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The slow climb of Gil Hodges’ Washington Senators teams had brought the 1967 squad to heights unknown: a 55-55 record after shutting out the Twins in Minnesota on August 7. None of the previous expansion Nats had reached .500 so far into the season. A month earlier, on July 8, Washington’s record stood at 34-47, […]

Sean Doolittle, the Washington Nationals closer, was sitting in the bullpen when, by the top of the fourth inning, the Nationals were losing 9-0 to the Miami Marlins. Some thoughts that could have been going through his (and the other relievers) mind: “I feel sorry for Helly — he’s sick and he’s out there getting […]

Without a day off in the 1950 World Series, the venue shifted from Philadelphia to New York, where Yankee Stadium welcomed its 15th World Series.1 On the face of it, Game Three looked to be no contest. Eddie Lopat, who had won 18 games during the season, opposed Ken Heintzelman, who had posted a feeble […]

On this steamy August afternoon, the bespectacled outfielder Chick Hafey etched his name into the St. Louis record books and helped launch his team on a historic run to the National League pennant. As the Cardinals pounded out 19 hits in beating the Philadelphia Phillies, 16-6, in the first game of a five-game series, Hafey […]

“Nasty weather outside … thank goodness there’s a dome.” — Chip Caray, TBS1   Fans in Minnesota were not always thankful for indoor baseball, but on a 44-degree, rainy October afternoon, the 54,088 that jammed the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome were glad to be inside as the Minnesota Twins squared off against the Detroit Tigers […]

Backed by stout defense,1 Dick Rudolph easily won his second game of the quartet, throwing just 94 pitches in a complete game as the Miracle Boston Braves shocked the baseball world by sweeping Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, 3-1. Although Philadelphia finally cooled the scalding bat of Hank Gowdy, Boston captain Johnny Evers delivered a clutch […]

On Halloween night, the New York Yankees stared at a hole they didn’t dare fall into. Few teams have battled back from a three-games-to-one deficit to win the World Series. And of those that did, none ever had to do it against a team with starters as hot as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Curt Schilling and […]

On October 23, 1945, it was announced that Branch Rickey had signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top farm team. The plan was for Robinson to play a season in Montreal to get the professional experience needed to determine if he was ready for the major leagues. In the […]

Chick Gandil and Tris Speaker were cut from the same cloth. They were both intense, loud, hard-nosed players who weren’t interested in making friends on the baseball field. They also weren’t shy about expressing their opinions and, when challenged, neither backed down from a fight. So it seemed almost inevitable that the two veterans would […]

The American League home-run leader with 47 in 1926, Babe Ruth had hit only four in his first 25 World Series games. Then he gave “the greatest exhibition of batting a World’s Series ever saw”1 and become the first player to hit a trio of homers in a postseason game as the Yankees evened the 1926 World Series […]

Over their first 70 seasons, Chicago White Sox fans saw some historic moments. Early on, they won two World Series, in 1906 and 1917. Two years after the latter, they suffered the most infamous Series loss ever, in 1919, when eight of their players took money to throw the Series to Cincinnati. The team’s fans […]

As winter turned to spring in 1941, war was spreading across the globe, a wildfire uncontained. Nazi Germany had subjugated much of Europe, with invasion of the Soviet Union next. Britain had endured The Blitz for months, Luftwaffe terror raining from above. Hitler’s racist regime brutally persecuted Jews, evolving by 1942 into the genocide we […]

Just four years after playing sandlot ball in Toronto, highly-touted Vince Barton appeared to be on the verge of stardom with the Chicago Cubs.1 The 23-year-old slugger had just blasted a pair of homers and driven in four runs in the second game of an August 4, 1931, twin bill against the Cincinnati Reds. Herbert […]

Although he was a catcher in 527 of his 922 major league games, Mike Grady is best known as a third baseman who made a record number of errors on one ground ball, a play that never happened. At 5’ 11” and a muscular 190 pounds, Grady was a versatile player for the Phillies, Browns, Giants, […]

“Pressure-tested.” The label suited José Contreras, the ace of the formidable Cuban national team of the 1990s that dominated international competition. Fidel Castro himself had deemed the pitcher “el titán de bronce” (the bronze titan), a nickname first bestowed upon Cuban Revolutionary hero Antonio Maceo, one of the country’s founding fathers. How could José Contreras […]

For a brief period in the early 1890s, Al Johnson was an influential, if not overly trustworthy, actor on the major league baseball scene. A wealthy young industrialist, he was the first and the most important of the money men attracted to the Players League cause. In the league’s formative days, Johnson recruited other capitalists […]

When former Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee died on June 4, 1929, Red Sox president Bob Quinn ordered that the American flag at Fenway Park be flown at half-staff in his memory. In the many obituaries that appeared in Boston newspapers at the time, most noted that during Frazee’s tenure the Red Sox won […]

As of the end of the 2020 season, 789 players born in the Dominican Republic had played major-league baseball. Of the 363 who were primarily nonpitchers, 57 made All-Star teams and 35 appeared in a World Series for the eventual champions, but only 12 completed their careers with exactly one hit.1 Before Orioles rookie Carlos […]

Craig Lefferts battled all his life to make it to the major leagues. Once he did, he stayed there for a decade, and became famous for running from the bullpen to the mound, showing his lifelong enthusiasm for the game. Craig Lindsay Lefferts was born on September 29, 1957, in Munich, West Germany.1 His father, […]

In a remembrance published in the Bangor (Maine) Daily News of January 18, 1962, the decades-deceased Gil Whitehouse was described as “the Babe Ruth of his time” and “the greatest baseball player in Maine’s history.”1 Something of a baseball prodigy, Whitehouse reached the major leagues as an 18-year-old catcher. But a one-game audition with the 1912 Boston Braves proved a […]

In a pitching career that lasted 10 years in professional baseball, and considerably longer in adult-league competition, all 22 of Dan Morogiello’s major league appearances came in 1983. The lefty was an unsung hero for the Baltimore Orioles team that won that season’s World Series. Daniel Joseph Morogiello was born on March 26, 1955, in […]

Frank Bowerman’s major-league career spanned 15 seasons, from 1895 through 1909. It included stops with the Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Giants, and Boston Doves. Bowerman was a sturdy, robust player who stood 6-feet-2 and weighed approximately 190 pounds. Although known mainly as a catcher, the righty could play almost any position. Bowerman logged […]

American League Park / Oriole Park (IV), July 18, 1907. (Courtesy of David B. Stinson and Bernard McKenna.)   American League Park was the home of the first American League Baltimore Orioles in 1901 and 1902.1 From 1903 to 1914, the ballpark was known as Oriole Park (IV) and was home to the Eastern League […]

When the Chicago Cubs finally won a World Series again in 2016, after 108 years of futility, they also shed their standing as “lovable losers,” ceding that title back to the squad to whom it truly belonged: Charlie Brown and his ragtag neighborhood team of Peanuts fame. Indeed, for all the failure and ignominy the […]