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Suggesting that a player was not good enough to make the 1927 New York Yankees is hardly an insult. The original Murderers Row is widely considered the greatest club ever to take the field. Spud Davis’ first opportunity to break into the major leagues was with the ‘27 Yankees , and while he did not […]

Don Werner played 18 seasons of professional baseball and appeared in 118 major-league games, backing up one Hall of Famer and catching the only no-hitter pitched by another. Though he batted just .176 during limited opportunities in the major leagues, Werner grasped enough of the finer points of the art of catching to stay employed […]

Baseball pioneer Abraham Gilbert Mills is remembered-if at all-today for heading the “Mills Commission” which concluded that the game of baseball was invented in America by Civil War General Abner Doubleday. However, this actually represents a very small piece of Mills’ fascinating life. Born March 12, 1844, in New York City, Mills lived there until […]

Unique in every respect, left-handed submarine pitcher Michael Stanley Myers brought a presence to the mound that exhibited the definition of left-handed specialist. In a 13-year career with nine major-league teams, Myers made his presence known as a one-trick pony with a few more tricks up his sleeve. Myers, the premier LOOGY of the late […]

Frank Barberich pitched in two games for Boston’s National League team in 1907, and he pitched in two games for Boston’s American League team in 1910. He was 1-1 for the 1907 Doves and 0-0 for the 1910 Red Sox. In the minor leagues, he was 93-81 over eight seasons of play. It’s easy to […]

Every red-blooded American boy growing up during the Great Depression dreamed of playing in the World Series, preferably in Yankee Stadium. Philip Donald Haugstad came close twice, missing by one day in 1947 and by one pitch to Bobby Thomson in 1951. Phil entered the world on February 23, 1924, in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. […]

When the curtain came down on the 1948 regular season, the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox were both atop the American League standings, sporting identical 96-58 records. For the first time in the history of the junior circuit, a one-time, chips-in-the-middle-of-the-table, winner-take-all playoff game was played – on October 4, 1948, at Fenway […]

Prior to his infamous involvement in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, Chick Gandil was one of the most highly regarded first basemen in the American League, both for his play on the field and his solid work ethic. In 1916 a Cleveland newspaper described Gandil as “a most likeable player, and one of excellent habits.”1 […]

Joe Frank Wood was commonly called Joe Wood Jr., even though his father — Smoky Joe Wood — had the given name of Howard Ellsworth Wood. “Joe Jr.” even sometimes referred to his father as “Joe Wood Sr.”1 He was also not to be confused with another Joe Wood, who played in the American League […]

On the evening of May 4, 1906, right-handed pitcher Bill Thomas appeared in good spirits as he boarded the steamship that would take the Buffalo Bisons ball club on a nighttime passage through the Long Island Sound to New York City. His future remained uncertain, but things were looking up from the previous fall. Then, […]

Bill Jennings was a tall, dignified, modest gentleman fondly remembered by everyone who met him. His major-league career is limited to the 64 games he played for the lowly St. Louis Browns in 1951 but Jennings lived an honest, unassuming life both in and out of Organized Baseball. William Lee Jennings was born on September […]

Dick Mills was a 6-foot-3,195-pound right-handed pitcher who appeared twice for the Boston Red Sox in 1970. They were his only two games in major-league baseball. Mills was a hard guy to pin down at first. Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in June 1965, a 13th-round pick, he chose not to sign. Drafted by the […]

Bud Knox played briefly with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the mid-1920s. But he made a greater impact on baseball as a minor league player and manager, on national sports as a football official, on Great Plains sports as a basketball referee, and on Iowa sports as an all-around amateur athlete plus football, basketball, and baseball […]

Helen Dettweiler was “The Girl of Summer” in 1938 when she became the first woman to broadcast professional baseball, according to The Sporting News. A promotional stunt for a radio sponsor, it was just one stop in a life of adventure. She served as a World War II code-breaker and military pilot, and was one […]

For a few days in May 1983, news outlets in Rochester, New York, buzzed about the possibility that Hollywood star Robert Redford might film his adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural at Rochester’s venerable ballpark, Silver Stadium.1 The movie is widely remembered for a scene in which fictional slugger Roy Hobbs knocks out the lights […]

When Pie Traynor of the Pittsburgh Pirates grounded out to give the St. Louis Cardinals their 91st win of the 1930 season, the Redbirds, as they were commonly called, clinched the National League title and a third World Series appearance in five years. Blessed with a lull before facing Connie Mack’s defending World Series champion […]

Larry Walker’s hold on a major-league job was slowly slipping away. His first full season in the big leagues had gone reasonably well; in only 419 at-bats he nearly posted a 20-20 season.1 Walker was even named to the 1990 Topps’ All-Star Rookie team. But a 1991 spring-training slump had carried over into the regular […]

Many baseball fans are familiar with the story of Armando Galarraga’s lost perfect game in 2010.1 In the days before instant replays were used to review close plays at first base, an honest mistake by umpire Jim Joyce with two out in the ninth inning was all that separated Galarraga from perfection. What is less […]

The headline on the front page of the September 7, 1973, edition of the Montreal Gazette announced that it was time to start tracking the Montreal Expos’ magic number (it was 27). A timely six-game winning streak had moved them to within three games of the first-place St. Louis Cardinals and ratcheted up the excitement […]

“Well, back in 1871, my great-great-grandmother had a boardinghouse in Boston,” recounted a sparkling, white-haired lady speaking with appraiser Leila Dunbar on a PBS episode of Antiques Roadshow. “And she housed the Boston baseball team. Most of them had come from the Cincinnati Red Stockings and were among the first to be paid to play […]

In his 1984 collection of essays on baseball, Why Time Begins on Opening Day, longtime Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell described the sport’s Opening Day as a “symbol of rebirth”: an opportunity for every team and its fans to start fresh with a 0-0 record, ready to embrace new possibilities and put the previous season […]

The 1974 baseball season had arrived and all eyes were focused on Hank Aaron. Hammerin’ Hank had finished 1973 with 713 career home runs, one behind Babe Ruth’s total. Aaron’s Atlanta Braves were scheduled to open on the road with a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds before returning to Atlanta for an 11-game homestand. […]

Melodramatic as it may sound, the Seattle Mariners were fighting for their very existence. In 1995, the team was playing its 19th season in the crumbling Kingdome, a dismal, multipurpose, indoor stadium with all the character of an airplane hangar. Ceiling tiles had plummeted 180 feet into a section of seating behind home plate the […]

Here are the SABR Bookshelf listings for Summer 2014. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Society for American Baseball Research, 4455 E. Camelback Rd., Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018. An e-book file will also suffice; please send the e-book in […]