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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

Over the course of a 14-year major-league baseball career that ran from 1981 through 1994, Tom Brunansky played in exactly 1,800 big-league games. Most of them he played in right field, but he played all three outfield positions, some at first base, and some as a designated hitter. He was a member of the World […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

John Young carried an impressive 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame during his baseball playing days. Even more impressive than his physical stature on the field, however, was the stature he later gained as a baseball ambassador for the underprivileged. In founding the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program, Young left an indelible mark on the game that […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

Variously referred to as “The Bryan boy,” “Bryanite,” “Bryan’s contribution to the major leagues,” “Bryan baseball star,” and “Bryan’s gift to the diamond,” John Hudson’s life and family centered around baseball…and Bryan, Texas. He was born in Bryan on June 30, 1912, and lived there his entire life. He remained there during baseball off-seasons and […]

Few one-game major leaguers led a baseball life as rich as pitcher Ernie Lindemann’s. From 1903 through 1915, he was a dominant force in the New York City area’s thriving semipro scene. He routinely faced, and often succeeded against, major-league teams and elite African-American independents. Indeed, Lindemann’s sole major-league appearance, with the Boston Doves in […]

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 […]

Walter Anton (“Wally”) Berger, whose hitting for power and average and steady center field play sparkled for 1930s Boston Braves clubs that had few other bright spots, set rookie home run and runs batted in standards that stood for decades. Until it was broken twice in the 2010s decade, Berger and Frank Robinson (1956) shared […]

Through one lens, John Upham’s baseball career was brief and injury-riddled. Through another, he was a super athlete who excelled in three sports in school and was a rare talent who could hit, run, field, and pitch at the major-league level. He came to the plate 13 times over 21 games and batted .308 for […]

In 1951 The Sporting News encapsulated the career of Frank Hiller stating, “This is the human story of the man who stands outside looking in … with desperation, pathos, perseverance as its theme … [Once] one of the ‘anointed,’ a hand-picked [New York] Yankee prospect from the start … And then, as the Fates snipped […]

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 […]

John Michael “Red” Corriden, the first-base coach for the 1947 New York Yankees, was a baseball lifer. From 1908 until he retired from baseball after the 1958 season, a span of fifty-one years, Corriden served as a player, coach, manager, and scout. The 1947 season was Corriden’s first as a Yankees coach. He was brought […]