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Bert Blyleven’s career statistics speak for themselves: 287 victories, 4,970 innings pitched, 3,701 strikeouts, and 60 shutouts accumulated over the course of 22 seasons in the big leagues (1970-1990, 1992). However, some sportswriters questioned whether the Dutch-born right-hander, whose curveball was regarded as the era’s finest, was Hall of Fame material when he retired. In […]

Joe Sommer was a Kentuckian through and through: born in Covington, raised in Covington, retired to Covington, and buried near Covington. In order to play professional baseball he left the Bluegrass State temporarily to ply his trade in large cities, such as Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Cleveland, and in smaller cities like New Haven, Rochester, and […]

Hawaii has been sending more and more men to the majors in recent years. Through the end of the 2021 season, 48 men born in the Aloha State had made it to The Show; 25 of them arrived from 2000 onward. Yet only one player out of the whole group, which dates back to 1914, […]

Good things come to those who wait. Patience is a virtue. Those aphorisms were more than just empty clichés to right-hander Orie Arntzen, who debuted as a 33-year-old for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1943. Nicknamed “Old Folks” for obvious reasons, Arntzen won only four of 17 decisions for one of the worst teams of the […]

If the 2009 movie The Blind Side, for which Sandra Bullock received a Best Actress Academy Award, had been released about five years earlier, it might have been called the football version of Dewon Brazelton’s story. The true saga of offensive lineman Michael Oher bears many similarities to Brazelton’s life experiences: Both are African Americans […]

Jake Stenzel compiled a lofty .339 lifetime batting average in nine major league seasons, and hit over .350 for five consecutive years, but has received little recognition for his accomplishments. His entire major league career was confined to the 1890s when there were so many outstanding hitters that even in his peak seasons he could […]

Burgess Urquhart Whitehead was a solid contributor to the success of the Gas House Gang in 1934, appearing in 100 games while spelling Leo Durocher at shortstop, Pepper Martin at third base, and Frankie Frisch at second. In his first full year in the big leagues, Whitehead had 332 official at-bats and hit a solid […]

In averaging 27 homers a year from 1964 through 1968 to become one of the more feared power hitters on the San Francisco Giants, Jim Ray Hart first had to learn how to avoid getting clobbered at the plate. In his second game as a major leaguer, on July 7, 1963, Hart’s shoulder blade was […]

Bill Hutchison was among the last of a breed. Over a three-year stretch, from 1890 to 1892, the ironman right-hander averaged 40 wins, 595 innings, 63 complete games, and 65 starts per season. He led the NL in every one of those statistical categories each season during a time when the pitching distance to home […]

After college Bill Essick had to choose between life as a musician and one in baseball.  He chose baseball and left his native Illinois to begin his minor-league pitching career in Salt Lake City.  After a brief promotion to the major leagues and roughly a dozen years as a successful minor-league manager, Essick joined the […]

On July 27, 1955, the players and staff of the Cleveland Indians presented a brand-new $3,000 Oldsmobile to coach Red Kress for his untiring work with the team. The Indians’ third baseman, Al Rosen. summed it up by saying that the team wanted to do something for Red to pay him back for all he […]

Johnny Couch, a proud Montana native, was a fan favorite of the San Francisco Seals following World War I. He reinvented himself multiple times during a 15-year professional pitching career (1914-29). Known as a “gentleman scholar” in baseball circles because of his studies at Stanford University, he entered law enforcement after his playing career, retiring […]

Born into poverty, raised by a single mother, and dead of cholera at age 33, Harry McCormick led a short but eventful life. Some of his accomplishments will endure in baseball lore forever. Baseball historian Lloyd Johnson wrote, “Rarely would a star shine so brightly and burn out so quickly.”1 Patrick Henry McCormick was born […]

“I certainly had no idea of ever being a pitcher. I had never pitched as a kid,” said 13-year big-league veteran Big Jim Hearn, who won 109 games for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Phillies from 1947 through 1959.1 A college basketball player, Hearn was signed by the Cardinals as a […]

With almost a century having passed since the end of his fitful professional career, right-handed pitcher Hi Jasper is an elusive subject, a hard man to pin down. But two Jasper characteristics are unmistakable. He had ability — such astute talent evaluators as Jimmy Callahan, Frank Chance, and Pants Rowland recognized his merits. Yet Jasper’s […]

Entering the 1958 season, only two major-league teams – the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox – had never employed a Black player. Controversy in each city guaranteed that the first player across the line would play under extra attention and pressure. The Tigers acted first, introducing their first Black player in June.1 The […]

The visiting Baltimore Orioles had taken three of the first four games of the unusual five-game series from the host Milwaukee Brewers. The 26,705 fans attending this Sunday doubleheader had already witnessed their home team lose 7-4, although they did see a piece of baseball history: Oriole Tommy Davis whacked his 2,000th hit.1 Milwaukee had […]

In 1964 Connie Mack Stadium was described as a “sprawling network of steel and concrete, hemmed in by a drab, dreary, fraying residential district”1 Nevertheless, 26,381 spectators jammed into the stadium on a Saturday afternoon for Knothole Day, a promotion where free tickets were given to kids 14 and under (the paid attendance was only […]

John Caruso’s short-lived professional career was not packed with highlights, but he knew how to pick his spots. The third baseman played a single season in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ organization in 1971, as a member of the Niagara Falls (New York) Pirates of the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. In 54 games and 142 […]

The Twins-Senators game on June 18, 1968, had many ebbs and flows and featured almost every play you could imagine. Minnesota starter Jim Merritt had a no-hitter for 5⅔ innings, and then bullpen implosions by both teams led to four lead changes in the last two innings. Among the 26 hits in the game were […]

Jason Bay of the Pittsburgh Pirates had eight RBIs in a game twice in his career and both within a year of each other: September 19, 2003, and July 2, 2004. Bay may not have realized it, but he just missed the all-time Pirates single-game record of nine in a game set by Johnny Rizzo […]

“I haven’t been swinging the bat real good,” admitted former home-run champ Ben Oglivie after breaking out of a 1-for-17 slump and just one homer in his last 41 at-bats by whacking three round-trippers. “I’ve been getting a lot of changeups. I give a lot of credit to my teammates for helping me make some […]

In late July of the 1973 season, Royals third baseman Paul Schaal suffered an ankle injury that sidelined him for 19 games.1 Utility infielder Kurt Bevacqua filled in at the hot corner during Schaal’s absence. Searching for a replacement, the Royals placed a call to their Triple-A team in Omaha, Nebraska. Around noon on August […]