote Brooklyn Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson to Oscar Roettger of the Double-A St. Paul Saints (American Association) before the 1927 season. It didn’t quite happen — Roettger played in five games for Uncle Robbie’s squad and 37 games in the major leagues over four seasons. A substantial minor-league […]

Miguel Batista is regarded as one of the more interesting individuals to don a major-league uniform. Throughout his 18-year pitching career, Batista’s travels took him to 11 different teams, for which he toiled as both a starter and a reliever. A deeply philosophical person, he stood out from the average ballplayer with his unquenchable desire […]

When healthy, Eric Davis possessed a rare combination of power and speed, but he could never stay completely healthy in his career. Injuries and inconsistent performance limited Davis to 113 games in his first two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. But in the next five seasons, 1986 to 1990, Davis hammered 148 homers and swiped […]

Eric Davis was used to overcoming serious injuries. His aggressive, all-out style of play had landed him on the disabled list 11 times in his first 13 years in the big leagues.1 In the 1990 World Series as a member of the Reds, he suffered a life-threatening injury when he dove for a ball and […]

New York Giants manager John McGraw, left, and team owner Charles Stoneham in the early 1920s. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)   INTRODUCTION The New York-San Francisco Giants baseball club is among the most storied franchises in the annals of professional sport. To fans, mention of the club’s name promptly evokes images of Willie […]