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There are countless stories about how baseball players broke into the game. Some made spectacular first impressions while others left no impression at all. The year was 1918 and 20-year-old Rube Lutzke was badgering manager Mike Kelley of the St. Paul Saints of the American Association for a chance to show his talent. Finally, on […]

Jack Phillips spent almost a decade on Major League rosters and never got into more than seventy games in a season. But that less-than-stellar playing career was followed by an all-star second act: twenty-four seasons as a baseball coach and athletic administrator at his alma mater, Clarkson University. Jack Dorn Phillips, the second son of […]

Neb Stewart loved baseball. The Greensboro Daily News remarked on April 15, 1941, that Stewart “runs around centerfield like he owns the place.” On his Hall of Fame questionnaire his response to whether he would play ball if he had the chance again was “harder than before.” After a farming accident cost him one and […]

A southpaw off a Missouri farm, Oscar Fuhr pitched big-league ball for parts of two seasons and all of a third in the majors, 1921 with the Chicago Cubs and 1924-25 with the Boston Red Sox. The Cubs finished seventh and his Red Sox teams finished seventh and eighth. Fuhr was 0-0 with Chicago and […]

Like a host of others, the name of John T. Powers was likely as familiar to baseball fans of a century ago as it is unknown to followers of the game today. Throughout the Deadball Era, Powers promoted baseball as a sportswriter, publicist, and organizer of amateur, semipro, and professional nines. His primary contribution to […]

Left-hander Herb Thormahlen won 29 games in the major leagues and 159 in the minors, pitching from 1916 through 1933. (Baseball databases list Thormahlen as Hank, but in the several thousand news stories scoured in the preparation of this biography, never once was he described as Hank.) He hailed from Jersey City, New Jersey, born […]

A late-season addition by the Detroit Tigers in 1905, right-hander George Disch posted a 2.64 ERA in eight games. Initial reports were positive, and a bright future was predicted. However, he could not crack a Tiger rotation of George Mullin, Ed Killian, Bill Donovan, and Frank Kitson (116 complete games in 137 starts in 1905) […]

William Ambrose Hulbert was president of the Chicago White Stockings, founder of the National League, and its second president. He was a big man, standing more than six feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds. An energetic and honest businessman and an enthusiastic civic booster, he often proclaimed that he would prefer to be a […]

In Jeff Plympton’s major-league pitching career, he never gave up a run – earned or unearned. Reading a statement such as that, one might correctly guess that his time at the top level was brief. He pitched in 279 games as a professional, but only four in the majors, for the 1991 Boston Red Sox. […]

In 1896, the Des Moines Prohibitionists were dismantled in the middle of a season while cruising to the Western Association pennant after having won 25 straight games.1 Their utter domination had drained fan support in competing cities, prompting league officials to slash salaries in a failed attempt to keep the league afloat. The ace of […]

In the Roaring Twenties a new breed of coed sprouted on college campuses across the nation. She smoked, drank, and danced the night away at fraternity parties. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and was a gleeful participant in panty raids. She was giddy, was often called a flapper, and could be persuaded to engage […]

Although he became a star for the most famous team in baseball, for whom he helped win three pennants and a World Series, Jim Bouton’s most lasting contribution to the sport would come a few years later, after he lost his fastball and returned to the major leagues as a struggling knuckleballer for an expansion […]

Floyd Rayford’s soft hands and even softer belly, combined with his underrated athleticism and good nature, made him an Orioles’ fan favorite in the 1980s. With the skills to play six positions — primarily third base and catcher — during his professional career, and what one manager called the “perfect temperament for baseball,” Rayford spent […]

One might think Ed Kenna was a genteel soul who overachieved in his baseball life by appearing in two games with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902. After all, the “poet pitcher” was a well-educated son of a US senator who authored two volumes of verse.1 Yet for years after his Philadelphia stint, Kenna starred in […]

Looking back more than a century, the high regard in which contemporaries held pitcher Al Maul is somewhat puzzling. The stats that he compiled during his 15-season major league tenure are far from eye-catching, and his record is dotted with extended periods of inactivity. Characteristically, his career highlights – a National League ERA crown in […]

Tom Ferrick was a baseball lifer. The right-hander won Game Three of the 1950 World Series, pitching in relief for the Yankees, a high point of a playing career in the majors that spanned 12 years. He served three years in the Navy in World War II and pitched for five teams from 1941 to […]

Cuban entrepreneur Roberto “Bobby” Maduro was a singular baseball man. When he passed away in 1986, the news made the front page of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish newspaper of Miami, where he and so many of his countrymen made their home after Fidel Castro took power. In that story, Fausto Miranda (the dean of […]

Before it came to a premature halt, the career of 1870s pitcher-turned-outfielder George Bechtel was not without distinction. Bechtel was a member of major league baseball’s first championship team, the 1871 Philadelphia Athletics of the National Association. Four seasons later, he and teammate Bill Craver became the first players to have their contracts transferred by […]

In spring 1912, the assets that accompanied 20-year-old middle infielder Bill Stumpf onto the roster of the New York Highlanders included defensive versatility, a strong and accurate throwing arm, and the promise exhibited the previous year during his professional debut campaign with a mid-tier minor league club. One spring later, a powerless bat, an erratic […]

Pitcher Brian Kingman compiled an 8-20 record with the 1980 Oakland Athletics. Prior to 1980, instances of pitchers losing 20 games in a season occurred with great regularity. After Kingman’s 20-loss season, however, his place in baseball lore was cemented for 23 long years until it finally happened again. The stinging effects of Kingman’s 20-loss […]

Dee Gordon slipped as he accelerated out of the batter’s box. The speedy Miami Marlins’ second baseman had just laid down a bunt in an effort to spark a late-game rally. His team trailed the Atlanta Braves, 2-1, in the eighth inning on Opening Day of the 2015 major-league season. Gordon, slowed by the slip, […]

The 1945 season was the height of the Deadball Era in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).1 After a flurry of early-season no-hitters, the women’s circuit moved the pitching rubber two feet farther away from home plate in the middle of July,2 but the change had a limited effect on offense. The final league […]

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Black Sox Scandal Committee’s April 2010 newsletter. Quietly nestled among the renowned sports names charged in the Black Sox Scandal is that of an obscure figure, one Rachael Brown.1 Based on surviving evidence, it appears that Brown was indicted by the Cook County grand jury almost entirely […]

“You Called That a What . . . ?”The Newsletter of the Official Scoring Committee Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) June 2018, Volume 3, Number 2 Past newsletters   Editor: Stew Thornley Committee Meeting at Convention to Feature Real Live Official Scorers New Minor League Rule Raising Questions (and Answers) Conundrum of the Month […]