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On a fine weather day, August 7, 1894, Boston met Philadelphia at home for the first game in a three-game series.1 Boston’s Jimmy Bannon had demonstrated a power streak in recent games.2 On August 2 at New York, he hit a home run to left-center.3 At home on August 6, he hit one against Washington.4 […]

Coming off two dismal eighth-place finishes, the Chicago Cubs made a fateful trade with the Philadelphia Phillies 10 days into the 1966 season, ostensibly to shore up their outfield. The Cubs exchanged two highly paid yet aging workhorses who had combined for 313 career victories, 34-year-old Larry Jackson and 37-year-old Bob Buhl, for three inexperienced […]

Elizabeth, New Jersey, belongs in the roster of major-league cities (depending on how one classifies the National Association of 1871-75). A section known as Waverly Fairgrounds housed the 1873 Elizabeth Resolutes of that league.1 But one must acknowledge that the fairgrounds property is in the municipality of Clinton, which eventually got parceled to Newark and […]

The 1882 Providence Grays. Back: Paul Hines, Jerry Denny, Hoss Radbourn, Jack Farrell. Middle: Tom York, Joe Start, Harry Wright, George Wright, John Ward. Front: Charlie Reilley, Sandy Nava, Barney Gilligan. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY, COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.)   Competing in the National League from 1878 to 1885, the Providence ballclub won the championship […]

Overshadowed by his more famous big brother Gene DeMontreville during most of his career, Leon was thought by many to have as much talent as his sibling. Early in his career, Chicago Cub manager Frank Selee predicted that, with more experience, Leon would turn out to be a better player than Gene.1 However, Gene played […]

“I have a personality that some people call a flake or crazy or insane,” Larry Andersen acknowledged.1 “But if I thought about nothing except what I’m going to be doing that night when I pitch, I’d be a basket case. Of course, I’ve been accused of being close to that anyway.”2 “How come fat chance […]

“I didn’t like how my baseball career ended, particularly because I was so young. I won only 19 games total. But I realized how fortunate I was to have made it to the majors. Not many make it. And how many guys who played for many years didn’t get to play in the World Series […]

On Thursday, June 29, 1905, New York Giants rookie outfielder Archie Graham made his major league debut, playing the last two innings of a one-sided 11-1 victory over the Brooklyn Superbas. The twenty-five-year-old was the next to bat when the last out was recorded in the top of the ninth inning. After playing right field […]

Fewer than 30 major-league players have gone on to be physicians; half of those were pitchers. Several had noteworthy accomplishments. John Lee Richmond pitched the first perfect game in professional baseball history, in 1880; and Hub Pruett faced Babe Ruth on 30 occasions between 1922 and 1924, striking him out 11 or 12 times.1 Richmond […]

Clarence “Lefty” Heise had an extremely brief major-league career. He opened the 1934 season with the Cardinals but was released to their Columbus farm team on May 1 when major-league rosters had to be cut to 25 players. He pitched in just one major-league game, and he was the only man who played in a […]

Entertaining and irritating by turns, outfielder Chuck Carr was known for his speed and cocky personality. Carr’s running ability was what made him fun to watch. He made many circus catches and stole a lot of bases. That made him a fan favorite in Miami, where he enjoyed his best year in 1993 for the […]

Unlike Leo Durocher, the man he replaced as Brooklyn Dodgers manager for the 1947 season, Burt Shotton was no gruff, umpire-baiting field general. He was instead a calm, serious baseball lifer who, like the more illustrious Connie Mack, wore his street clothes in the dugout during his tenure in Brooklyn. His quiet demeanor did not […]

It was strawberry fields forever where Kenny Rogers grew up, on a 15-acre strawberry farm in Dover, Florida, in the heart of Hillsborough County, just a bit west of Plant City, home of the annual state Strawberry Festival. Plant City was also where the Cincinnati Reds held spring training for many years, so Rogers grew […]

Few players have been as coveted by professional clubs as Paul Pettit was in the spring of 1949. During that high school season, the hard-throwing left-handed pitcher drew crowds to the small southern California town of Lomita. They echoed the influx to the region after oil was discovered there in the early 1920s. Pettit’s powerful […]

Some baseball players have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Many others never do. A few, however, momentarily have this kind of good fortune in their grasp, then see it taken away. Shortstop Rey Quiñones was a May call-up for the 1986 Boston Red Sox, a team destined to […]

Long ago, baseball crossed the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Japan. Soon the reserve clause followed. It would reach back from Japan to the U.S. and bite its own tail, like a snake forming a ring that burst into fire–the “Working Agreement.” The first man it trapped was Masanori “Mashi” Murakami, the first Japanese […]

He neither slugged like Aaron nor pitched like Spahn, but Lou Perini made his own indelible mark on baseball history. In fact, one can argue that few men ever made a greater impact on the game without playing professionally than the construction giant who moved the Braves from Boston to Milwaukee. For a half-century from […]

Charlie England’s baseball story is intertwined with the vagaries of growing up as an African-American in North Carolina in the Jim Crow era and beyond. His brief tenure with the Newark Eagles was bookended by longer careers as a college and semipro baseball player and later as a college coach, mentor, and much-lauded community leader […]

Arthur Rhodes forged a 20-year major-league career by establishing himself as a reliable left-handed reliever for nine franchises. He is the career leader (as of 2020) in holds since it became an official statistic in 1999, with a total of 231. Rhodes overcame family tragedy to become one of the oldest first-time All-Stars at the […]

Major league ballplayers have not been immune to sudden, life-ending mishaps. To the contrary, the game’s necrology has no shortage of the drownings, hunting accidents, house fires, and auto accidents that have brought the lives of countless ordinary citizens to an abrupt close. Some ballplayer deaths – Ed Delahanty’s plunge over Niagara Falls; the fatal […]

With both Josh Gibson and Bill Perkins, the 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords were blessed in the receiving department. Any other catcher on the roster could not expect a lot of playing time. In April of ’35, Clarence “Spoony” Palm was that additional catcher. An itinerant receiver who had played for eight different clubs since breaking onto […]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many young men turned to baseball to escape the drudgery and dangerous occupations that awaited those without a family fortune. The mines and mills were dangerous and deadly and the prospects of making it out unscathed were low. Taking to the diamond was a way to avoid […]

During the 1889 season, rookie right-hander Alex Ferson parlayed pitching intelligence and an excellent curveball into a commendable record for a last-place team, the National League’s Washington Senators. He was 17-17 (.500) for a club that was hapless otherwise (24-56, .300). But a promising start went unfulfilled. It soon became apparent that the 5-foot-9, 165-pound […]

Jim Sundberg is one of the greatest defensive catchers in major-league history. From 1976 to 1981, he won six straight American League Gold Glove awards while playing for the Texas Rangers. Of Sundberg’s defensive prowess, his former Rangers teammate Toby Harrah once stated: “When he came along, everyone else seemed like slow motion. You can’t […]