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In his first start with the Boston Red Sox, Hideo Nomo pitched a no-hitter, defeating the Baltimore Orioles, 3-0, at Camden Yards. In doing so, he joined Cy Young, Jim Bunning, and Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers in major-league history to throw no-hitters in both the American and National Leagues.1 (Randy Johnson joined the […]

April 16, 1978, was not an ideal day for baseball in St. Louis. As a sparse crowd sauntered into Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch II) that afternoon, the temperature was under 45 degrees.1 The Cardinals had been losing crowd appeal throughout the 1970s. Their home opener, six days earlier, had drawn only 19,241. Only 11,495 showed […]

The 1998 Houston Astros strode into the postseason with the confidence due the franchise’s best team ever. They had won 102 games in the regular season, the only time as of 2015 that the Astros produced more than 100 wins in a season, and most prognosticators and pundits favored them to make the World Series […]

While most of his Astros teammates in the clubhouse were celebrating the 3-1 victory secured by Alan Ashby’s two-run walk-off home run in the opening game of the National League Division Series, pinch-hitter and utility player Denny Walling sought out the speed bag and weightlifting equipment. “The speed bag is my way of releasing my […]

The champagne was ready in the Astrodome. With a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-five National League Championship Series, the Astros were one win away from their first trip to the World Series. Considering the obstacles that both they and their opponents, the Phillies, had overcome, no one was apt to be counting on an easy […]

“WE HOPE YOU’RE ENJOYING TONIGHT’S THIRD GAME AS MUCH AS YOU DID THE FIRST TWO.” — Message on the Astrodome scoreboard at the top of the 20th inning.   It was the game that would not end. It was a game of formidable pitching and feeble hitting. It was the Year of the Pitcher in […]

It was “my greatest thrill ever,” said carrot-topped Del Crandall after launching a walk-off home run in the 12th inning to give the Milwaukee Braves a dramatic 2-1 victory over their arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers.1 The 25-year-old backstop had been mired in a terrible slump, hitless in his last 23 at-bats, before his extra-inning heroics made […]

Jack Quinn was ageless in more ways than one. First, for decades he seemed impervious to the ravages of time. Second, nobody — probably including Quinn himself1 — knew precisely how old he was. Quinn’s major league career spanned 25 years. He won 26 games in 1914. He also won 18 games twice — first in […]

As Detroit Tigers first baseman Norm Cash prepared to dig in against California Angels right-hander Nolan Ryan, who was just one out away from a no-hitter, he looked at home-plate umpire Ron Luciano and asked with all seriousness, “Aren’t you going to check my bat?”1 Known for his unusual humor, Cash had sauntered to the […]

Budding media mogul Ted Turner, who had obtained the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves games on his television station, WTCG, in 1973, purchased the franchise in 1976 and attempted to engineer an immediate reversal of its faltering fortunes. Turner dipped into the brand-new free-agent market and signed one of its trailblazers, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher […]

Joe Horlen “turned the White Sox’s darkest hour into a glittering personal triumph,” gushed Chicago Tribune sportswriter Robert Markus after the right-hander’s stunning no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers.1 “[I]t was the biggest game, the toughest spot, the White Sox were in all season,” opined sportswriter George Cantor in the Detroit Free Press.2 The 1967 American […]

After right-hander Dave Stewart suffered a tough loss to the Chicago White Sox by giving up a tiebreaking 10th-inning home run on June 24 in Oakland, the durable Athletics’ veteran defiantly said that the White Sox still weren’t good enough to carry his jockstrap. White Sox first baseman Ron Kittle begged to differ. “It’s in […]

No matter how bright or bleak the prospects for the coming season, on Opening Day every baseball team has its share of hopeful anticipation. Since they were the defending National League champions, this was especially true for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 13, 1921, when they opened the season in Boston. For once the New […]

To say that the Montreal Expos faced some adversity on the road to their first-ever playoff appearance would be an understatement. In their first decade of existence (1969-1978), the Expos never finished higher than in fourth place in the National League East standings and their record was below .500 in each of those years. Although […]

The upstart Boston Braves surprised the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics in Game One as postseason novice Dick Rudolph easily outpitched the seasoned veteran Chief Bender, 7-1. It was the first time in a Series game that Philadelphia manager Connie Mack – with four prior World Series under his belt – had to remove […]

In the May 29, 1859 issue of The Sunday Mercury, a weekly New York newspaper that extensively covered the expanding world of base ball playing, an untitled paragraph announced the possibility of a forthcoming game that would be strikingly different from all others played during the past few years: “We have heard it rumored — […]

Jim Palmer gained national acclaim early in his major-league career by hurling a four-hit shutout against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game Two of the 1966 World Series. He was the youngest pitcher (age 20) to toss a complete game shutout in the history of postseason play. The Orioles went on to sweep the heavily […]

The Red Sox split a Sunday doubleheader with Connie Mack’s Athletics on the final day of the 1941 season — meaningless games, with the Sox in second place, 17½ games out, and Philadelphia 20 games behind them. But these were professionals. And there was something else at stake. From May 25 until they arrived in […]

“Jackie has been accepted in baseball, and we of the Philadelphia organization have no objection to his playing and wish him all the luck we can. Baseball is an American game, and there are no nationalities, creeds, nor races involved. Jackie Robinson is an American.”1 This quote, attributed to Philadelphia manager Ben Chapman, was made […]

Sometimes all of the elements of the story of a ballgame are not known right away. The score is known but quite often the story of the game goes far beyond the score and so it was on April 22, 1947. For the record, the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 in the opener […]

The last time Johnny Antonelli’s team appeared in a World Series he was a clubhouse pariah. The Boston Braves signed the 18-year-old out of high school in June 1948. Because of the size of his bonus, reportedly more than $50,000, the Braves were required to keep him on the major-league roster for two years. Antonelli’s […]

The 2015 Major League Baseball season opened on Monday, April 6. The San Francisco Giants were the reigning world champions. Opening Day games included the Philadelphia Phillies hosting the Boston Red Sox at Citizens Bank Park. In 2014 the Phillies, three seasons removed from the last of five consecutive National League East Division titles, had […]

Prior to the start of Game Two of the 1918 World Series, Fred Mitchell, manager of the National League pennant-winning Chicago Cubs, recalled George “Lefty” Tyler’s previous World Series appearance. Mitchell earned his current position at the helm of the Cubs from successful work with his pitchers, especially Tyler, during his tenure in Boston. During […]

On June 24, 1945, seven weeks after the German Wehrmacht surrendered to the Allied armies and on the e day more than 40,000 Russian troops paraded through Moscow’s Red Square to celebrate their victory over the Nazi invaders, a son was born to Mary and Ralph Zeigler in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, on June 24, 1945. William […]