Search Results

On August 31, 2003, Florida Marlins general manager Larry Beinfest was furiously working the phones looking for reinforcements, as well as another veteran presence for his young team. The Marlins were in a dead heat with the Philadelphia Phillies for the National League wild card and had just lost their starting third basemen, Mike Lowell, […]

Tom Seaver pitched with the precision of a NASA engineer using a slide rule to calculate rocket trajectories. The boyish-looking right-hander led the National League in strikeouts five times; led the major leagues in ERA twice and the National League once; won three Cy Young Awards; and received the highest percentage vote for induction to […]

On July 23, 2003, the Chicago Cubs acquired the services of center fielder Kenny Lofton and third baseman Aramis Ramirez from the struggling Pittsburgh Pirates. The two Pirates exiles played a critical role in the Cubs’ rise to the top of the NL Central Division. In the postseason, Lofton played magnificently. He scored at least […]

The season was on the line for both teams. It was winner-take-all in Game Five of the 2019 National League Division Series. In the bottom of the first, the Braves’ dangerous leadoff hitter, Ronald Acuña Jr., trudged into the batter’s box without his typical cocky swagger. The crowd offered some obligatory applause, but there was […]

Mickey Mantle had done it 535 times before, so his solo clout against Red Sox hurler Jim Lonborg on September 20, 1968, did not appear to be highly significant. But when Mantle retired before the 1969 season, its importance resonated — number 536 was the last occasion for the Commerce Comet to circle the bases. […]

In Game Three of the 2017 National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals, the Chicago Cubs didn’t get their first hit until the seventh inning. The Cubs recorded only four hits in the game (just one off Nats starter Max Scherzer). Those four hits matched the total of Cubs errors in the game, including […]

“We were a rock star baseball team,” said right-hander Orel Hershiser about the 1995 Cleveland Indians. “You’d drive around and see Wahoo signs in almost every front yard. You’d walk into restaurants, and there were pictures of the players on the walls. I’d never quite seen anything like it. I get the chills just to […]

Even though they were making their first postseason appearance in more than a decade, the New York Mets were ready for the pressure of Game One of their National League Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Four must-win games over the previous four days had prepared them for the postseason. “Since we’ve been through it […]

The New York Mets outslugged the St. Louis Cardinals to win their 76th game of the season by a score of 8-7 in front of just under 50,000 fans at home in Shea Stadium. The win pushed the Mets’ lead in the National League East to 13½ games, ahead of the second-place Philadelphia Phillies. The […]

The 1936 All-Star Game was still five days away, but the race for the American League pennant was essentially over. The New York Yankees held a 10½-game lead over Detroit, the reigning two-time American League champion, and Boston. The Yankees had not been to the World Series since 1932, and were making great strides to […]

It was a clear evening in St. Louis as the home team took the field against the New York Mets. Although New York had lost 11 of their first 12 games against the Cardinals, they had won the three games against the team at Shea Stadium two weeks earlier. The Mets hoped they could continue […]

The New York Yankees (36-24) were in a fight for supremacy in the American League East. The defending World Series champions were in second place in the middle of June 1978. At the close of play on June 15, the Yankees trailed their oldest adversary, the Boston Red Sox (43-19), by six games. After posting […]

On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis pitched one of the greatest games in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, throwing a no-hitter in San Diego against the Padres. It was only the fourth official no-hitter in Pirates history.1 Given what came to light years later, the claim that Ellis was under the influence of LSD when he threw […]

On the evening of Tuesday, May 19, 1981, a scant crowd of 5,514 fans at Three Rivers Stadium saw Jim Bibby throw a near-perfect game against the Atlanta Braves while helping his own cause by hitting two doubles, scoring one run, and collecting an RBI in the process. Bibby later said it was the best game of […]

Darryl Strawberry struggled early in the 1985 season. He injured his hand on May 11 when he made a diving catch and tore a ligament in his thumb. The injury forced him to miss seven weeks. He was still voted to the National League All-Star team that year. (He seemed embarrassed by his selection.) Strawberry […]

Twilight-night doubleheaders, and even the traditional Sunday double-dip, are rarities in modern baseball. It used to be a rather inexpensive marketing tool for clubs, two games for the price of one. But eventually doubleheaders just faded away. More money could be made charging separate entrance fees for every game, so why not schedule games that […]

The New York Mets breezed through the first game of their doubleheader with the San Diego Padres in 2 hours 30 minutes behind an outstanding offensive performance from Bobby Bonilla, who doubled and hit a home run to knock in four of the Mets runs in their 7-3 victory. There were 19 hits in the […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers were coming off a 6-3 loss to the struggling Chicago Cubs when they arrived in Houston for a three-game series with the Houston Astros. Although the Dodgers held a two-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds in the National League, they had lost two of three games against the Cubs and were […]

It was Deja Brew all over again. Just a scant two weeks into the 1999 season, the Chicago Cubs were forced to relive one of the worst defeats of the 1998 campaign when, on September 23, they built up a 7-0 lead, only to see the Milwaukee Brewers come back for an 8-7 win. Depending […]

Game Three of the 1982 World Series was the first Series game in Milwaukee since 1958. It was the first World Series for the Milwaukee Brewers, who had entered the league in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, and the 13th World Series for their opponents, the St. Louis Cardinals. Milwaukee had a heavy-hitting lineup that […]

A new day dawned in Cleveland Indians baseball on April 4, 1994. After decades of calling Cleveland Stadium home, the team moved across downtown to their new digs at Jacobs Field. The open-air, baseball-only ballpark was the new jewel of Cleveland. Two days earlier, the Indians had a dress rehearsal against the Pittsburgh Pirates to […]

Joe Ross (1-0, 6.17 ERA) was on the hill for the Washington Nationals, who were trying to avoid a sweep at the hands of their division rivals, having lost the previous two games of the series 7-5 and 5-3. The Nationals led the National League East by 4 games over Philadelphia, while the Mets were […]

As the curtain came down on the 1962 major-league season, Early Wynn was oh so close to baseball immortality. Wynn, once as a dominant pitcher as there was in the big leagues, went 7-15 with a 4.46 ERA for the Chicago White Sox. It was his worst ERA in 14 years and his lowest win […]

Alexander S. Hoyle Jr. was the youngest of nine brothers in a baseball-playing family. He was born in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, on January 8, 1928, to Alexander S. Hoyle Sr. and Alice (Hazen) Hoyle. Because of the way his father filled out the paperwork, his legal name was actually Junior. His father was of English and […]