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There was a feeling of goodwill in the air during America’s bicentennial year. When 1976 began, it was less than 18 months since President Richard Nixon’s resignation caused by the Watergate scandal and less than a year since the cessation of military involvement against North Vietnam. But the Bicentennial gave well-needed succor for a country […]

Washington Senators outfielder Jim Lemon struggled offensively over the final five weeks of the 1958 season. In the Senators’ final 36 games, he didn’t hit a home run and drove in just three runs. After the season Lemon underwent surgery on his left knee. With his knee repaired and after receiving some advice in the […]

The Washington Senators had a good year in 1932 – their final season tally shows them with 93 wins, good enough for third place in a New York Yankees-dominated American League. The Senators got to their 93 wins in the traditional way – playing OK against the better teams in the league and beating the […]

A game-winning home run can come in the first inning, as when Ted Williams hit a two-run homer a little over a year before this one – on August 2, 1947, beating the Detroit Tigers, 2-1. In this day’s game against the visiting St. Louis Browns, Williams also hit a game-winning homer in the first […]

It all began with a Dennis Eckersley fist pump. When the St. Louis Cardinals closer struck out Marquis Grissom with the tying run on second base to end Game Four of the 1996 National League Championship Series, he wound up his right arm and unleashed his trademark celebration on the mound, then stomped around the […]

It was another beautiful, sunny afternoon in San Diego as the Padres took on the New York Mets. With Mike Hampton missing his scheduled start because of a broken rib, the Mets had to turn to long reliever Pat Mahomes to make an emergency start. The results were not good. Mahomes gave up 10 runs […]

The St. Louis Cardinals were in a fight for the National League pennant late in the1926 season. If they prevailed, it would be the first for the franchise in the modern era. Their chances looked promising on September 16: As they faced the Philadelphia Phillies, they were a half-game behind the Cincinnati Reds. On the […]

The Pittsburgh Alleghenys had a terrible first three months of the 1887 baseball campaign. After an Opening Day victory (that was also the team’s inaugural National League contest) over Cap Anson’s 1886 pennant-winning Chicago club and the defeat of Detroit two days later (in a game that included the franchise’s first-ever cycle, by Fred Carroll), […]

The 2010 baseball season was in the last week of July, and the race in the American League Central Division was taking shape. As the schedule concluded on July 25, the Minnesota Twins (53-46) trailed the Chicago White Sox (53-44) by one game. The Detroit Tigers (51-46) were two games back. Kansas City (42-56) and […]

Heading into the seventh inning down 4-1 is far from game over, but for the Los Angeles Dodgers playing at Chicago’s Wrigley Field on Saturday afternoon, May 5, 2001, it would take just three more innings to go down in history as the LA franchise’s largest loss, with a final score of 20-1. “It just […]

Chasing Philadelphia and Brooklyn in search of a repeat of 1914’s miracle finish, the Boston Braves needed to win just about every game through the 1915 season’s end. On this Saturday afternoon, Boston scored a season-high 20 runs against the Cardinals at Robison Field in St. Louis in the first game of a doubleheader. A […]

The “Rule of Three” is based upon a perception that things – good or bad – come in threes. That unscientific tenet seemed to have been substantiated in the first game of a Monday doubleheader between the Boston Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates on September 12, 1921, at Forbes Field. The hard-fought opening contest was won […]

Ted Williams ended his 1941 season, the one in which he was the last American or National League batter (as of 2020) ever to hit over .400, with a career total of 91 home runs. As May 1942 approached its end, he already had a dozen more. The Red Sox, though, were in fourth place […]

As the Cleveland Indians shortstop, Lou Boudreau had seen firsthand the damage Ted Williams could do at the plate. And as the team’s manager, he was determined to do something about it. Williams had hit three home runs and a single, driving in eight runs, in the first game of the Sunday doubleheader against the […]

Heading into the 1921 season, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Austin McHenry had shown promise in his two full seasons with the club. He hit. 286 in 1919 and .282 in 1920 with a combined 112 runs batted in.1 But no one would have predicted that his 1921 campaign would cause The Sporting News to proclaim […]

In the final week of the initial Federal League campaign, the Pittsburgh Rebels met the Baltimore Terrapins on the latter’s home field for a six-game series squeezed into three consecutive doubleheaders.   The Rebels had won six of their last eight games, including three out of four against the Indianapolis Hoosiers, who were neck-and-neck with Chicago […]

Late in the 1914 season, Brooklyn’s Ed Lafitte pitched his team to a 6-2 victory in the first no-hitter in Federal League history.1 In the second week of the 1915 season, Frank Allen of the Pittsburgh Rebels threw the first of four Federal League no-hitters in 1915.  Pittsburgh was 6-5 in the young season, in […]

After playing in five games with the New York Yankees in early 1912, Benny Kauff spent the rest of the 1912 season in the minor leagues with the Brockton Shoemakers of the New England League, the Hartford Senators of the Connecticut State League, and the Rochester Hustlers of the International League. In 1913 he was […]

The 1959 White Sox were noteworthy for getting maximum results out of minimal offensive production. That was never truer than on April 22 against the Kansas City Athletics. With the season in its infancy, the White Sox entered the game at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium tied for third place in the American League standings with […]

The Atlanta Braves were the prohibitive favorites to get to the World Series in 1995. The prior season had been shortened by the players strike and consequently there were no playoffs. But in the three seasons before that, the Braves showed dominance in the National League with appearances in a League Championship Series and two […]

The attendance at Cleveland’s League Park for a Tuesday afternoon game was pretty small at 2,500 — which might be just as well, because of the loss that Indians fans endured that day. Manager Steve O’Neill’s Cleveland squad was hosting the Boston Red Sox, led by shortstop-manager Joe Cronin. One wouldn’t have known it at […]

The 1979 White Sox were accustomed to excitement in Comiskey under the ownership of the promotional Bill Veeck, but it wasn’t usually from the ballgame. That changed on July 14, when outfielder Claudell Washington slammed three home runs against the Detroit Tigers. A strong player who made it onto the American League All-Star team in […]

After back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014 and 2015, including their first championship since 1985, the Kansas City Royals began the 2016 season with high hopes of a third straight trip to the World Series. With most of their roster returning, it was not an unreasonable expectation. The defending champions, however, got off to an […]

The year 1974 started as a season of optimism for San Diego as the Padres were rescued from their aborted move to Washington, DC, and ultimately purchased by Ray Kroc. During the offseason, even before Kroc’s name came up, the Padres, in anticipation of better times, traded for Willie McCovey, Matty Alou, Glenn Beckert, and […]