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Apparently young Powel Crosley Jr. had little interest in America’s pastime. Although he grew up in a baseball town, there is no evidence that he ever played the game. His favorite sports were hunting and fishing. His passions were automobiles, airplanes, and yachts. The restless energy, fertile imagination, and adventurous spirit that inspired his multiple […]

Sometime after World War II, Woody Guthrie wrote a song called “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again.” Praising DiMaggio’s baseball exploits, the title could also refer to the fact that when Joltin’ Joe married Marilyn Monroe in 1954, it was his second marriage to a glamorous blonde actress. DiMaggio married Dorothy Arnold of Duluth, Minnesota, on […]

“Moe was just scary. The whole league was afraid of him.” – Terry Ryan, future Minnesota Twins GM and teammate of Moe Hill’s in 19731 “A living legend, the Hank Aaron of Class A ball.” – Rick Wolff, a Midwest League opponent of Hill’s in 19742   If ever a player personified minor-league baseball, it […]

Inspired in part by his older cousin José Uribe, who returned every winter to the Dominican Republic with tales of his life in major-league baseball, Juan Uribe from an early age aspired to play in the big leagues. That dream ultimately became a reality as Uribe crafted a 16-season major-league career that saw him playing […]

Charles Wayne Vaughan was born the third son of Gene and Judy Vaughan of Weslaco, Texas, on October 6, 1947 in the nearby hospital at Mercedes. Married in 1941, Judy gave birth to their first son, Richard, in 1944 and bore a second son, Eddie, in 1946. Gene was successful in sales for Burton Auto […]

There are only seven players in baseball history who have earned both an Olympic gold medal and a World Series ring. One of these men also has a Gold Glove on his mantel — Doug Mientkiewicz. Mientkiewicz, a 12-year major-league baseball veteran. finished with a .271 career batting average. He played for seven different teams […]

Julio “Monchy” de Arcos (1922-1966) was a Cuban executive and scout. He was associated with the major leagues as early as 1941, when the Brooklyn Dodgers trained in Cuba’s capital, La Habana. Thanks to his friendship with Leo Durocher, then Brooklyn’s manager, he was the Dodgers’ interpreter and batboy. In the mid-1940s, de Arcos became […]

Skipper Roberts became the third man born in the state of Idaho to make the big leagues when he appeared in 26 games with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1913. The catcher suited up for 56 Federal League games the following summer with the Pittsburgh Rebels and Chicago Feds before a barroom fistfight finished his […]

One of the stellar college pitchers at the turn of the 20th century, Walter Clarkson of Harvard University played parts of five seasons in major-league baseball from 1904 to 1908, and compiled an ordinary 18-16 lifetime record in 78 games pitched. Clarkson gained lasting notoriety as a symbol of amateur athletics gone awry in college […]

Lou Finney was a tough man to strike out. A fast, feisty left-handed hitter with line-drive power, Finney made contact often enough and was versatile enough in the field to play an important role first for Connie Mack’s Depression-era Philadelphia Athletics and later for Joe Cronin’s World War II-era Boston Red Sox. A scrappy, curly-haired Alabaman […]

Gonzalo Márquez, one of the earlier Venezuelans in the majors, never played a full year in “The Show.” From 1972 through 1974, he got into just 76 regular-season games with Oakland and the Chicago Cubs. Márquez’s primary position was first base, and he was a good fielder — but he lacked power. Across his entire […]

For nearly eighty years, Hub Kittle loved and studied pitching. He first realized that this was his calling when he was eight years old. He could outthrow all the neighborhood kids. “Something clicked there, that I had something the good Lord must have gave me. I don’t know why, I couldn’t outfight ’em and I […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda.   As a franchise, the Chicago White Sox have had a colorful history. With all the organization has endured over the years, some may consider them the most literary of professional baseball teams. Great 20th century writers […]

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 […]

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 […]