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The 2016 season could not have started in a more ominous fashion for the San Diego Padres. They opened at home with a three-game set against the mighty Dodgers, and it did not go well. San Diego was trounced by a combined score of 25-0, making the Padres the first team in baseball history to […]

The starting pitcher for the Yankees was Aaron Small. In the late 1980s, he, Jason Giambi, and future Yankee Cory Lidle pitched together at South Hills High School in West Covina, California. When asked which one was the best, Giambi smiled and said, “I think if you were to ask scouts back then, I think […]

Bill Veeck knew it had been a mistake to hire Rogers Hornsby for a second stint as manager of the St. Louis Browns. In his 1962 autobiography, Veeck – As in Wreck, the owner plainly admitted that he hired Hornsby for the wrong reasons. Despite warnings from friends, business associates – and even his mother […]

The Minnesota Twins couldn’t have been happy to be facing Orioles left-hander Dave McNally in Game Two of the 1969 ALCS after losing Game One of the first-ever American League Championship Series. McNally faced the Twins three times during the 1969 season, including a game in Minnesota in May when he carried a no-hitter into […]

After 2,826 games, 11,564 plate appearances, and nearly 22 years in the major leagues, Al Kaline was heading to his hometown of Baltimore near the end of the 1974 season just one hit shy of a milestone which, at that point, had only been achieved by 11 major leaguers before him. Kaline and his Tigers […]

The Baltimore Orioles returned to the American League in 1954 after the St. Louis Browns franchise was sold and moved after their last-place 1953 season. The Orioles weren’t that much better than the hapless Browns, but managed to escape another cellar finish by the franchise, beating out the Philadelphia Athletics by three games. On June […]

Red Grier wouldn’t have had the chance to pitch one of the most famous games in Negro leagues history in 1926 if he hadn’t hurled so poorly the day before. Grier was the choice to start the second game of the Negro World Series for his Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, the Eastern Colored League champions, […]

During the heyday of the left-handed relief specialist – sometimes called LOOGYs, for “Lefty One-Out Guys” – Tony Fossas thrived. Armed with a slow side-arm curve he called “the frisbee,” the Cuban-born pitcher appeared in 567 games over 12 major-league seasons between 1988 and 1999.1 He worked only 415⅔ innings in that span, and never […]

It was the “longest home run in the history of baseball,” gushed sportswriter Joe Trimble of the New York Daily News, about Mickey Mantle’s titanic blast over the left-field bleachers and out of Griffith Stadium.1 Not ready to dismiss the icon who began the sport’s love affair with the long ball two generations earlier, New […]

There are many long-standing myths about Washington, one of which asserts that the city was originally built on a swamp. The myth perhaps explains the misery inflicted on its residents through unbearable heat and humidity on many midsummer days. In the summer of 1932, there was much to be miserable about and not just the […]

On a pheasant-hunting trip during the offseason, Fergie Jenkins said he would try to win 20 games again. His teammate, Billy Williams, stated that he would try to hit 40 home runs for the first time in his career.1 The 26-year-old Jenkins had won at least 20 games for three consecutive seasons coming into 1970. […]

On May 7, 1901, three men pulled off a brazen heist on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, robbing a jewelry display case owned by Arnstine Bros. & Mier in broad daylight. The Cleveland Plain Dealer declared it the boldest crime in years.1 As two men engaged in conversation to block the view of the display, a […]

The New York Mets entered July 1973 in the National League East cellar. Some sportswriters started to write off the Mets’ chances after they went 20-31 in May and June. Red Foley of the New York Daily News wrote on July 10 that with the team 12 games out of first place, “it’s all downhill […]

It was a year in which the Red Sox had never lost more than three games in a row all season long. And now they had won the first game of the 2018 World Series, 8-4. The Dodgers started the same nine in Game Two. Facing them was David Price, who seemed to have overcome […]

As the 1901 season moved into its final two weeks, the Cleveland Blues (later the Indians) were all but limping to the finish. Although they had had played .500 ball over the previous six weeks, going 22-22 between August 1 and September 14, as they came into a Sunday afternoon contest against the Detroit Tigers […]

The sixth game of the 1912 World Series was the one that produced the most controversy. Rube Marquard was the obvious choice for the New York Giants, after his 2-1 victory over Boston in Game Three, but there was some concern that “Marquard’s arm has gone awry.”1 If so, John McGraw would probably turn to […]

There are some players, in some seasons, who definitely experience the home-field advantage. In 1996 Larry Walker was one of those players. He played 43 games at home (Coors Field) and 40 games on the road.1 He batted .393 with a 1.248 OPS in Denver — but only .142 (.523 OPS) away from his home […]

The Western Massachusetts city of Holyoke went 64 years between professional baseball teams. As pro baseball returned to Seattle and Toronto in the form of the major-league Mariners and Blue Jays in 1977, the minors also re-emerged in Holyoke in the form of the Holyoke Millers of the Double-A Eastern League. Going into the 1977 […]

The 1913 National League championship was decided not in the final days of the season, but on the final day of June. On June 30 the swaggering New York Giants overcame an early five-run deficit to beat the first-place Philadelphia Phillies in the 10th inning, 11-10 at Baker Bowl. Jim Nasium of the Philadelphia Inquirer […]

The Chicago White Sox are pictured on April 12, 1918, before an exhibition game against a US Army team at Camp Funston, outside of Junction City, Kansas. Just weeks earlier, the first major outbreak of a global influenza pandemic killed 38 soldiers at the base. An estimated 50 million people around the world died from […]

The Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies, division rivals in the National League East, postponed their scheduled August 27 game at Nationals Park during the tumultuous summer of 2020 in a joint decision to redirect attention toward racial inequality and police brutality.1 They made up the game as part of a doubleheader when the Phillies returned […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates hit two grand slams and beat the Philadelphia Phillies 10-0 on May 1, 1933. The Pirates had five future Hall of Famers in their lineup (Freddie Lindstrom, Pie Traynor, Arky Vaughan, Lloyd Waner, and Paul Waner), and all five had at least one hit in the shutout win. It was “a fine […]

The joys of well-played baseball are timeless. No matter who’s on the field, it’s a pleasure to witness a crisply turned 6-4-3 double play, a perfectly executed hit-and-run, or a curveball that catches the inside corner of home plate for a knee-buckling third strike. The opposite is also true. Baseball at its most poorly and […]

In the twentieth century only two pitchers recorded 40 or more wins in a season. Jack Chesbro accomplished the feat for the 1904 New York Highlanders, finishing the year 41-12. Ed Walsh joined him on that plateau by tallying 40 wins for the Chicago White Sox in 1908. His 40th win was a 6-1 triumph […]