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Earl Weaver did not go gently. Nearing the end of his disappointing final season in 1986, the Baltimore Orioles’ fiery manager continued to dispute umpires’ calls. On September 21, Weaver received an 11th-inning ejection from home-plate umpire Al Clark while arguing a catcher’s-interference call. It was the 97th and final ejection of the manager’s volatile […]

The Atlanta Braves’ offense wasn’t exactly feeble in the first month of the 1985 season. When they began a three-game series against the Montreal Expos on May 10, they had scored the third-most runs in the National League.1 Braves center fielder Dale Murphy, a two-time league MVP and baseball’s hottest hitter, boasted a .365 batting […]

After a one-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB All-Star Week returned in July 2021. The site was Denver’s Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies.1 Alongside the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby, one of the biggest attractions was the All-Star Futures Game, a seven-inning contest that showcases the most highly touted prospects […]

“You have a great year, and you can run into a buzz saw. Maybe this year, we are the buzz saw.” – Stephen Strasburg1   It can’t be otherwise. You are writing a story about Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg and your mind, filled with baseball memories, wanders back to June 8, 2010. The atmosphere […]

The 1890 Louisville Colonels – dubbed the “Cyclones” in newspapers in Louisville and other American Association cities1 – had already doubled their 1889 win total when the Syracuse Stars came to town for a three-game series on August 9. Baseball’s first-ever 100-game losers at 27-111-2 in 1889, a season that included the majors’ first players […]

While the expansion New York Mets were wallowing in the National League cellar, their affiliate in the Class D New York-Penn League was beating all comers. In 1962, when the New York major-league team posted a dismal 40-120 record, their affiliate in Auburn, New York, tied for third place in a six-team league with a […]

On the day after it hosted its 1,750th and final major-league game in October 1993,1 Arlington Stadium was described by the Dallas metropolitan “hometown” Fort Worth Star Telegram as “a child playing dress-up in a grown-up’s clothes” and “a minor-leaguer masquerading as a major-league ballpark.”2 In fact, Arlington Stadium was a converted minor-league park. Known […]

Already pacing the American League West less than two months into the 2017 season, the Houston Astros broke even further from the pack with 11 wins in a row. The streak’s most improbable chapter was on Memorial Day, May 29—at first a pitchers’ duel, then a rout in favor of the host Minnesota Twins and, […]

A Sunday crowd of 30,000 fans1 came to the Polo Grounds2 on September 24, 1922, hoping to see their defending World Series champion New York Giants clinch another National League pennant. They might have been disappointed with that expectation, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Giants 10-6, but they were still witnesses to history: […]

Boston’s love affair with Mike “King” Kelly fittingly began on Valentine’s Day. It was on February 14, 1887, that the Boston Base Ball Club of the National League agreed to pay $10,000 to Al Spalding and the Chicago White Stockings for the rights to the 29-year-old reigning NL batting champion. In its front-page story breaking […]

 Two weeks after the Cleveland Indians’ Larry Doby broke the America League’s color barrier on July 5, 1947, Kansas City Monarchs stars Hank Thompson and Willard Brown received a telegram from Bill DeWitt, general manager of the last-place St. Louis Browns. They were told to report to St. Louis for the following night’s game, making […]

The Brooklyn Bridegrooms routed the Pittsburgh Alleghenys 20-1 in the darkness-shortened second game of a National League doubleheader on August 1, 1890. In the blowout, Brooklyn’s Thomas P. “Oyster” Burns became just the fourth player in major-league history to hit for a natural cycle, recording a single, double, triple, and home run in ascending order. […]

George Magerkurth was a National League umpire from 1929 to 1947, one of the best of the era. “He had bulldog features and disposition to match,” said sportswriter Arthur Daley. “He had many faults but he was a colorful man of unassailable integrity who made rich contribution to baseball lore and legend.”1 The New York […]

Baseball in the 1880s was at times chaotic, with teams and leagues forming and folding, and clubs moving from league to league, often in the same season. One club from St. Paul even spent just a few weeks as a “major league team” – without ever playing a home game.1 The career of Jack Gorman […]

On September 29, 1956, three weeks after his 18th birthday, George Werley debuted for the Baltimore Orioles after an outstanding summer of amateur baseball. The right-handed pitcher worked one inning, then never appeared in the majors again. George William Werley was born on September 8, 1938, in St. Louis, Missouri. His parents, George Joseph Werley […]

Orlando “Marty” Martínez Oliva was a major-league baseball player, coach, manager, and scout who was best known for scouting Edgar Martinez and signing him to a professional contract with the Seattle Mariners in 1982. Orlando Martinez played for six teams in the major leagues, beginning with the Minnesota Twins in 1962 and ending with the […]

Newspapers across the nation carried a story in 1908 about a young lady who proclaimed to the handsome, square-jawed, southpaw pitcher of the Dayton Vets, “If you strike him out, I’ll marry you.” The pitcher was Earl Yingling, in his second year of professional ball, the young lady was Georgeana Florine Sausser from Lebanon, Ohio. […]

When Dick Newsome joined the Boston Red Sox in 1941, it might have seemed as though he would pair with Skeeter Newsome for a Southern radio program, “The Dick and Skeeter Show.” Or perhaps the “Heber and Lamar Hour.” The two were both Southerners, but not related, and neither was related to Bobo Newsom, the […]

A stocky 5’8″ right-hander who threw one of the wettest spitballs in baseball history, Harry Howell was the St. Louis Browns’ best pitcher during the Deadball Era, establishing a franchise record for career ERA (2.06) that has never been equaled. Howell learned his singular pitch from spitballing legend Jack Chesbro in 1903, and subsequently relied […]

“Blackstone is more worthy of permanent emulation than Mathewson, et al.”1 — Chattanooga Daily Times discussing Howell’s decision to leave baseball for law, December 12, 1915 A Louisiana State University Hall of Famer (although not for baseball), transported directly from the college campus to the major leagues; a three-game pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals […]

Pitcher Charlie Bell was a lifelong Cincinnatian, but his tenure in hometown baseball livery was confined to a single game — his final major-league appearance in July 1891. But that game was hardly Bell’s last appearance in a Cincinnati uniform. Beginning around 1898 and for close to 30 years thereafter, Bell proudly wore the blue […]

Baseball fans remember Game One of the 1954 World Series for New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays’ spectacular over-the-shoulder catch of Cleveland Indians slugger Vic Wertz’s towering eighth-inning drive. For 13-year-old Jimmy Barbieri, however, it was the first pitch of this fall classic that was most memorable – not Giants starter Sal Maglie’s opening […]

If you’re a fifth-place team like the 1908 Boston Red Sox, and you have a pitcher who was a 20-game winner in the minors and appears in one game for you, throwing a late-season 4-0 shutout against New York, don’t you bring him back? Jim Brady threw that shutout – but didn’t return to the […]

Who was George Whiteman? This is oversimplifying things, but in some ways he was a cross between Roy Hobbs and Crash Davis. Eleven years after having a cup of coffee with Boston and five years after having another one with the Yankees, he became an unlikely World Series hero for the 1918 Red Sox. Then he went back […]