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After defeating the Indians in game one of their July 29, 1990, doubleheader, the Yankees were ready to face Cleveland in game two. The game had been rescheduled after snow forced the Indians to call off the teams’April 11 game. New York manager Stump Merrill picked five-year veteran Jimmy Jones to send to the mound. […]

The Philadelphia Phillies were in first place by 1½ games when the second-place Chicago Cubs came to town on July 20, 1911. But the Phils were without their most potent hitter, Sherry Magee, suspended for the balance of the season1 by National League President Thomas J. Lynch after flattening umpire Bill Finneran in a disagreement […]

Invented by Harvard College baseball nine captain Fred Thayer, the first catcher’s mask was a brass and leather contraption first worn by Crimson catcher Jim Tyng in the early spring of 1877.1 By mid-April, both Boston’s Wright Brothers store (owned in part by Red Stockings manager Harry Wright and his brother George) and Chicago’s A.G. […]

Through mid-May of 1962, Sandy Koufax owned a modest 4-2 record, not having dented the win column since the previous month. But after an 18-win 1961 season while striking out 269 batters in 255 2/3 innings, Koufax sported “the best strikeout average of any pitcher who ever lived.”1 A 4-1 April with three complete games […]

It was June 28, 1969. The San Diego Padres were about halfway through their inaugural season in the major leagues. With his pitching staff wrecked by injuries and retirements, Padres manager Preston Gomez opted to give a 23-year-old rookie, who missed spring training because he really wanted to be a dentist, a start against a […]

Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Gavvy Cravath and pitcher Tom Seaton enjoyed their finest seasons in 1913. Cravath led the National League in hits, home runs (19), and slugging percentage, while setting a league record for runs batted in (128) that was not surpassed until 1922. He placed second in batting average at .341 (behind only Jake […]

After a tragic spring training that saw the deaths of Steve Olin and Tim Crews in a boating accident, the Indians opened the 1993 baseball season at home with the Yankees. The opener on April 5 attracted 73,290 fans who witnessed a Yankee victory. Cleveland earned the win on April 7 to set up the […]

When Boston’s 1918 World Series championship season was over, Babe Ruth asked for more money through his new agent, Johnny Igoe, demanding a two-year contract at $15,000 a year. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, in economic survival mode, responded with an emphatic no. Negotiations included Frazee’s offer of $8,500 after Igoe insisted on a three-year […]

On Friday, October 8, on a beautiful afternoon in front of a Milwaukee County Stadium crowd of 50,135, for the second time in six days, Don Sutton took the mound for the Brewers in Game Three of the American League Championship Series. With the Brewers down two games to none to the California Angels and […]

A breakdown of Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski’s 452 career home runs makes for interesting reading. The former Red Sox captain hit 237 homers at Fenway Park and 215 on the road. He hit 65 four-baggers against the Tigers, more than any against other team. He hit 266 homers before the All-Star break, 91 in […]

The Cincinnati Reds edged the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0, as “Al Unser opened the exits for the 6,324 cash customers with a run producing single”2 in the bottom of the 13th inning of a night contest at Crosley Field. St. Louis brought its 29-23 record, good enough for third place in the […]

September 11, 1942: While World War II had not reached the United States mainland, fear and trepidation were spreading throughout America as more sons and fathers – mothers and daughters – left to join the military. Already growing weary of the daily updates about the war, on this September morning America woke up to headlines […]

A season was drawing to a close. In Baltimore, an era was also drawing to a close as the Orioles prepared to play their final game at Memorial Stadium. It was the only home the Orioles had known since they moved to Baltimore in 1954. For many fans, it was bittersweet to see the ballpark, […]

Want an example of a roaring crowd? Look no further than the afternoon of October 3, 2014, when the Baltimore Orioles rallied past the Detroit Tigers, 7-6. It was a day on which former Tiger Delmon Young continued his postseason magic to help the Orioles, who were back in the playoffs after a one-year hiatus […]

A season after dropping its first All-Star Game since 1971, the National League returned to its winning ways by beating the American League, 3-1, in the 1984 midsummer classic at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, in a game featuring record-breaking strikeout pitching. Eighty-one-year-old Carl Hubbell, ace of the Giants in their New York incarnation who fanned […]

Baseball is thankfully free of artificial boundaries of time which confine other sports. This freedom helps to shape the unique magical charm that is an evening at the ballpark. Fans never know whether it will be a two-hour squeaker or whether they may be enchanted until past sunrise by the first-ever wild 12-hour 46-inning slugfest. […]

In 1974, the Oakland Athletics signed track star Herb Washington as a “designated runner,” despite his having had very little baseball experience. Keeping on the roster a player whose only purpose was to run was a new idea, but there have been many other real baseball players whose main purpose it was to pinch-run. The […]

The 1906 season opened for the Boston Beaneaters in Brooklyn on April 12. Making his major-league debut that day with Boston was outfielder Johnny Bates, a compact left-handed swinger (5-feet-7 inches and around 170 pounds). Batting fifth in the lineup, Bates strode to the plate to face Harry McIntire in the second inning. The 22-year-old […]

Pitcher Ernie Bonham was known as “Tiny” — though he was anything but — and was one of the few masters of the forkball, the slower ancestor of the split-fingered fastball. Ernest Edward Bonham was born on August 16, 1913, in Ione, California. He called his hometown “one of those ghost towns from the gold […]

Left-handed pitcher Spike Merena had a rather brief baseball career – four games in the big leagues and 77 games in all. His major-league career began with the Boston Red Sox on September 16, 1934, and ended exactly two weeks later, on the last day of the month. John Joseph Merena had grown up in […]

Bud Beasley Elementary School in Sparks, Nevada, opened in the fall of 1995. It was named for Arvel Lewis “Bud” Beasley, who served northern Nevada for more than 60 years as a schoolteacher and athletic coach. From 1944-54 he was also a minor-league pitcher, a colorful left-hander who delighted fans with his antics. Southpaws have […]

On July 13, 1953, officials from the Cotton States League and its eight teams were enjoying cocktails and dinner at the Willow Room in Hot Springs, Arkansas, prior to the annual all-star game scheduled for that evening. The festive occasion was interrupted when a United States marshal arrived to serve papers in a $50,000 civil […]