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The Montreal Expos completed a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, August 16, 1987, by rallying from a three-run deficit to defeat the Bucs 10-7 in front of 26,134 fans at Olympic Stadium. Tim Raines hit for the cycle while Tom Foley delivered the big blow with a three-run home run to lead […]

Rich Reese could deliver in the pinch. He had two important pinch-hit two-run homers within a two-week span in 1967, one off Fred Talbot to beat the Yankees in New York and the other against Moe Drabowsky in the last of the ninth for a 10-9 win over Baltimore. 1 In 1969 Reese started hitting […]

Rich Reese had a .322 batting average in 1969 for the Minnesota Twins. He was platooned at first base with Harmon Killebrew, who usually moved to third when a left-hander was pitching. With most of his plate appearances (nearly 80 percent) against right-handers that season, Reese figured he wouldn’t be in the lineup against Baltimore […]

The Brooklyn Robins were on the brink of elimination in the 1920 World Series. They were down four games to two against the Cleveland Indians. Their offense had sputtered the entire Series, scoring a measly eight runs in the first six games. Since the Series had moved to Cleveland three games ago, their bats had […]

The 1920 best-of-nine World Series opened on October 5 at Ebbets Field, where temporary bleachers were erected on the outfield. In a tight pitching duel featuring just five hits by both teams, Cleveland’s Stan Coveleski emerged victorious, 3-1, over the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Photo: Library of Congress)   The Cleveland Indians were making their initial appearance […]

For the second season in a row, the Chicago Cubs claimed the World Series title in 1908 by besting the Detroit Tigers in five games. Cubs pitcher Orval Overall dominated the Tigers, allowing three hits in a complete-game, 2-0 victory. Overall became just the second post-1900 pitcher to strike out four batters in an inning, […]

Even in the nineteenth century, Opening Day was a much-anticipated event. When the Boston Beaneaters and New York Giants were rained out in their 1893 season opener, the New York Sun wrote: “The postponement of yesterday’s game as a consequence of bad weather was undoubtedly one of the severest disappointments ever suffered by New York […]

The Cleveland Indians had left Boston, and the Detroit Tigers arrived for a Tuesday night game with the Red Sox on June 21, 1955. Until the seventh-inning stretch, the game was a pitchers’ duel between right-handers Willard Nixon of the Red Sox and Ned Garver of the Tigers. Despite threatening weather, the game drew more […]

The evening of Friday, August 6, 2010, was to be a very special night at Turner Field in Atlanta. The Braves would play the San Francisco Giants in the second game of a four-game series, and before that game Tom Glavine, the former star pitcher of the Atlanta Braves, was to have his number 47, […]

Not often does a solo home run in the first inning turn out to the game-winning hit in a ballgame,1 but those were the circumstances of Ted Williams’s 383rd career homer, which won this game between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers. Over the course of his career, Williams hit 16 first-inning home runs […]

Sometimes a magical season begins with offensive thunder, other times more quietly. For the 2005 Chicago White Sox, the road to the franchise’s first World Series championship in 88 years began quickly: with a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians on April 4 in just an hour and 51 minutes. Credit White Sox starting pitcher […]

“Los Angeles really did it yesterday. It gave its Dodgers the goldarndest, warming, howling, confetti filled, big league welcome it has ever accorded anyone. And the Dodgers responded by winning their home opener, 6-5 before 78,672 in the Coliseum, a figure that broke four baseball records.”1 “The only records that remained in the face of […]

Much was new for the Minnesota Twins in 1987 as they opened their season against the Oakland Athletics. The team had new uniforms, abandoning the pullover jerseys and elastic-band pants that looked like pajamas, and switching to traditional uniforms and a return to pinstripes. The spongy artificial turf that had vexed fielders during the first […]

Opening Day is always a time for ceremonies and celebrations. For the 41,138 fans at the Giants’ home opener in 2012, this one was memorable even before the first pitch. The Giants were celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1962 World Series appearance. Although they lost the Series in seven games to the Yankees, the […]

Len Boehmer spent most of this Sunday afternoon in the New York Yankees’ bullpen, just hoping for the opportunity to play. The 27-year-old infielder had spent nearly eight years in the minor leagues, save for three at-bats for the 1967 Reds, before surprisingly making the Yankees in the spring of 1969. For the season’s first […]

During his 10-year career in the National League, Jackie Robinson got 1,518 hits in 1,382 games. His first safety came on April 17, 1947, against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field in the second game of his career. Baseball’s first African-American player in the twentieth century had made his debut two days earlier, on Opening […]

The Dodgers hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates for a Thursday afternoon doubleheader at Ebbets Field, with the Pirates only one game behind the Boston Braves in the National League standings. They’d been in third place for most of the season, but had tied for first for one day, June 16. The second game was a makeup […]

As more major- and minor-league ballparks increase protective netting around their fields to protect people from foul balls, it’s a wonder to think that years ago the parks could have used the netting to instead protect the players from the fans. In the years before and after the turn of the nineteenth century, it wasn’t […]

Fortunes turn fast in baseball. After Cleveland won Game One of the 1920 World Series at Ebbets Field, oddsmakers made the Indians 8-to-5 favorites to win the Series. Even after dropping Games Two and Three in Flatbush, the Indians were still the favorites, but at even money. Brooklyn would not go quietly. The Robins had […]

The Red Sox had played a pair of games against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds in New York on April 17 and 20. They lost both games, 4-0 and 8-4. The first game saw former Red Sox pitcher Carl Mays throw a four-hit shutout, beating Sam Jones. The second saw Boston’s Allen Russell give […]

Through 2019 the New York Yankees have played in 225 World Series games. On October 5, 1921, they appeared in their first, against the New York Giants. This was the first time the entire World Series was played in one ballpark; the venue was the Polo Grounds.1 An article in the Washington Post described the […]

Opening a four-game series at Wrigley Field, the St. Louis Cardinals won the 1930 season’s longest game to move within 5½ games of the first-place Chicago Cubs. Andy High singled in Taylor Douthit to give St. Louis the lead in the top of the 20th inning, and reliever Syl Johnson, in his 12th inning of […]

To say neither the Dodgers nor the Phillies had much success in the years leading up to 1939 is to say the least. The Dodgers hadn’t won a pennant since 1920 and had finished sixth or worse 12 times in the 18 years since. They had become so comically inept that they were being called […]

Editor’s note: This article was published in the Baseball Research Journal #15 in 1986. In December 2013, longtime SABR member Joe Garagiola was named as the recipient of the 2014 Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Board of Directors. By W.G. Nicholson Joe Garagiola has been a […]