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A season-high 50 SABR members and friends of the Larry Dierker/Houston Chapter gathered Monday evening, March 18, at the Inn at the Ballpark for our monthly meeting. We were pleased to have former players and executives Tal Smith, Jimmy Wynn, Larry Miggins, Bill Heath and Red Mahoney on hand in addition to Larry Dierker and […]

In 2020, SABR’s Baseball Cards Committee established the Jefferson Burdick Award, honoring individuals who have made significant contributions to the baseball card hobby. Eligible candidates include anyone who has made significant contributions to the hobby in such areas as baseball card research/scholarship; baseball card creation/production/innovation; developing/maintaining resources (e.g., publications, websites, communities, events) for collectors; and […]

The third pitcher selected by the New York Mets in the 1961 National League expansion draft, French-Canadian Ray Daviault (pronounced dah-vee-yoh) debuted in New York’s inaugural home game, at the Polo Grounds. He walked the first batter he faced, then chased him home with a pair of wild pitches. After two eventful innings, Mets manager […]

The defending World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates were in need of another pitcher early in the 1910 season. They traded a pair of players to the Boston Doves for a 26-year-old right-hander with one of the best curve balls in the league. Early in the 1911 season, an arm injury ended Kirby White’s major league career. […]

Bob Skube was an outfielder, first baseman, and pinch-hitter who played in 16 games for the Milwaukee Brewers during the 1982 and the 1983 seasons. He batted and threw left-handed. In 32 plate appearances, Skube batted .250 and had nine RBIs, all in the 1983 season. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Skube was […]

Ed Connolly was not a switch-hitter, but it appears he made a switch in his hitting. When he first signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1928, he was a left-handed batter but at some point he switched over to hit from the right side. Connolly, a catcher, was a Brooklyn native who’d previously played […]

Fresh out of St. Mary’s College in Kansas, right-handed pitcher Frank Bushey became the 25th and final player on the Boston Red Sox roster on June 14, 1927. He’d won nine of the 10 games he’d pitched for St. Mary’s during his senior year that spring, stood an even six feet tall and weighed 180 […]

Pedro Guerrero was hitless in 11 consecutive at-bats. In a 162-game season, three games without hitting safely is not atypical, but Guerrero was wrapping up an exceptional month, already having hit 14 home runs, one short of the National League record for June. Entering the final day of the month, the Los Angeles Dodgers trailed […]

Dodgers right-hander Don Sutton holds numerous team records, including career wins (233) and shutouts (52). (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The 1972 major-league season was winding down. Unfortunately for the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers, the year did not go as they might have planned. In 1971 the Giants (90-72) won the National League West […]

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Baltimore Orioles occupied opposite ends of the baseball universe in 2008. While the Orioles suffered an 11th consecutive losing season, the Angels were the majors’ lone 100-win team. Yet, when the teams played their final series of the summer, at Angel Stadium, they split the first two […]

On the night of May 17, 1996, a crowd of 40,612 came out to see the reigning World Series champion Atlanta Braves take on the Cincinnati Reds at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Atlanta took a 25-15 record into the game; they were just a half-game behind the Montreal Expos (27-14) in the National League East Division. […]

The 1999 Chicago White Sox, managed by Jerry Manuel, were navigating a season of mixed results. General manager Ron Schueler made a bold move by sending left fielder Jeff Abbott to Triple-A Charlotte on May 7 to help him regain his swing.1 Outfielder Abbott had made his major-league debut with the White Sox on June […]

Good-looking matchups on paper sometimes fail to deliver anywhere close to anticipated results. Two pitchers who would wind up among baseball’s immortals squared off in an early summer game. One would hurl a complete-game win, while the other would fail to retire a single batter. Burleigh Grimes and Rube Marquard had faced each other in […]

Willie Mays recorded 141 career triples and led the National League three times in that category. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   The Giants were in the middle of a 21-game road trip when they took on the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia (formerly Shibe Park) on Thursday, September 15, 1960. The […]

The Philadelphia Athletics spent most of 1909 battling the Detroit Tigers for first place in the American League. They were in first as late as August 24 but faded and were mathematically eliminated on September 30. It was a huge jump in the win column for the Athletics, who moved from 68 wins in 1908 […]

The first game of the Sunday doubleheader at Comiskey Park was a close, well-played, low-scoring affair until everything suddenly fell apart for the hosting Chicago White Sox. Starting for the White Sox was Buck Ross, a 27-year-old veteran wrapping up his seventh year in the big leagues. The North Carolina native was 5-5 coming in […]

The Boston Red Sox won the game in the top of the first inning. They just couldn’t know it yet. They were emerging from a streaky stretch. They lost eight games in a row, then won eight games in a row. They had lost 8-7 on July 15 when the Tigers rallied for four runs […]

On Sunday, June 14, 2015, the Tampa Bay Rays were in second place in the American League East Division and looking to complete a sweep of the AL Central’s last-place Chicago White Sox. The White Sox sent their best pitcher, Chris Sale, to the mound to salvage a win. Sale had struck out 12 or […]

Both the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Giants had disappointing 1948 seasons. The Phillies won 66 games and lost 88 while finishing sixth in the National League. This was the 16th consecutive losing season for the Phillies, a streak that began in 1933. The Giants did better, finishing fifth with a 78-76 record. Still, both […]

Fans of the Philadelphia Athletics could be excused for being confused when they walked into Shibe Park on August 17, 1934, and wondered which team they should support that day. The opponent for the A’s this day were the Chicago White Sox, and four of the White Sox had recently been wearing the uniform of […]

The Toronto Blue Jays went into the finale of their four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles clinging to their hold on first place in the AL East Division standings. The Blue Jays, who had held a five-game advantage over the second-place Orioles on July 23 and led them by 4½ games on August 2, had […]

As the skies darkened over the nation’s capital, the spirit of the brave sportsmen from Boston brightened. The scoreboard-watching Beaneaters breathed easier when the young man serving as scoreboard operator removed the 12-by-16-inch placard noting the innings. The temporary gap caused players to pause. Beaneaters players elbowed each other and stared. Then an “F” appeared. […]

On Saturday, August 14, 1971, a battle of the two fifth-place clubs in the American League, the Washington Senators and the California Angels, was a sidebar in that day’s baseball news. The lead story in the next day’s Washington Post sports section reported that at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh in front of nearly 31,000 […]

“If you think what goes on between the white lines has anything to do with running a baseball team today, you’ve got a lot to learn.” – Clark Griffith, Twins executive vice president and son of owner Calvin Griffith1   Entering the 1981 season an ongoing labor dispute between owners and players lingered over the […]