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Imagine a sudden official statement that George Washington was not, in fact, elected the first President of the United States. For followers of Puerto Rican baseball, such was the magnitude of the announcement that José “El Gacho” Torres, not Hiram Bithorn, was the first man born on the island to play in baseball’s “major leagues.” […]

A big man with a famous scowl and a name that felt ripped from a James Bond film, Mo Vaughn was a hulking 6-foot-1, 225-pound lefty hitter whose frame dangled over home plate. Baseballs seemed to disintegrate on impact when he exploded out of his crouched stance, extending one arm to the sky on his […]

For generations, many American fathers have raised their sons with dreams of emulating their baseball hero, Mickey Mantle. Chipper Jones’s father was no different. From an early age, his son reminded him of The Mick: a small-town country boy with charming good looks, a Southern drawl, and a preternatural ability to hit a baseball from […]

Over the final six weeks of the 1982 season, right-hander Brian Denman started nine games for the Boston Red Sox. The last of the nine was a six-hit shutout of the New York Yankees. They were the only nine times he appeared in the majors. He’d worked four-plus seasons in the minor leagues before getting […]

(On arriving at Kauffman Stadium for the first time) “As we drive up we see the Crown. There was a little mist and I’m thinking ‘this is an unbelievable sight.’ The lights are on. It doesn’t get any better than that. Then all of a sudden we pull in, we go into the clubhouse, and […]

In his short major-league career, Albert Edward Kaiser played only 155 games and batted only .216. Yet from 1909 through 1914, he was known in the Midwest as an exceptionally fast outfielder, daring baserunner, and somewhat reckless player. In fact the Indianapolis Star, reviewing the 1913 season, said that “his great speed enabled him to […]

The New York Yankees of 1946 had many of the same stars who made them the dominant team of the pre-World War II years, but they finished in third place, seventeen games behind the Boston Red Sox, under three different managers. After the season, Bucky Harris, an experienced and well-traveled skipper, was brought in to […]

Mike Derrick made the major leagues in 1970, the culmination of a dream he had pursued since he was a young boy growing up in the area of Columbia, South Carolina. A first baseman, third baseman, and outfielder in the minor leagues, his first 14 appearances in the big leagues were as a pinch-hitter for […]

Shawon Donnell Dunston was one of the most recognized shortstops in the game for a period in the mid-1980s. Known for his remarkable throwing arm, he played alongside Ryne Sandberg as a double-play combination on some of the best Cubs teams at that time. Injuries limited his playing time and Dunston eventually became a journeyman […]

Author’s note: Many a night, when I should’ve been doing my homework, I spent valuable time “studying” the encyclopedia of baseball. I especially became fascinated with obscure players having brief careers. I didn’t get far into the alphabet before coming across Buzz Arlett; how could someone with seemingly good numbers play only one season in […]

Paul Foytack is most remembered for one game at the end of his career. On July 31, 1963, while pitching for the Los Angeles Angels against Cleveland, Foytack became the first pitcher in major league history to yield home runs to four consecutive batters. That moment characterized two of Paul’s qualities. First was his propensity […]

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 […]

It looked, at first glance, like a mistake. The Associated Press’s obituary for Ron Plaza, which ran in newspapers across the US in April 2012, noted that the Oakland Athletics’ roving minor-league instructor was entering his 61st season in professional baseball, but listed his age as only 77.1 There was no error. The prodigious infielder […]

Imagine you’re standing at the plate. You see the pitch coming toward you and you think that you’re gonna knock the snot out of that sucker. You swing with everything you have and you hit … air. Congratulations! Bruce Sutter just got you with his split-fingered fastball. The split-fingered fastball moves toward the plate as […]

The obstacles a rookie follows to become a major leaguer are daunting. Add to that the pressure of being described as a can’t-miss prospect or the next Joe DiMaggio and that process can be overwhelming. Johnny Groth faced such a situation with the Detroit Tigers in the spring of 1949. He would become and remain […]

Some baseball players evoke a position. Recall catcher Mickey Cochrane. Others define managing: Connie Mack comes to mind. Many broadcast as a color analyst or play-by-play man, like Bob Uecker and Bob Costas. Few have performed all of the above at one time or another as well as the Blue Jays’ John Albert “Buck” Martinez, […]

“He’s a little guy. Thinks he can do anything. Damn near can.” That description of John W. Galbreath came from the longtime manager of his Darby Dan Farm, Olin Gentry. Galbreath built his Kentucky farm into a world-renowned thoroughbred racing stable. He owned the controlling interest in the Pittsburgh Pirates for 35 years and celebrated […]

A star athlete in high school and at the University of Michigan, Elmer Gedeon played a handful of games for the Washington Senators in 1939. He died while flying a bombing mission over France in 1944, less than a week after his 27th birthday. James T. Taaffe, a fellow officer in the U.S. Army Air […]

“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, […]

Andy Coakley is remembered most as “Lou Gehrig’s coach” in his 37 years as head of Columbia University’s baseball program. But this overlooks his extensive influence on the game. Once a promising right-hander with Connie Mack’s Athletics in the early 20th century, Coakley was also a labor pioneer, a forward-thinking league organizer, a team owner, […]

Frank Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits across 18 seasons playing minor-league baseball (1946-63) — but appeared in just one major-league contest. He played a single inning at shortstop for the Yankees in 1953 and never got to bat. Verdi is perhaps most remembered for his 24 years of managing in the minor leagues and independent ball, […]

“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 […]

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 […]

As a kid growing up in Pasco across the river, being able to stand on the mound at Sanders Field was as big for me as going to Yankee Stadium. — Bruce Kison1 Sanders Field, circa 1953 (Photos courtesy of the Eastern Benton County Historical Society)   Sanders-Jacobs Memorial Field, originally known as Sanders Field, […]