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The New York Giants surged into the National League pennant race in 1921 after star right fielder Ross Youngs’ return from a preseason knee injury but still ran second behind the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates in late July. With the Giants trailing in Pittsburgh on July 26 and in danger of falling five games back of […]

The 1915 Red Sox won 101 games and the American League pennant, and needed only five games to beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, but they didn’t really get going until June. They had a losing record in April and were 15-15 entering the final day of May. The Red Sox were 3-3 […]

When Pat Gosney shipped off for US Army duty in the summer of 1952, he left with a good story to tell his buddies: Just before entering military service, he’d pitched a three-hit shutout against a major-league team. The story came with a few caveats, which Gosney no doubt admitted by and by. The shutout […]

Solly Hemus’s place in New York Mets history is exceedingly small by most measures. He served as a coach under Casey Stengel for the Mets’ first two seasons, 1962-63, during which the expansion team set a twentieth-century record for losses in a season.1 Hemus, formerly the scrappy player-manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, holds one […]

After graduating from Waverly High School in Lansing, Michigan, John Smoltz was selected in the 22nd round of the June 1985 amateur draft by his favorite team, the Detroit Tigers. But Smoltz never took the mound for Detroit. On August 12, 1987, in the midst of a tight American League East race, the Tigers dealt […]

“I didn’t even slide. I’m very proud of that.”1 This was Boog Powell’s description of his first-ever inside-the-park home run, nine seasons and nearly 200 homers into a career better known for clearing fences than dashing around basepaths. Yet it was his running that put an exclamation point on the Baltimore Orioles’ 15-run shellacking of […]

It would be fair to say that the Kodak World Baseball Classic … never fully developed. The tournament, played in September 1972, featured a balky five-way round-robin setup that included the champions of the three Triple-A minor leagues, Honolulu’s Triple-A team as host, and an unaffiliated team of Latino minor leaguers. All games were played […]

The clock finally struck midnight on the Cinderella New York Giants when the New York Yankees hung on to take the 1951 World Series with a 4-3 Game Six victory, sparked by the heroics of Hank Bauer at the plate and in the field. As befitting a crazy season that columnist Red Smith called a […]

When the expansion Chicago Colleens got off to a 1-13 start in their inaugural season in 1948, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) held an emergency meeting to decide how to prop up the floundering franchise.1 Rockford Peaches fans were not happy with how the issue was resolved.2 When the dust had settled, the […]

The Philadelphia Phillies’ modern, circular, multipurpose, Astroturfed playing field, Veterans Stadium, 19 years old in 1990, had at least one thing in common with Connie Mack Stadium, the more traditional grass and grandstand ballpark where they played from 1938 to 1970.1 Neither ballpark had ever seen a no-hitter by a Phillies pitcher. In fact, no […]

The rivalry between Boston College and Boston University is a deep-rooted part of the city’s sports landscape. In the twenty-first century, this rivalry is probably most visible on the hockey rink, where nationally ranked teams of both male and female Eagles and Terriers face off in fervent competition. Before BU dropped varsity football (in 1997) […]

On an overcast Wednesday afternoon, 12,000 fans filed into Detroit’s Navin Field to watch the second game of a four-game series between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees. When the Yankees came out of their clubhouse, a cacophony of “derisive cheers of the mob rang.”1 Miller Huggins’s Yankees were favorites to win the American […]

James Paxton’s reputation for being calm, cool, and collected was cemented just prior to the Minnesota Twins’ 2018 home opener. During the national anthem, a falconry-trained bald eagle mistook Paxton for one of his handlers and flew directly at him. After initially ducking to protect his face, the 29-year-old native of Ladner, British Columbia, calmly […]

Bill Grevell was a semipro pitcher from Philadelphia whose scatter-armed stint with the talent-parched 1919 Athletics indicated that he was not ready for the majors. After parts of two seasons in the minor leagues, he returned to the sandlots until illness ended his life at age 25. William Joseph Grevell Jr. was born on March […]

Ryan Garton is an example of a boy who grows up rooting for his hometown big-league team and dreaming of one day playing for it, and then, with the benefit of hard work, talent, and some good fortune, sees that dream come to fruition. Ryan Patrick Garton was born on December 5, 1989, in Clearwater, […]

“Being the best is great, it means you’re number one. But being unique is greater, because you’re the only one.” This quote, which can be found all over the internet (reportedly anonymous, a bit ironically), applies to Marty Pattin in at least one regard: On April 8, 1969, he became the only Opening Day starting […]

First baseman Candy LaChance was a switch-hitting 33-year-old veteran when his Boston Americans won the first World Series, in 1903. He played in every one of his team’s 141 regular-season games that year and each of the eight World Series games as well. That kind of “iron man” endurance wasn’t so uncommon at the time; […]

One of the most known and respected umpires of amateur baseball in Minnesota—as of this writing, in 2017—Larry Gallagher made it to the major leagues in 1979, working seven games when the regular umpires were on strike. He continues on the diamonds, making the calls for high-school, college, American Legion, and town teams, with a […]

For Cubs fans of the 1940s and 1950s, Bobby Sturgeon will always be linked with two other shortstops who broke into the majors during the spring of 1940 — 10-time All-Star Pee Wee Reese of the Dodgers and seven-time All-Star Marty Marion of the Cardinals. As the story goes, Cubs manager Gabby Hartnett was pushing […]

Fans of two franchises that featured the ultimate in futility for so many years might find it interesting that right-hander Bill Fleming pitched for only two major-league teams: the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. He didn’t have a winning record for either. Though born Leslie Fletcherd Fleming on July 31, 1913, in Rowland, California, […]

“Pembroke Finlayson” was surely a mouthful of a name for a 5-foot-6, 140-pound lad. Known as the “Midget Twirler,” young Mr. Finlayson made two very brief appearances in major-league baseball, pitching for the Brooklyn club, before reaching the age of 22. He might have worked his way back to the bigs if he’d only made […]

From the Wa-was to the Yeggs to the major leagues. The Class C Southern Michigan Association sported some unusual team monikers. (The Kalamazoo Kazoos won the pennant in 1910, then changed their names to the Celery Eaters and won it again.) It was still a rapid climb for Frank Patrick Gilhooley, who’d started out playing sandlot […]

A star in basketball and track, he never played high school baseball. He played one year in college and had a losing record in four years in the minor leagues before being promoted to the majors. Yet Bill Henry had a 16-year career in the big leagues, played in a National League All-Star Game, and […]

From 1900 through 2003, 952 players appeared in only a single major league game. Of these, 86 were starting pitchers and Dick Bass, at age 33, was the oldest. His career is of special interest because he managed two minor league teams, coached a team to the World’s Amateur Championship, and was a manager in […]