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Few players in the history of major-league baseball have displayed each of the prized “five tools,” meaning the ability to hit for average and for power, to run, to field, and to throw. On that short list belongs the name of Ellis Burks, who began his major-league career as a 22-year-old rookie for the Boston […]
Gene Crumling always envisioned himself as a baseball player. “He dropped the ‘b’ from his name when he started playing professional baseball because he said it looked better in print. Our folks didn’t mind,” said his brother Bill.1 Crumbling turned into Crumling in 1941 when Gene kicked off his 12-year professional-baseball career, spent primarily in […]
In 1972 Hank Morgenweck achieved a long-held dream—a full-time umpiring job in the major leagues. Four seasons later, in bitter and disputed circumstances, he lost it. An experienced minor-league ump with a National League playoff game on his résumé, Morgenweck was named to the American League’s umpiring staff in spring 1972. But his contract was […]
“Sammy Byrd, the Yankee reserve outfielder, is a good golfer, but he has not had a real chance to show how good a ball player he is.” — Boston Globe, December 17, 1934 Sammy Byrd could have been a starting outfielder on any other team, but on the great New York Yankees teams from […]
Wiley Piatt burst onto the major-league scene in 1898 with the Philadelphia Phillies. With just one year of minor-league ball on his resume, he tossed over 600 innings the next two seasons and won 47 games while orchestrating 64 complete games. None of those heroics earned him a lasting nickname. That had to wait until […]
Fritz Buelow exhibited many positives. A “hard working and conscientious backstop”1 with a strong arm, he was popular with teammates and kept them on their toes as a prankster. “His humorous quips and quick repartee irked umpires,” but made him a fan favorite.2 He was a student of the game and was used frequently as […]
A smallish spitballer, right-hander Jimmy Dygert joined the Philadelphia Athletics in September 1905. Two years later, his career season almost enabled Philadelphia to overtake Detroit in the heated 1907 American League pennant race. From there, Dygert’s wildness undercut his prospects. When the Athletics claimed their first world championship in 1910, Dygert was an afterthought, his […]
“Blackstone is more worthy of permanent emulation than Mathewson, et al.”1 — Chattanooga Daily Times discussing Howell’s decision to leave baseball for law, December 12, 1915 A Louisiana State University Hall of Famer (although not for baseball), transported directly from the college campus to the major leagues; a three-game pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals […]
William Barney McCosky, a Pennsylvania native who grew up in Detroit, was a talented and speedy all-around center fielder who broke into the major leagues with a bang in 1939, hitting .311 for the Detroit Tigers. Barney, who stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 185 pounds in his prime, threw right and batted left, and he did […]
With the possible exception of Sandy Koufax, no Dodger pitcher ever threw harder than Rex Barney. Throughout the late 1940s, Barney’s fastball was the talk of baseball. In 1947, at the age of twenty-two, he struck out Joe DiMaggio with the bases loaded in a World Series game. On a rainy night at the Polo […]
Right-hander Scott Bankhead pitched for 10 years in the majors, half of them for the Seattle Mariners and the other half for the Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and New York Yankees. Not long after his final season in 1995, he founded the North Carolina Baseball Academy, which has provided a fulfilling […]
National League umpire Cy Rigler was a model of restraint in confrontations involving disputed calls, earning a reputation as the “least thin-skinned” of his contemporaries. The genial arbiter chose the role of peacemaker, refraining from profanity and seldom ejecting a player or manager, and it’s a good thing that he did—Rigler stood nearly 6’0″ and […]
If William Ellsworth Hoy were playing today, he would not be called “Dummy”–not by players nor by fans nor by the media. He’d be “Bill” or “Billy,” perhaps “Will” or “Willie,” maybe even “Ellie.” He wouldn’t be a deaf mute, either. He’d be “aurally and vocally challenged.” But back when Hoy was playing, nicknames were […]
Dave Ricketts was a bespectacled catcher who looked as much like a math teacher as he did a professional athlete. Indeed, he was a schoolteacher for several years and nearly gave up baseball to teach full-time. The statistics on the back of his baseball cards may give the impression that Ricketts had little impact on […]
He was perhaps named after one of the German emperors named Friedrich Wilhelm, or after German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Frederick William Muller was born on December 21, 1907, a son of German immigrants George and Mary Muller. George Muller worked as a laborer in a varnish factory at the time of the 1920 US […]
There aren’t many in baseball who have had the thrill of catching the ball, thus making the final play that seals their team winning a world championship. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Four of the 1990 World Series, Cincinnati Reds first baseman Todd Benzinger took his position and hoped the Reds […]
Some music is so well known that you can listen to it in a dark room and immediately associate it with an event. The tooting of a calliope immediately brings to mind the circus or a merry-go-round. “The Wedding March” lets passersby outside a church know that some guy’s bachelorhood just bit the dust. And […]
One thing about Eddie Joost — he learned how to work a walk. A lifetime .239 hitter over the course of 17 major-league seasons, Joost drew more than 1,000 bases on balls—enough to give him a very good on-base percentage of .361. He hit safely 1,339 times, but reached base via the walk or hit-by-pitch […]
Darren Oliver grew up in a baseball family and pitched all or parts of 20 major-league seasons (1993-2004, 2006-2013). Although the lefty saw action for nine different major league teams, he made his biggest mark with the Texas Rangers, the club that drafted him out of high school. During his three stints with Texas, Oliver […]
This game started at 4:20 on a crisp fall afternoon.1 It ended 5 hours and 22 minutes later on a dramatic home run by Benny Agbayani into the “picnic area” bleachers in left-center. The capacity crowd of 56,270 had the ballpark moving on its foundation as the popular Hawaiian’s teammates carried him off the field.2 […]
On September 23, 1970, Paul Splittorff,1 a star in Chicago-area American Legion baseball in his teenage years, pitched his first major-league game for the Kansas City Royals against the Chicago White Sox at White Sox Park. It wasn’t a dream debut for the local kid: Splittorff gave up five runs in seven innings and took […]
On the heels of the British navy’s sinking of the German battleship Bismarck and President Franklin Roosevelt’s “unlimited emergency” speech defying the Germans, the Washington Senators inaugurated night baseball on May 28, 1941, on a sweltering evening in the nation’s capital. Senators owner Clark Griffith was following the lead of six other major-league teams and […]
In mid-September of 1894, the New York Giants were 3½ games behind the Baltimore Orioles, leaders of the National League. Despite losing only two of its next 12 games (nine wins and a tie), New York did not gain any ground in the standings. So, with only three games left to play (starting on September […]
“The Dodgers have found the man whose strong right arm may lead ’em out of their pitching wilderness.” – Harold Burr, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 23, 19491 Don Newcombe had an outstanding 1948 season for the Triple-A Montreal Royals, with a record of 17-6, a 3.14 ERA, 16 complete games, and three shutouts in 27 […]