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Ron Luciano was a football All-American, baseball umpire, TV broadcaster, and best-selling author. He barged through the world like a gnu amid a herd of Shetland ponies, entertaining many, offending a few, and hiding behind a cheerful and outrageous persona until life somehow proved unbearable. Everyone knew him, but nobody did. He was born June […]

Now forgotten, the name Lester German regularly appeared in sporting pages newsprint for almost 40 years. In the early 1890s German was a young right-handed pitcher whose four consecutive 30-win professional seasons made him a hot prospect. But his major-league career, hampered by illness and arm trouble, proved a disappointment. And his underperformance at times […]

Lou Kretlow displayed outstanding stuff over parts of 10 seasons (1946, 1948-56) with the Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Kansas City Athletics. Yet the right-hander finished with a major league record of just 27-47 and walked an average of six batters per nine innings. Late in Kretlow’s career, his […]

In a 1968 interview, former pitcher Bob Logan said this of his friend and one-time teammate, Frank Sigafoos: “He was a swell guy, one of the best, quiet and unassuming . . . he never bragged about himself and he had great talent.”1 Indeed, Sigafoos had a standout career as a skilled infielder at the […]

When it comes to players who pitched for both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, Vito Valentinetti’s name is seldom mentioned. Yet he took the mound for the Mets from 1962-1982 and for the Yankees from 1967-1986. He was paid $20 a day, working roughly 15 minutes. The retired major-leaguer – 108 […]

The American League’s 1954 Rookie of the Year, Bob Grim was the first New York Yankee pitcher since 1910 to win 20 games in his rookie season.1 In 1955 he developed elbow problems which lingered for the rest of his eight-year major-league career. Although he never duplicated his first year’s success, from 1955 through 1959 […]

In the 2001 Baseball Prospectus annual, this comment was penned for a White Sox prospect: “He’s credited with a strong arm and the athleticism to play center field and has been compared to Larry Walker and Dale Murphy.”1 Joe Borchard didn’t have a career on the level of those greats, but still managed to put […]

Six-foot-three right-hander Oral Hildebrand was a .500 pitcher for the Indians and Browns for eight years (1931-38) before landing with the World Champion Yankees and starting Game Four of the 1939 World Series. Oral Clyde Hildebrand was born on April 13, 1907, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Asked one time about his unique first name, Oral replied, […]

Versatile sandlot alumnus Mike O’Rourke packed a fair amount of action into his nine-game career as a major leaguer. As a pitcher for the 1890 Baltimore Orioles of the American Association, he completed all five of his starting assignments, albeit with only modest results. O’Rourke also served the club as a backup infielder and outfielder, […]

At age 96 in 2020, Tim Thompson was one of the ever-rarer surviving veterans of World War II who played major-league baseball. Thompson also remained together with his wife of 77 years, Lois (two months younger). Their marriage outlasted Tim’s remarkable career in the game as player, manager, coach, and scout. Thompson’s WWII service actually […]

Charles Krehmeyer joined his first professional team in June 1883, signing with the Terre Haute (Indiana) Blues. When he made his major-league debut the following season, he joined a select club that even today numbers fewer than two dozen – catchers who threw left-handed and played more than one game in the majors. With only […]

Russ Snyder inked his first professional baseball contract with the New York Yankees in August 1952, just three months after graduating from high school.1 The next summer he was the top hitter in the minors – compared at the plate, on the bases, and in the outfield to Mickey Mantle,2 possibly a cross-pollination of Ted […]

Infielder Albert Roberge played portions of three seasons with the Boston Braves during the 1940s. He appeared in 177 games and compiled a lifetime .220 batting average. Three years of military service during World War II interrupted his baseball career. After playing a brief period in the majors on his return from the war, Roberge […]

Right-hander “Schoolboy” Waite Hoyt signed an option contract with the New York Giants as a 15-year-old in 1915. The following season he began a 23-year-career in Organized Baseball, including parts of 21 seasons in the big leagues, where he posted a 237-182 record and logged 3,762⅓ innings. Most remembered as a member of the New […]

Like Steve Carlton, who won 27 of his team’s 59 victories in 1972, Theodore Breitenstein was a left-handed ace on a weak team. Breitenstein was credited with 43 percent of the St. Louis Browns’ victories from 1893 to 1896. In 21 seasons of professional baseball from 1891 to 1911, the durable southpaw won more than […]

Although no more than that of a journeyman, the six-year major-league playing career of Bert Niehoff was not without its highlights. In 1915 he combined with future Hall of Fame shortstop Dave Bancroft to form the middle infield of the pennant-winning Philadelphia Phillies. The following year, Niehoff led the National League in doubles and was […]

Hard-throwing right-hander Clay Bryant went 32-20 in parts of six seasons for the Chicago Cubs before chronic elbow and shoulder pain ended his career at the age of 28 in 1940. But for one summer, the affable Alabaman caught lightning in a bottle. En route to winning 19 games and leading the National League in […]

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, few players were as feared with the bat or possessed the brashness of Jack Clark. Twice he powered teams to the World Series. Four times he played in the All-Star Game. His prowess at the plate moved his manager to call him “the greatest fastball hitter of […]

Imagine being able to say you’d seen the big-league debuts of Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Bill Mazeroski1 – not to mention an All-Star Game, a no-hitter, a four-homer game, and a batter hitting for the cycle. Some baseball lovers spend a lifetime hoping to see those kinds of milestones. Bill […]

Early in the morning of September 13, 1948, an Oroville, California, telephone operator told police the phone was off the hook in the Myers Street apartment that was the home of the Oroville Red Sox’ business manager Julian Wera, the former New York Yankees third baseman. Wera’s wife, Ruth, and her nine-year-old daughter, Jerry, had […]

The team that was the last to integrate had been – 26 years earlier – the first to field a native of Mexico in the major leagues. The team was the Boston Red Sox, who took until 1959 to field a Black ballplayer – Pumpsie Green. In 1933, however, when Baldomero Melo “Mel” Almada took […]

The contrast could not have been starker on a Friday night in August 1965. While Claude Osteen of the Los Angeles Dodgers picked the Pittsburgh Pirates apart in a six-hitter at pristine Dodger Stadium, California National Guardsmen were occupying large swaths of South Central Los Angeles, engulfed in flames and violence less than nine miles […]

Manny Mota is frequently considered to be the Montreal Expos’ first player.1 Although Mota was the initial player chosen by the Expos in the National League expansion draft in October 1968, he wasn’t the first player under contract with the fledgling organization. That honor went to pitcher Dave Hartman, who was drafted by Montreal in […]

“I felt the pressure building on a no-hitter,” said Nolan Ryan. “I didn’t really feel it tonight until the ninth inning and then I was nervous.”1 Ever since the hard-throwing right-hander broke into the majors with the New York Mets in 1968 (after a cup of coffee two years earlier), sportswriters and fans thought it […]