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Growing up in downstate Illinois, between Chicago and St. Louis, a midcentury youth was blessed by time and place. By radio, born in 1920, and television’s relatively new wonderwork, baseball could be followed through the art of play-by-play. If you grasped the pastime’s rhythm, the Voices often became as arresting as being at the park. […]
May 11, 1964, was a good day for pitchers to be born to the majors. On that day, Red Sox hurler Jeff Sellers, 16-year veteran Bobby Witt and Expos staffer Floyd Youmans were all delivered into the world. It was the world at the height of the Cold War. Nuclear tests being performed in Nevada […]
Throughout his career, Ray Coleman was beloved by nearly every manager, coach, and sportswriter for his ability to “put a lot of spirit into his game . . . [displaying] much of that ‘Gashouse Gang’ baseball.”1 After coming up as an outfielder with the St. Louis Browns in 1947, Coleman was traded to the Philadelphia […]
Harry Walker was born to baseball and spent his life in the game. The son of one major leaguer and the brother of another, he was an All-Star outfielder, the lightning-rod manager of three teams, and a controversial hitting guru. Harry and Dixie Walker are the only brothers to win batting titles. When Harry came […]
Scott Cooper was born the day after the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in Game Seven of the 1967 World Series. In 1986 he was drafted by the Red Sox and was a two-time All-Star for them. Prior to the 1995 season he was traded to the Cardinals where he played for […]
After a rough rookie season with the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1933, Jack Knott emerged as a rubber-armed swingman-reliever. He appeared in more games over a four-year stretch (1934-1937) than any other AL hurler, and later transitioned into a once-a-week-type starter for the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Athletics. Like those of many players […]
“Coming into a game in the eighth or ninth inning is like parachuting behind enemy lines. And sometimes the chutes don’t open. You have to live with that. It’s an unexplained hazard.” – Dan Quisenberry1 The role of a relief pitcher, and more specifically, a closer, is one of the hardest tasks in baseball. […]
Right-hander Edwin Correa spent parts of three seasons (1985-1987) as a starting pitcher with the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers before suffering a career-ending shoulder injury. Only 19 when he earned his first victory, he was the majors’ youngest player for all but one of his big league appearances.1 Although he pitched some Friday […]
He was born Harry I. Dalton on August 23, 1928, in West Springfield, Massachusetts, the same hometown as Leo Durocher. He graduated as an English major from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Historically, Amherst faced Williams in the world’s first intercollegiate baseball game in 1859. He had been accepted to the Columbia University School of […]
Marc Sullivan started 35 games in 1986 as backup to All-Star catcher Rich Gedman. He made the squad in spring training because of his defensive skills, but many critical Red Sox fans and beat writers would not overlook his offensive shortcomings. He hit only .193, with 23 hits in 119 at-bats, and seemed to be […]
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 […]
He won 247 games in his 23 seasons in the major leagues, plus dozens more in the minors and as a semipro in a pitching career that spanned more than 30 years. Yet we do not know for certain when or where he was born, the national origin of his forebears, or even his birth […]
Former major league player and scout Lenny Yochim once said in a New Orleans Times-Picayune interview, “I had a good life doing something I love.”1 From his teenage days in the Crescent City in the 1940s until his retirement in 2002, Yochim spent practically every summer participating in some aspect of the sport to which […]
“I realized that this was a short-lived career, and I did something to prepare myself for what was to come later. I never spent a winter without doing something constructive. I never played winter ball. I went to school or I took courses in advertising, radio and TV production. I even took books on the […]
Describing his philosophy of building pitching staffs, Sparky Anderson once remarked, “To get the real top-flight pitchers, you have to strip yourself of so much talent that if you make such a deal, you find you don’t have enough left to win. So you try to obtain a pitcher who has pitched well against your […]
No one chooses to become a professional widow, and Eleanor Gehrig derived little satisfaction in being called one. Yet few ballplayers’ wives maintained a level of such prominence so long after their husband’s death as they had when he was alive. Mrs. Lou Gehrig was married less than eight years; she was a widow for […]
This article appears in SABR’s “Baseball’s Biggest Blowout Games” (2020), edited by Bill Nowlin. There are a number of blowout games in the Negro Leagues. Alan Cohen drew my attention to one such blowout. He wrote: “On May 31, 1943, the Homestead Grays defeated the Baltimore Elite Giants 17-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington, […]
Ken Griffey Jr. slides in with the winning run for the Seattle Mariners on Edgar Martinez’s 11th-inning double to beat the New York Yankees 6-5 in Game Five of the American League Division Series on October 8, 1995. The excitement of the Mariners’ first playoff appearance helped fuel a political effort to build a new […]
St. Louis Cardinals great Bob Gibson hurled a high fastball from the Busch Stadium mound at 8 P.M. on July 17, 1974. César Geronimo, the Cincinnati Reds’ lithe centerfielder, swung and missed, making him the 3,000th strikeout victim in Gibson’s Hall of Fame career. Only the Washington Senators’ Walter Johnson had ever fanned that many […]
George Foster experienced American League baseball for the first time in his 18-year career on August 15, 1986, a little over a week after his tumultuous relationship with the New York Mets ended after controversial remarks.1 With 347 career home runs, the 1977 National League Most Valuable Player joined a youthful Chicago White Sox roster […]
Norm Bass got a surprise when he arrived at Municipal Stadium in Kansas City before an early-season game in 1961. Ray Herbert had been scheduled to start for Kansas City that night against the Minnesota Twins, but Athletics manager Joe Gordon told Bass he would be on the mound. Gordon wanted to spring the starting […]
Returning from a road trip on which they won 8 of 11 games, the Dodgers still trailed the league-leading Philadelphia Phillies by 6½ games. Back at Ebbets Field, they hoped to continue their solid playing and gain some ground on Philadelphia. If they could beat the Boston Braves, their first opponent, they could put some […]
When the Montreal Expos and the Los Angeles Dodgers headed to Stade Olympique to play the second game of a four-game series on June 9, 1978, they were going in seemingly opposite directions. Skipper Dick Williams, in his second year at the Expos’ helm, had his club playing its best ball of the year. They […]
On July 18, 1923, the Philadelphia Phillies rallied in the bottom of the ninth inning to win a see-saw battle with the Chicago Cubs at the Baker Bowl. The win pulled the Phillies out of last place, but had little impact on the fortunes of either team that season. Philadelphia sank back into the National […]