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Rance Mulliniks was a slightly built 6-foot, 160-pound left-handed-hitting infielder who played 16 major-league seasons with the California Angels, Kansas City Royals, and Toronto Blue Jays that culminated with a 1992 World Series championship for Toronto. The mustached and later glasses-wearing infielder from Central California developed into an excellent fielding third baseman who was also […]

Satchel Paige threw his first pitch in professional baseball in 1926 for the Chattanooga White Sox, an inappropriately-named team in the lower levels of the segregated Negro Leagues. He played his last game in organized baseball in 1966 — a full 40 years later — for a Virginia club called the Peninsula Grays. In between, […]

At the turn of the 20th century, Emmet Heidrick was one of the best players in baseball. A .300 hitter, he could drop a “tantalizing bunt” or drive the ball to the fence.1 As a baserunner and basestealer, he was speedy and aggressive. And as an outfielder, “Snags” was considered “the best fly catcher in […]

Yankee Stadium, October 12, 1977, World Series, Game 2: The Yankees were trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1, but had runners on first and second with only one out. Yankees public address announcer Bob Sheppard, “the Voice of God,” surely intoned his usual introduction, “Now batting for the Yankees, pinch-hitter, number 25, George Zeber, number […]

Walter William Beck looked like a pitcher. At least that’s what Casey Stengel thought. “When you see a guy as big and strong and who looks like an athlete, then watch him throw without the slightest suggestion of strain, you just gotta go for him.”1 Beck stood 6-feet-2 and weighed 200 pounds with broad shoulders […]

Tim Teufel, who played mostly at second base but filled in at all three other infield positions, had good line-drive power, with 86 home runs in the majors. After breaking in with the Minnesota Twins in September 1983, he went on to play 10 full seasons. He spent a little over half that time with […]

In a region noted for its rich baseball history, one of the Philadelphia area’s most precious treasures was surely a man named Whitey Witt, a big leaguer whose career began with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1916. The quiet country street that bears his name provides the only conspicuous testimony to Witt’s his former presence there. […]

In 1947 Johnny Mize did something unmatched in baseball history. He became the first player to hit 50 or more home runs in a season while striking out fewer than 50 times, one of the game’s extraordinary records and a sole distinction Mize still held more than 65 years later. Few, if any hitters have […]

The list of major-league record-holders contains names familiar to all baseball fans — Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Spike Owen … wait a minute! Spike Owen? Yep. While his name won’t roll as easily off the casual fan’s tongue as some others would, Spike Owen was indeed a record-setter during a steady 13-year career, […]

Hal Trosky played first base for the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in the 1930s and 1940s. His career reached its apex in 1936, when he led the American League in runs batted in with 162, yet he has largely been consigned to historical obscurity. This anonymity is not only due to the […]

There may have been no one more surprised to find Chick Fullis playing for the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Seven of the 1934 World Series than Fullis himself. In his only start in the World Series (in Game Five), Fullis had misplayed two balls in center field that directly led to two runs in […]

Between the minor and major leagues, there are thousands of baseball players trying to make a name for themselves. Some can hit home runs; others are great at striking out batters. One, Doug Mirabelli, was able to stand out and become a two-time World Series champion because he could do what most catchers can’t always […]

Swede Hollow was an immigrant settlement in Minnesota that squatted for a century in Phalen Creek ravine, south of Seventh Street on St. Paul’s Lower East Side. It has now receded into St. Paul’s often picturesque history, the site occupied by a city park. It was mostly a region of untold stories. Successive waves of […]

Phil Seibel was a career minor leaguer, playing eight seasons with eight different teams in six leagues. He had one brief moment in the big leagues, playing two games for the 2004 curse-breaking World Series champion Boston Red Sox and that garnered him a World Series ring. Philip Matthew Seibel was born on January 28, […]

In 1966, The Sporting News quipped that “Tom Satriano has more gloves than [his wife] . . . not many husbands can make that statement.”1 “[N]o threat to [Olympic sprinter] Bob Hayes, or even [actress] Helen Hayes,” the slow-footed Satriano constructed a 10-year major league career with his adaptability at catcher and every infield position. […]

Left-hander Dean Stone spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, pitching for six different teams and compiling a career record of 29-39 with a 4.47 earned run average in 686 innings. His most celebrated moment was almost certainly his being the winning pitcher of the 1954 All-Star Game without officially facing even one […]

Jack Kibble’s cup of coffee with Cleveland in the summer of 1912 amounted to just five games, but with teammates the likes of Nap Lajoie, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Ray Chapman, it surely amounted to a lifetime of stories told at his cigar shop and sporting goods store back home in Montana. John Westly “Happy […]

In the 2001 Baseball Prospectus annual, this comment was penned for a White Sox prospect: “He’s credited with a strong arm and the athleticism to play center field and has been compared to Larry Walker and Dale Murphy.”1 Joe Borchard didn’t have a career on the level of those greats, but still managed to put […]

Through dedicated and honorable achievement, baseball executive John Heydler rose to the position of National League president, and the league became known as “the Heydler circuit.” He retired in 1934 after 32 distinguished years of service in the league office. J.G. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News called him “a veritable Rock of Gibraltar” who […]

Most pitchers toiling for the St. Louis Browns in the 1930s merited little distinction. Rollie Stiles, who was with the club in 1930-31, at first glance seems to fall within that category. A losing career record, an ERA near 6, a WHIP near 2 call for oblivion. However, Stiles does rate distinction, if only for […]

Guerrant McCurdy Scarce — the ornate Southern name could have been a Confederate general’s. Instead, just over a century after the Civil War, it belonged to a tall lefty reliever known simply as “Mac.” The Virginian had a fine college career and a promising start in the minors. In the big leagues, however, he finished […]

“Eleven saves in two months. That’s more than Schultz had in his whole big-league career,” fumed Gene Mauch in September 1964. “He never saw the day he could get us out before,” continued the frustrated Philadelphia manager.1 In the last 60 games of the Cardinals’ 1964 season, Barney appeared 30 times, all in relief, winning […]

For the two major-league baseball teams that called the Bronx home, the 1925 regular season was dreadful. The American League’s New York Yankees suffered their worst season in over a decade, finishing in seventh place, 16 games under .500. The Lincoln Giants won only 7 of their 50 games in the Eastern Colored League and […]