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“They might be right,” Dan Evans thought to himself when he saw the cover of the April 6, 1987, issue of Sports Illustrated, with its subhead that proclaimed, “Believe It! Cleveland Is the Best Team in the American League.”1 After all, the then 27-year-old Evans knew the team he served as director of baseball operations, […]

On the back cover of his album The Nylon Curtain, released in September 1982, singer-songwriter Billy Joel is pictured enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette while reading the newspaper. The paper in front of him is easily identifiable as the New York Times, and a baseball-related headline is visible: “Expos Top Punchless Mets.”1 […]

The Detroit Tigers headed to Cleveland for a three-game, two-day set with the Indians in August 1958. The Tigers were holding down fourth place in the American League. The Indians were right behind them in fifth. Both clubs, as well as the whole league, were double-digit games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Nobody was […]

The Orioles’ most one-sided Opening Day victory in Baltimore came in 1973. Aging stars Brooks Robinson and Dave McNally had a lot to do with it, but the brightest star of the day was 23-year-old left fielder Don Baylor. On the day the American League ushered in the designated-hitter era, Baylor — a future outstanding DH — notched […]

Bobby Hofman spent a lifetime in baseball. Over a career roughly divided into three distinct phases, he played major-league baseball for parts of seven seasons, and then managed and coached at various levels, including Oakland, for the next 20. He transitioned from there into a career as a big-league executive until his retirement in 1989 […]

If any player could be called Mr. Brewer it is Robin Yount. He played his entire 20-year major-league career with the Milwaukee Brewers, debuting as an 18-year-old shortstop in 1974, and helped reinvigorate and re-energize a fan base that had been reeling since the Braves abandoned Milwaukee for Atlanta in 1966. Yount led the Brewers […]

Glenn Beckert had a good-but-not-great career for the good-but-not-great Chicago Cubs teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those teams starred a quartet of baseball immortals in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, Ron Santo, and Billy Williams. Steadily and sometimes spectacularly manning the keystone sack and batting second, Beckert made four All-Star teams, received MVP […]

Bob Burda appeared in 388 major-league games, spread widely across seven seasons from 1962 to 1972. Nearly half of those appearances (185) were as a pinch-hitter. He played first base in 106 games and the outfield in 97. He was always surrounded by established stars, which limited his opportunities. Only once, in 1970, did he […]

Flamboyant, visionary, ego — or monomaniacal, tempestuous, alcoholic, and self-destructive — the words approach but do not satisfactorily explain Larry MacPhail. His innovative approach to the game brought about night baseball and baseball on the radio. He was a mover and shaker in the world of Major League baseball until in a fury he catapulted […]

After playing regularly for the Pittsburgh Pirates at second base for three seasons and first base for two, Dots Miller became the quintessential utility man, spending time at every infield position for the Cardinals and Phillies during the last seven years of his 12-year career in the majors. In 1915 Ring Lardner picked Miller as […]

The October 3, 1929, issue of the Sporting News printed a sampling of observations of beat writers from around the Major Leagues with their predictions on who would win the World Series between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Chicago Cubs. Of the 106 writers polled, 53 picked Philadelphia, 42 liked the Cubs, and 11 others […]

“He’s too young to throw a no-hitter!”1 With the words of Cincinnati Redlegs manager Birdie Tebbetts still ringing in his ears, 17-year-old southpaw Dave Skaugstad took the mound on September 29, 1957 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Appearing in his second major-league game, he relieved 20-year-old rookie Jay Hook, who’d held the National League pennant-winning Milwaukee […]

If the designation “starting pitcher” was ever applicable, it is a description that fits the career of right-hander Gar Finnvold. He pitched in 113 professional baseball games and every single one of them – both in the minor leagues and in the majors – was as a starter. The tall 6-foot-5, 195-pound righty hails from […]

Everyone knows about John Smoltz’s dominance as both a starter and as a reliever. Same with Dennis Eckersley. Little do people know they were hardly the first people to be widely praised at both spots in the pitching staff. Though he started his career as a highly touted starting-pitcher prospect, Jim Slaton eventually moved to […]

The 1945 Washington Senators1 intrigued war-weary baseball fans with an improbable pennant run. The team’s success stemmed largely from a unique pitching staff, dominated by four knuckleballers. The top performer was Roger Wolff, a journeyman right-hander who led the team with a career-high 20 wins. The second of ten children born to Leo and Eleanor […]

Tall, lithe-limbed and broad-shouldered, the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Wally Pipp carried himself with an unmistakable air of confidence and distinction, befitting one of the Deadball Era’s premier sluggers. Whether disembarking from a train, haggling with management over bonus money, scooping up grounders around first base, or swatting home runs, Pipp “was a high-class specimen of the […]

Gary Waslewski woke in his Peabody, Massachusetts apartment on the morning of October 11, 1967 as the starting pitcher in Game Six of the World Series. “I was reading the papers that morning, and one guy wrote that Gary Waslewski has as much chance of winning as Custer had of beating the Indians,” Waslewski said. […]

At the end of the 2019 baseball season, 25 former major-league baseball players who had seen military service in World War II survived. One of them was Massachusetts native George Edward Yankowski, who served in the United States Army and saw combat with General George S. Patton’s Third Army. At age 96, this ex-catcher said […]

As he had done many times in recent years, Jimmie Foxx chose to spend the afternoon of July 21, 1967, with his younger brother, Sam. The two men lived close by one another in Miami, and often got together to reminisce about the elder Foxx’s legendary baseball career, in which he slugged 534 home runs, […]

The story of Don Black is a tragic one. A pitcher with a strong, live arm, he pitched two no-hitters in the minor leagues and one in the majors. He had many chances to make the most of his ability and succeed in his baseball career, but Don Black was an alcoholic. And like many […]

Thrust into a starting role with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a teenager, Aramis Ramírez blossomed after a 2003 trade to the Chicago Cubs, providing the franchise’s best long-term play at third base since Ron Santo. As of 2021, his 386 career home runs, hit over 18 seasons with three National League Central Division teams, lead […]

Milwaukee Brewers scout Felix Delgado “found [Ed Romero playing in the mountains of Puerto Rico two years ago.” Romero was 17 at the time. “After one workout, the Brewers signed … Romero, along with four others.”1 Edgardo Ralph (Rivera) Romero, born on December 9, 1957, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, was indeed signed at 17, in […]

Few Major League players were traded as often as pitcher Louis Norman “Bobo” Newsom. The name Bobo came about because Newsom never could or would remember anybody’s name, so he called everyone Bobo and thus earned that nickname for himself. Barrel-chested, standing six-foot-three and weighing more than 200 pounds, the colorful right-hander was talkative and […]

The Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Monday, July 21, 2014, with 23 members and guests in attendance. Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. There was discussion, and universal agreement, on the suggestion by Kris Lokemoen to establish an annual chapter award to honor […]