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In a city fueled by flash, Wes Parker was anything but. A child of southern California privilege, Parker grew up in Brentwood with a private school education, material needs met, and natural athletic ability in several sports besides baseball. Money, though it bestowed abundant opportunity, did not generate airs, snobbery, or a feeling of entitlement […]

Art Shires arrived on the major league scene in 1928 with much fanfare, almost all of it of his own making.  The Italy, Texas native nicknamed himself “Art The Great,” once boasted that, next to Babe Ruth, he was the biggest drawing card in the American League, and frequently stopped passersby on the sidewalk to […]

When Tom Brokaw wrote about the “greatest generation,” he might have easily selected the life of Sid Hudson as one of its shining examples. Although he was never a baseball great, Hudson’s work in the sport spanned seven decades, stretching from the humble beginnings of Depression-era sandlot ball to the multibillion-dollar game of the present […]

“The integrity of the game is the umpires. Nobody else. The entire integrity of the game is the umpires.” — Doug Harvey1   It was the late 1980s. The Cincinnati Reds had replaced the Big Red Machine with the Nasty Boys, and the Nastiest of the Nasty Boys was Rob Dibble. In the beginning of […]

In the one (and only) year that Bill Wakefield pitched in the major leagues, 1964, he set a Mets team record for game appearances that would stand up for 13 more years, and packed into a single season a full-length career’s worth of excitement and highlights, ending with a nail-biting season-ending game that decided the […]

The manager of the Hotel del Comercio in Caracas, Venezuela, summoned George Genovese for a phone call from the San Francisco Giants in November 1963. It sent Genovese’s hopes soaring. “Maybe I’m their new manager,” he said to his wife, June. When the call was completed, Genovese was crestfallen. His career as a manager was […]

Dale Alexander, the hard-hitting first baseman who was Boston’s first American League batting champion, began and ended his playing career in his hometown of Greeneville, Tennessee. David Dale Alexander was born and raised on a 117-acre farm in Greene County on April 26, 1903. He had four brothers and four sisters. His two sons, Don […]

Negro league fans called him “the black Lou Gehrig,” putting Buck Leonard in pretty lofty company. It didn’t hurt Buck that he followed Josh Gibson, “the black Babe Ruth,” in the Homestead Grays’ lineup. Was Buck Leonard the equal of Gehrig as a first baseman and hitter? He probably was a better first baseman than the […]

There exists a long list of forgotten nineteenth-century baseball stars who played during the game’s formative stages and under relative anonymity besides being a name in a newspaper. While the game was fundamentally the same, it was evolving in an era that saw many rule changes and ballparks with vastly varying dimensions. There were no […]

There have been countless cosmetic changes in how baseball has been played during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but the tools and rules of the game — and of the professional sport — have not been radically altered. A spectator from 1901 would recognize the game in 2021. The revolutionary advances occurred in the 19th […]

Like a lot of young players who first came to professional baseball in the very early 1940s, catcher Len Okrie may have wondered if he’d ever truly have the opportunity to play, given the Second World War. He came from a baseball family. His father, Frank Okrie, was a left-handed pitcher who appeared in 21 […]

Perhaps Joe Simpson was destined to play and describe a game of pitch and catch and hit. For one thing, the holiday baby was born December 31, 1951, at a time when baseball was the only game in town. Imagining the pastime, hearing it on radio, or watching on television, no one needed slow motion, […]

Harvey Smith was born on July 14, 1871, in Union Deposit, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth Fetterhoff Smith and Dr. John K. Smith, who had been born in Union Deposit 27 years earlier and worked as a physician there until 1873 when he relocated with his family in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he remained in practice […]

There have been more than 200 father-son combos in the majors as of 2018. One lesser-known pair is the Jacquez men of Stockton, California. Between them, Thomas “Hawk” Jacquez and his father Pat pitched in just 11 big-league ballgames. Pat, a righty power pitcher, appeared twice in relief for the 1971 Chicago White Sox. Thomas, […]

“There are those who can, and there are those who will,” an old saying goes. James Paul David “Jim” Bunning was clearly one of the latter. He willed himself to become a great pitcher and then a successful politician through hard work and determination. Though he struggled for almost six seasons in the minor leagues, […]

He began his baseball life as the mascot of his college team, but the diminutive Ed Burns grew into a World Series catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. On October 31, 18871, in San Francisco, Edward Aloysius Burns and his wife Louisa (née Schaufele) welcomed their only child. Edward James Burns. into the world. The elder Edward […]

To both his 19th century playing counterparts and today’s baseball historians, the name Jim Devlin resonates of scandal. The star pitcher for the Louisville Grays, Devlin – along with three teammates – was expelled from baseball for game-fixing during the 1877 National League pennant chase. For decades thereafter they served as the principals of a […]

Steve Busby, who shined briefly but brightly on the Kansas City Royals’ pitching staff in the mid-1970s,1 is best remembered for his two no-hitters – one in his 10th major-league start in April 1973, the other in his second full season in June 1974. His 1973 no-no was the first in Royals history.2 Even before […]

On July 14 the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Houston Astros for a Sunday doubleheader between two teams going nowhere fast. The day before, Cincinnati lost to the San Francisco Giants, 8-1, to fall to 42-42, good for fifth place and a 12½-game deficit behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals. The Astros fell to the Cards […]

During the 1900 season, pitcher Rube Waddell compiled a 10-3 record and a 1.95 ERA for the Milwaukee Brewers, managed by Connie Mack. “He was sensational,” Mack said. “He had everything, ability and color.”1 The zany southpaw was immensely difficult to manage, but his talent and showmanship were worth the effort in Mack’s estimation. Waddell […]

The first professional baseball game played in Manhattan took place on September 29, 1880, between the Metropolitan Club of New York and the National Club of Washington. This late a date is remarkable. Organized baseball had arisen among New York clubs a quarter century previous, and openly professional baseball had been played for over a […]

Editor’s note: During our Stay Home With SABR initiative, enjoy these light-hearted Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau by Joanne Hulbert of SABR’s Boston Chapter to stay engaged with baseball until the games return. Check out what’s new and keep up with all the news in the Boston Chapter on Facebook at BostonSABR or on Instagram […]

On April 16, 1915, an overflow crowd jammed newly constructed Harrison Park to witness a historic event: the home opener of the Newark Peppers of the Federal League, the first major-league club based in New Jersey in more than 40 years. And, sadly to Garden Staters, the last. When the renegade circuit disbanded the following […]