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Cal Ripken Jr. homers on September 6, 1995, during his record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game. (Courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles)   The outcome of this game was of little importance to the fans of two cities separated by less than 200 miles. The New York Yankees’ record was mediocre, a pedestrian 60-61, only slightly better than […]

Gary Carter earned the nickname “Kid” when he first came to spring training with the Montreal Expos at age 19 in 1973.1 He, along with Larry Parrish, Ellis Valentine, André Dawson, and pitcher Steve Rogers, would turn out to be the core players of this franchise in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But Carter, […]

The Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals were two contending teams heading in opposite directions when they met on the cold, raw evening of April 27, 1973. The Detroit Tigers were an aging ballclub that had won the 1968 World Series and made the playoffs in 1972. Starting pitcher Joe Coleman and third baseman […]

In 1892 Colonel Thomas P. Robinson was the 30-year-old owner and manager of Oakland’s entry in the four-team California League. Was he a colonel? Probably not,1 but the press called him “Colonel,” and his team was called the Colonels. The year before, the Oakland Colonels had played home games in Emeryville, about three miles north […]

Like thousands of youth pitchers, Frank Castillo dreamed of winning a game in the major leagues. He was drafted out of Eastwood High School in El Paso, Texas, in the sixth round of the June 1987 amateur draft by the Chicago Cubs and progressed quickly through the minors. After reaching Triple-A Iowa to start the […]

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 […]

Pitching isn’t just about throwing hard. It’s about contrast and ball movement, and Enrique Romo kept hitters off stride and guessing. He had a broad repertoire, featuring a screwball, which he delivered from various arm angles while constantly changing speeds. “He’s the kind of pitcher you don’t want to face even once in a game,” […]

Before committing suicide under mysterious circumstances in the spring of 1907, Chick Stahl forged a reputation as one of the best center fielders in the game over the course of a 10-year major-league career. A lifetime .305 batter, the left-handed Stahl could also hit with power, and often ranked among the league leaders in extra-base […]

Most commonly remembered as the pitching coach-guru who helped develop the dominating staffs for the Oakland A’s championship teams of 1972-1974, Bill Posedel had a career in Organized Baseball spanning six decades, from the late 1920s to the 1970s. He debuted in the big leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938 as a hard-throwing 31-year-old […]

Through the 2019 season, only nine men born in Saskatchewan, Canada, have appeared in a major-league game. The most prominent were pitcher Reggie Cleveland and outfielder Terry Puhl. The first was Ralph Buxton, a right-handed pitcher who made his debut with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1938. The second, pitcher Aldon “Lefty” Wilkie, debuted three years […]

Tommy Moore was drafted as an outfielder but made it to the majors as a pitcher. He appeared with four teams in parts of four seasons from 1972 through 1977, posting a won-lost record of 2-4 and an ERA of 5.40 in 42 games, largely in relief. “He would have been a great candidate for […]

In 2019 Justin Verlander led the major leagues with 223 innings pitched. His workload was less than half of the post-1900 major league record 464 innings by Ed Walsh in 1908. And it was less than one-third of the all-time mark — 680 innings by Will White in 1879. It is hard to imagine a […]

One of the most overlooked and underrated pitchers of the 1930s, southpaw Larry French was a “glutton for work,” according to the Pittsburgh Press.1 Over a seven-year stretch (1930-1936), French relied on a devastating screwball and good control to average 16 wins and 268 innings per season; during that time only Carl Hubbell logged more […]

Overcoming potentially career-ending shoulder injuries in the early 1950s to develop into one of the most feared sluggers of his era, Roy Sievers became just the 18th player to hit 300 home runs. With a powerful and graceful swing that Casey Stengel called “one of the sweetest,” 1 Sievers, known as Mr. Clutch for his […]

Right-handed pitcher Rube Schauer had one of the most rapid ascents to the major leagues in baseball history. In 1912 he was playing for his hometown semi-pro team in rural North Dakota, and by the end of 1913, his first season in professional baseball, he was a member of the pennant-winning New York Giants. His […]

Assumption High School in Windsor, Canada, must have had some pretty good ballplayers in 1956 and 1957. “I never made the baseball team. I was cut in both my junior and senior years,” said Pete Craig. “They had two really good pitchers and didn’t need a third. I could throw hard, but had no control.”1 […]

Called the “King of the Caribbean” by baseball people and “Big Daddy” by players he was scouting, Howie Haak gained acclaim as the scout who threw open all of Latin America to major-league baseball. Living up to yet another nickname, “El Tiburón” — The Shark — Haak built upon the work Joe Cambria had done […]

A left-handed entomologist who forged a career in baseball? Handedness is immaterial in science, but successfully pitching left-handed in baseball is a sought-after skill. Bill Werle had a decent run, winning 29 games over six big-league seasons (two partial) from 1949 through 1954. Werle’s playing career spanned from 1943 to 1963, and he also managed […]

War was raging in Europe as the 1941 baseball season came to a close. News of the fighting kept fans justifiably preoccupied, while the pennant races served as a badly needed diversion. The New York Yankees captured the American League flag, and then defeated the National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. A […]

Infielder Mickey McGuire appeared in a total of 16 games for the Baltimore Orioles in 1962 and 1967. Originally a shortstop, he played nearly an equal number of games at that position, second base and third base in his 15-year professional career. A right-handed contact hitter, he spent his final two seasons in Japan. M.C. […]

“[Joe] Taylor has such a vile reputation that I guess I couldn’t have the remotest interest in him, but he impressed me very much as a player.” – Branch Rickey1 “When Taylor is ‘right’ he is definitely a Major League hitter. He has great reflexes, terrific wrist action and tremendously quick hands. He has as much […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project.   In 1921 Arthur Irwin, at age 63, was in the twilight of a long career in baseball when he was named manager of the Hartford Senators of the Eastern League. He was also a scout for the […]

31 SABR members arrived at the Inn at the Ballpark on April 16, 2012, for a festive and informative monthly session with the Houston/Larry Dierker Chapter. Leading off was David Barron of the Houston Chronicle who had recently toured the Astrodome and reported on the significant deterioration if the facility and future prospects for the […]