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A switch-hitter with speed and the patience to draw walks, Pete Stanicek appeared to be an ideal leadoff hitter when he debuted with the Baltimore Orioles. A succession of injuries limited the second baseman/outfielder to parts of two big league seasons (1987-1988), however, and he played his final professional game at 27. Peter Louis Stanicek […]

The first of three Grillis to play major-league baseball, Guido John Grilli had the briefest career of the three. In 1966 he was 0-1 for the Boston Red Sox and 0-1 for the Kansas City Athletics.    Grilli put in his time in the minor leagues. He was first signed by Red Sox scout George […]

Morrie Rath’s life could have been a Hollywood movie – the type of movie where the lead character keeps getting back up after getting knocked down. And for Rath’s movie, the final scene would have played out on October 1, 1919, during the first game of the infamous 1919 World Series. On the biggest stage […]

Jim Dyck’s major-league career was relatively short and undistinguished. It spanned six years, four of which involved stints in the minors, only one season with more than 400 at-bats and a mediocre .246 average. In his brief stint with the 1954 Indians, Dyck had only two plate appearances. Yet during his career Dyck helped set […]

If God had not created Hustling Dan O’Leary, Damon Runyon would have. O’Leary is not well known today but he was well appreciated by the sportswriters of his time, as he was usually involved in something that would make an amusing story. He danced on the edge of fame and infamy, and even The National […]

Through the 2021 season, 29 of the 30 major-league teams have started a shortstop from the Dominican Republic on Opening Day at least once.1 Fifty-two different Dominican-born shortstops have achieved the feat, including 15 who became All-Stars the same year, four Gold Glove winners, and one MVP.2 Only Rafael Robles of the 1969 San Diego […]

The Toronto Blue Jays’ “former shortstop of the future,” Eddie Zosky, a first-round draft choice, selected 19th overall in 1989, played in 44 major-league games for four teams over five seasons and hit .160.1 His baseball “future” came up very short. Is his story a tragedy in which a collegiate star, named All-American by The […]

Given an opportunity to pitch in the major leagues for a team that was nearly desperate for pitching, Larry Boerner fell short. From 1922 through 1930, the Boston Red Sox had finished in eighth place – last place – every year except 1924, when they finished seventh. In 1931 they finished sixth and one could […]

Bill Rodgers played for three major-league teams in his first year in the leagues, but he only played in four games in his second – and last – year. He played for Cleveland and the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds in 1915, swiftly moving from one team to another, and then appeared in […]

“The first thing you have to have is a catcher. Because if you don’t have a catcher, you’re going to have a lot of passed balls and you’re going to be chasing the ball back to the screen all day.” — Casey Stengel, 19621 “I’ve never played any other position, except the first year when […]

Duke Maas pitched in the American League during seven seasons from 1955 to 1961, most notably with the New York Yankees. He appeared in relief in the 1958 and 1960 World Series. Maas won the game that clinched the 1958 pennant for New York. In 1959 he started 21 games, fashioning a 14-8 won-loss record […]

Branch Rickey was “a man of strange complexities, not to mention downright contradictions,” wrote the New York Times’ John Drebinger. The great decision to break baseball’s policy of excluding blacks, for which he is justly praised, has, in recent decades, tended to overwhelm the highly negative image he had earned before that decision. He went […]

His big brother in college was Martin Luther King Jr. Somehow, it’s appropriate to begin with that fact when discussing Donn Clendenon. During his college years at Morehouse College, one of the most pivotal players in Mets history was mentored by the greatest and most pivotal African American of the 20th century. The big brother […]

Nineteenth-century journeyman Jim Clinton logged 400-plus games in baseball’s three major professional leagues between 1872 and 1886 and, in the midst of that (1877-1881), probably an equal number in various leagues and associations we would now categorize as “minor.” He served with seven different clubs over the course of 10 seasons in the National Association, […]

In Walt Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane was all arms and legs. Andy Boswell was a real-life version of that unique character, but unlike Ichabod, Boswell, whose 6’1” 165 pound frame was unusual for the times, was a talented athlete. Sadly in later life chronic arthritis would rob him of the use of […]

Remembered in Detroit as the pitcher who won both games of a doubleheader to effectively clinch the 1909 pennant, Ed Killian was also one of the stingiest pitchers in baseball history when it came to the home run. In his entire big league career, the left-hander surrendered just nine homers, and he once went nearly […]

On the last day of the 1955 regular season, 18-year-old Roger Marquis played one inning in right field and batted once for the seventh-place Baltimore Orioles. That was his only major league appearance, and he was out of professional baseball altogether by age 21. Roger Julian Marquis was born on April 5, 1937, in Holyoke, […]

Brian Barkley’s career path has taken him from pitching major-league baseball to becoming a practicing pediatrician. When he began in pro ball, there had been the possibility of confusion with another pitcher of a nearly identical name. In the summer of 1995, the Boston Red Sox gave brief duty (2 1/3 innings over three games) […]

Patriarch of a three-generation big-league family, hard-hitting Negro Leaguer Sam Hairston played, coached, and scouted in pro baseball for over half a century. As a scout, Sam brought in at least five men who played for the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared briefly in 1951. Two of Sam’s three sons signed pro contracts […]

“How does it feel to be the smallest player in the majors,” a Houston reporter asked Fred Patek in 1968. “A heck of a lot better than being the tallest player in the minors,” countered the rookie shortstop.1 Patek’s quip matched his quickness on the field and the basepaths for 14 years in the major […]

“What other player is there who bats like [Carl] East, fields like East, throws like East from right field and then can pitch the kind of a game that Carl did yesterday?” — Wichita Beacon, July 6, 19211   Carl East was a pitcher and an outfielder in the minor leagues. Like Babe Ruth, he […]

Using an apparatus they’d devised themselves, industrious J. Wallace Page and his younger cousin, Charles Lamb, began manufacturing woven wire fencing in the 1880s as a low-cost, livestock-friendly alternative to barbed wire.1 By 1894 their business had grown into a thriving enterprise, the Page Woven Wire Fence Company, with 100 employees manufacturing fencing for farms […]

Senator William Stuart Symington of Missouri was a fighter. A second lieutenant during World War I, he eventually became the first secretary of the Air Force, serving fellow Missourian Harry S Truman. After being elected to the Senate in 1952, Symington was a strong opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, took on the Pentagon over wasteful […]