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Monday, September 29, was the last day of the American League’s 1902 season. The National League wrapped up its season with a Sunday doubleheader in St. Louis on October 5. There was only the one game in the AL played on the 29th. The last-place Baltimore Orioles hosted the Boston Americans, who were in third […]

Of the 13 members of the Yeddo Royal Japanese Troupe, eight of them — including a 10-year-old boy — were among the first Japanese to play baseball in the U.S. Yamamoto Kinjiro, third from right, played third base for the Japanese team, and was called the “Belle of Japan” because he walked on a tightrope […]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Except if you’re Jerry Lewis. In 1966 this star of films, TV, and nightclubs contravened the accepted norm of celebrities wearing accoutrements appropriately reflecting the moment when honored by cities and their teams.1 After guest-hosting The Tonight Show in late May, Lewis launched a nationwide tour to […]

It was the 101st game of the 1933 season for the Philadelphia Athletics. They were consistently average, having spent much of the first four months of the season around the .500 mark.1 Manager Connie Mack’s dynasty was beginning to end. From 1925, when Mack added future Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove […]

The New York Mets were struggling to stay in contention in the National League East in July 1989. After winning six games in a row in the middle of July, they closed out the month by losing seven straight. At the trade deadline on July 31, Mookie Wilson was traded and Frank Viola joined the […]

The fans filing into Fenway Park for the April 24, 1992, night game between the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers must have been asking themselves: Would Frank “Sweet Music” Viola ever get in tune? The former American League Cy Young Award winner, 1987 World Series Most Valuable Player, and two-time 20-game winner had signed […]

It’s a storyline practically as old as baseball itself: An aging veteran goes back down to the minor leagues to prove himself, convinced against the evidence that his bat, arm, glove, and legs still have enough left to help a big-league team. In the spring of 1967, it was a future Hall of Famer’s turn […]

The Chicago Inter Ocean described it as the “greatest pitchers’ battle that has been seen” in the Polo Grounds.1 The Chicago Colts’ Bob Wicker emerged victorious, 1-0, in a grueling 12-inning battle with the New York Giants and Joe McGinnity. Sportswriters across the country praised Wicker’s performance and his string of 9⅓ hitless innings, apparently […]

There are a few reasons why one may see a position player take the mound. The most common occurrence is when a game is hopelessly out of reach for the trailing team and its manager wants to save the bullpen. The other circumstance – less frequent than mop-up appearances, but happening more often than before […]

Eight teams made up the American Association at the beginning of the 1891 season,1 and eight teams were around at the end, but they were not the same eight teams. The Cincinnati Kelly’s Killers, managed by Mike “King” Kelly,2 began the season in the mix but played their final game on August 16, as ownership […]

To paraphrase a newspaper account of the July 10, 1941, game between the New York Yankees and St. Louis Browns: It was Johnny Niggeling’s birthday, but Joe Gordon, Joe DiMaggio, and the Yankees got the gifts.1 Niggeling, the Browns’ knuckleballer, started against the Yankees on his 38th birthday and held them to three hits in […]

When he took the mound at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium on July 28, 1998, San Francisco’s Kirk Rueter was once again back where he started. Five years earlier, in his major-league debut for the Expos on July 7, 1993, the then 22-year-old left-hander had burst onto the scene by hurling 8⅓ innings in a 3-0 home […]

The pitching matchup for the third game of the four-game series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies appeared to be a mismatch. It featured a 33-year-old, 6-foot-6 Cy Young Award winner with 158 wins in 13 years – including a perfect game earlier in this season – against a 23-year-old, 5-foot-11 left-hander making […]

The name George B. Dovey is unfamiliar to most modern-day baseball fans, but in the early 1900s Dovey was well known in both the world of baseball and in the coalfields of western Kentucky. Born in Pennsylvania on April 18, 1862, he moved to Kentucky during his youth and spent several years working for the […]

The defending world champion Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees had been in a fierce pennant race all year long in 1921. On the morning of September 19, with less than two weeks left in the season, the teams were in a virtual tie for first place, as the Yankees hosted the Detroit Tigers […]

Boston’s Fenway Park is best-known for its 37-foot-tall left-field wall, nicknamed the Green Monster. Located just 310 feet from home plate, it is an inviting target for right-handed sluggers and routinely turns hard line drives into long singles and high fly balls into cheap home runs. But the Pesky Pole,1 the right-field foul pole located […]

“Sal Maglie sat in the Dodger clubhouse and performed the ritual of anointing his pitching hand. First he applied a base of liquid rosin. Then he sprinkled the fingers with powdered rosin. And when he was done he was ready to pitch.”1 September is the time when pennant races are decided. Just months earlier, could […]

When healthy, Eric Davis possessed a rare combination of power and speed, but he could never stay completely healthy in his career. Injuries and inconsistent performance limited Davis to 113 games in his first two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. But in the next five seasons, 1986 to 1990, Davis hammered 148 homers and swiped […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates looked forward to a late-May double-header with the Chicago Cubs as an opportunity to not only improve their 20-22 record and reach .500, but to also bring fans back to PNC Park. The 25-20 Cubs – who had lost their last two games and won only three of their previous eight – […]

How did a first-year pitcher with a 3-11 record and a 5.70 earned run average in Single-A baseball make it to the major leagues the very next year?  Right-handed pitcher Dave Gray was 20 years old in 1963, pitching in Iowa for the Waterloo Hawks that year. The next year he was pitching for the […]

In September 1941, outfielder Bill Endicott seemed poised for a major-league career. In his fifth season of professional baseball, he had a stellar minor-league résumé: three All-Star teams, including one that year in the Pacific Coast League.1, 2 He had also won a batting championship three seasons earlier when he hit .354 for Albany in […]

“Savidge has mastered the ‘finger nail curve.’ He believes it is an improvement on the ‘fade-away,’ the ‘boomerang,’ the ‘spitter,’ or ‘knuckle curve,’ and Manager Babb and veteran first baseman George ‘Scoops’ Carey, who have seen all sorts of new wrinkles from modern and ancient slab men, agree with Savidge. “The ‘finger nail’ curve is […]

A “flashy infielder” known for his fancy defensive work rather than his bat, Tom Carey played eight major-league seasons with the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Red Sox, retiring with a .275 batting average, 2 home runs, and a .972 fielding percentage in 466 games. According to St. Louis sportswriter J. Roy Stockton, the infielder […]

Syd Smith got around. In 1915 alone he played for two minor league teams (the Atlanta Crackers and the Shreveport Gassers) and one major league team (the Pittsburgh Pirates), and coached the baseball team at the University of South Carolina. It was not uncommon for players to start out in the South’s textile leagues, and […]