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The first player from “The Big Island” of Hawaii to make it to the major leagues was pitcher Onan Masaoka. The lefty’s 1999 Bowman baseball card aptly described his ability and his nemesis, command: “Pure power southpaw . . . Lively low-to-mid 90s heater . . . Gets outs with breaking stuff, too, when mechanics […]

Everyone has his baseball dream when growing up, but few get the opportunity to realize that one special moment. On October 12, 1956, the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers played the seventh game of the World Series. The Yankees had lost the first two games but had come back to win the next […]

Robert Alexander “Bob” Unglaub was, at best, an average ball player. One newspaper referred to Unglaub’s career as a “meteoric rise,” but in reality it was anything but. In fact, little in his professional or personal life was out of the ordinary, and his career was typical of the players of the dead ball era, […]

Scooter Tucker was not unlike millions of boys who have aspired to play in the big leagues. It was a dream of his from an early age to play professional baseball. His influential mentors as a youth taught him how to play the game. His sports role models were former major leaguers from his hometown. […]

Dave Jolly was 28 years old when he made his major-league debut as a member of the Milwaukee Braves. Both he and the team arrived in Milwaukee the same year, 1953. Over the ensuing five seasons the soft-tossing, durable right-handed pitcher became an integral member of the Braves bullpen, throwing 291 innings over that span, […]

Billy Moran joined the Los Angeles Angels midway during the team’s inaugural season in 1961, but it was 1962 in which both Moran and his club broke out in a major way. The infielder, who would spend seven seasons in the major leagues, posted career numbers across the board that season. In 160 games he […]

In 1900 Sporting Life called George Hogreiver “the very best base runner in the profession.”1 “Hoggie” stole 948 bases in the minors, more than anyone else in minor-league history, and he stole 48 more bases in two major-league seasons. Like Ty Cobb, he was a daring, hyperaggressive baserunner. “Daring, yet careful,” said the Des Moines […]

In 1976, Mark Fidrych made his major league debut at the age of 21 and took the city of Detroit by storm in a spectacular rookie season. He started the All-Star Game for the American League, won the Rookie of the Year Award, and finished second for the Cy Young Award. Of course, Mark Fidrych’s […]

During an interview with Ted Barrett and his crew during their July 2015 visit to officiate a series between the Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox, it came out that Barrett was one of a select number of umpires who have earned advanced degrees. Dan Bellino is another; he is a Doctor of Jurisprudence, a […]

Perhaps no other sport offers redemption to a player more often, or more quickly, than baseball. It can be a dangerous motivator for a young ballplayer. This is especially true for one who has been given his first opportunity to play every day. Or for a player who has been lauded for his skill on […]

It was early in the evening on March 9, 1934, as the City Light truck made its way down Fourth Avenue South in downtown Seattle. The driver saw a rotund older man step from the curb to cross the street a short distance ahead. The truck slowed to allow him to cross, but when he […]

Nobody wrote a song about Vince DiMaggio. It was his lot in life to be outshone by his kid brothers. He’s the DiMaggio who set the single-season record for strikeouts by a batter. Vince and strikeouts go together like Joe and Marilyn. He led the National League six times. He didn’t deliver the home runs […]

Fifteen years before New York City high school graduate and future Hall of Fame inductee Rod Carew signed with the Minnesota Twins in 1964, another “schoolboy sensation”1 from George Washington High launched his professional career with much greater fanfare. An accomplished four-sport athlete, Arnie Portocarrero’s “baseball appetite [was] insatiable.”2 Widely pursued by big league scouts, […]

Taylor Phillips had an outstanding career in armed-services baseball, good seasons in the minor leagues, and a six-year major-league career highlighted by being part of the 1957 world champion Milwaukee Braves. William Taylor Phillips was born on June 18, 1933, in Atlanta, Georgia, to parents Amos and Jewell Phillips. He had a kidney disease as […]

In the Roaring Twenties a new breed of coed sprouted on college campuses across the nation. She smoked, drank, and danced the night away at fraternity parties. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and was a gleeful participant in panty raids. She was giddy, was often called a flapper, and could be persuaded to engage […]

Del Rice was a major-league catcher for 17 years, primarily with the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Braves. While he was not a good hitter, his longevity was attributable to his excellent defensive skills and his ability to work with pitchers. He also knew how to win as a member of two World Series champions, […]

From 1970 to 1977, Rich McKinney was a utility player for all or part of each major-league season. His time in “The Show” was exclusively in the American League. He played for the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, and Oakland A’s. Originally slated as an infielder, McKinney also handled the outfield and designated hitter […]

His nickname of “Chief” fueled the belief that Elon Hogsett was part Indian. The press and fans just ran with it. Yet this lefty pitcher actually had precious little Native American blood. In a June 1982 interview with author Richard Bak, he said, “Am I really Indian? Well, I’m one-thirty-second Cherokee on my mother’s side. […]

The Joe Vosmik story is the classic American tale in which the scion of an immigrant family falls in love with the national game of the family’s adopted country. Vosmik’s tale has all the required elements: precocious skills, early passion, an indulgent father, a disapproving mother who later relents and shares her son’s ardor, obsession, […]

Rella Swamp holds the distinction of being one of the 17 original 1943 Rockford Peaches in the inaugural year of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Swamp played in one game as a late-inning defensive replacement and also batted once in a second game. Her 10-game stay on the Rockford roster ended as she […]

Ask American sports fans about Al Unser, and they’ll probably think of the four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 or his son Al Jr., who won twice in his own right. Yet decades before, another Al Unser – no kin to the race car drivers – played parts of four seasons in the major leagues […]

The only thing a team with players named Dizzy, Ducky, and Daffy needed to become truly legendary was a dash of Pepper.  And that’s exactly what the famed Gas House Gang St. Louis Cardinals got in their sparkplug extraordinaire, Pepper Martin. Johnny Leonard Roosevelt Martin was a leap-year baby, born February 29, 1904, in Temple, […]

Before Curt Schilling and the bloody sock in 2004, one player who personified toughness in a Boston Red Sox uniform was Butch Hobson. Hobson’s legacy is that of a power-hitting third baseman who brought a football mentality to the diamond in the way he played through pain and gave every ounce of effort on the […]

Hall of Famer Red Ruffing’s career is a reminder that you can’t judge a pitcher by his wins and losses. The right-hander lost more than 20 games twice while pitching for the last-place Red Sox and won at least 20 for four straight years with the World Series champion Yankees. Charles Herbert Ruffing was born […]