Search Results

An excellent bunter, accomplished base stealer, and pesky left-handed hitter who usually had the National League’s best walk-to-strikeout ratio after his first few seasons in the big leagues, Johnny Evers was considered one of the Deadball Era’s smartest and best all-around players. He was just as well known for his fiery disposition. The star second […]

Ralph Theodore Joseph Branca was a New York guy. He was born on January 6, 1926, in Mount Vernon, just outside New York City, as the fifteenth of seventeen children. His middle name was a celebration of the first President Roosevelt, who also hailed from the Empire State.1 His elementary and high school years were […]

To the layman, the life of a professional baseball player is nothing but glitz and glamour. Large salaries, first-class travel and accommodations, and the adoration of millions are considered the norm for athletes who play at the highest levels. While that may be true for a Mike Trout or a Mickey Mantle, it is definitely […]

Benn Karr wanted to leave the family farm in Mount Pleasant, Mississippi, and see the world. He’d gone through the public schools in Mount Pleasant and spent a couple of years at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.  Then he was offered the opportunity to play professional baseball and he signed on. “I took a pro […]

Alva Williams hit .239 in his first year in the majors. He hit .239 his last year in the majors. In between, he played five years for the Washington Senators hitting well above that mark in each of the five seasons for a combined .276 average for Washington. That first year in the majors was […]

Decisively beating the visiting New York Yankees, 14-1, on April 10, 2018, the Boston Red Sox won their ninth consecutive game, giving them a 9-1 season record, the best 10-game start in franchise history. They had lost on Opening Day to the Tampa Bay Rays, 6-4, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, then won the […]

According to the way baseball statistics are recorded, Jimmie Foxx played this entire game between his Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns – and scored a couple of runs, including the winning run – but never had even one at-bat in the game. Six-time American League walks leader Eddie Yost picked up the […]

“For a moment, Watts had spilled over to the National Pastime.”1 The intensity of a rivalry that began decades earlier on the East Coast heated up once again as the Giants and Dodgers contested yet another National League pennant in 1965. Going into action on August 22, the Dodgers led the league and were being […]

In this game, 37-year-old Diego Seguí broke the Boston Red Sox franchise record for the most strikeouts in a game by a reliever, setting a mark that lasted nearly a half-century. After 10-plus years in the big leagues, spent mostly as a swingman for the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics, Washington Senators, and Seattle Pilots, […]

When the August 15 game between the Boston Americans and Chicago White Sox was rained out, it was rescheduled as the first game of a doubleheader to be played on Wednesday, September 27, at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Grounds. Having won American League pennants in both 1903 and 1904, Boston was the reigning league champion, but […]

As Dodgers fans streamed through Ebbets Field’s turnstiles on October 9, 1949, their mood matched the day’s weather: warm and sunny. “You could not have a finer day for a baseball game,” broadcaster Red Barber said as World Series Game Five began.1 Brooklynites were optimistic that their team of young sluggers, led by Jackie Robinson, […]

Gene Hermanski’s name will forever be etched in the long history of professional baseball in Brooklyn, dating back to the city’s teams in the National Association (1872-1875), American Association (1884-1889), and the National League beginning in 1890. Despite hitting only 46 home runs in his nine-year career, spent primarily as a reserve with three different […]

When Fenway Park opened in 1912, its seating capacity was 24,000. In 1934, after a renovation under new owner Tom Yawkey, capacity increased to 33,200.1 (In 2024 the capacity was 37,535.2) With standing-room crowds, game attendance at Fenway topped 40,000 several times from 1934 through 1937. The peak announced attendance was 47,627 on Sunday, September […]

Yankee Stadium was the natural choice to hold the All-Star Game in 1939. The game originated in Chicago in 1933, as an activity adjacent to the city’s Century of Progress World’s Fair. Six years later, New York was home to another World’s Fair, touting “The World of Tomorrow.” Companies like Westinghouse and National Cash Register […]

Roger Maris connects for his 60th home run of the season in the third inning on September 26, 1961, as Baltimore Orioles catcher Gus Triandos looks on. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   Sometimes it’s the statistics few know that tell the story. Or at least part of the story. If nothing else, they […]

Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, Eddie Collins is considered one of the best second basemen of all time. Renowned manager John McGraw, whose New York Giants clubs were defeated by Collins’s teams in three World Series, said, “Eddie Collins is the best ballplayer I have seen during my career on […]

Coors Field, the Denver home of the Colorado Rockies, commonly tops lists of the most hitter-friendly major-league ballparks. The altitude of the majors’ only park significantly above sea level gives fly balls a boost, and the vast outfield forces outfielders to cover extra ground.1 Any game the Rockies host in Denver can quickly turn into […]

The July 7, 1974, game between the Oneonta (New York) Yankees and the Newark (New York) Co-Pilots of the Class A New York-Penn League had to be delayed for 27 minutes while the sun set behind center field at Newark’s Colburn Park.1 Before and after that interruption, Oneonta pitcher Greg Diehl left Co-Pilots hitters completely […]

In the early twenty-first century, a significant portion of the action within professional baseball games consolidated around three basic results for any plate appearance: walks, strikeouts, and home runs. Baseball fans and analysts following this development labeled it the “Three True Outcomes” (TTO). “True” because walks, strikeouts and homers – in contrast to, say, around-the-horn […]

On July 23, 1917, Eddie Plank and his St. Louis Browns teammates boarded a train bound from St. Louis to Boston. In the age of railroad travel, the Browns – the American League’s westernmost franchise – were accustomed to lengthy homestands, and long road trips; and this trip would be long. St. Louis was not […]

Homer Bailey of the Kansas City Royals throws the first pitch of the game to the Detroit Tigers’ JaCoby Jones on June 13, 2019, at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo courtesy of John Shorey)   This time, it was Omaha’s turn. Continuing a trend of the major leagues playing games in venues other […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates “played headier baseball this afternoon than they have at any time in the series,” gushed Smoky City sportswriter Chester L. Smith, as the NL pennant winners beat the Washington Senators, 6-3, in Game Five of the fall classic to stave off elimination.1 The Bucs’ offense, which had scored only seven runs in […]

On July 22, 1917, rookie Swede Risberg’s daring baserunning and clutch two-out hitting propelled the Chicago White Sox to an important 2-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox. The triumph stretched Chicago’s American League lead over second-place Boston to 3½ games. The Red Sox arrived in Chicago on July 19 trailing the White Sox by […]

In Game Two of the 1951 World Series, Eddie Lopat of the New York Yankees bested Larry Jansen of the New York Giants in a 3-1 complete-game triumph at Yankee Stadium, knotting the series after the Giants’ Game One win. But Mickey Mantle’s knee injury, which sidelined the talented rookie for the rest of the […]