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On August 5, 1932, Tigers pitcher Tommy Bridges sent the Navin Field crowd of 7,500 home with a terrific tale to tell their friends, colleagues, and families throughout subsequent decades. They almost saw a perfect game. Bridges got close to breathing the rarefied air previously enjoyed by Lee Richmond, John Montgomery Ward, Cy Young, Addie […]

The last-place Baltimore Orioles were 36 games behind the league-leading Cleveland Indians. They were hosting the sixth-place Boston Red Sox, who themselves were 30 games behind Cleveland. This Friday evening game at Memorial Stadium wasn’t likely to mean a lot in the standings. Nonetheless, fan interest in Baltimore remained solid during the Orioles’ first season […]

The Yankees (née Highlanders) had spent most of their early years in the American League as also-rans, playing second fiddle to the Giants in New York, even serving as their tenants at the Polo Grounds. But their addition of Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox prior to the 1920 season – in the largest […]

The St. Louis Cardinals had their most exemplary offensive performance of the 1921 season on June 21. Mother Nature had provided a brief hiatus for the team; this game was initially scheduled for a day earlier, but “[a] terrific rain, hail, and wind storm hit the town just before game time”1 and forced rescheduling of […]

The September 30 doubleheader between the New York Yankees and visiting Boston Red Sox turned out to be the last two games of the 1939 regular season for both teams. Another doubleheader was scheduled for the next day, but it was rained out. It’s a good thing for Red Sox right fielder Ted Williams that […]

This one was not only a game-winner; it was also a pennant-clincher. And the only inside-the-park homer Ted Williams ever hit. The champagne that had traveled with the Boston Red Sox from Washington to Philadelphia and then to Detroit was again placed on a train and traveled on to Cleveland. One never would have guessed […]

The Philadelphia Phillies opened newly built Veterans Stadium for the 1971 season after occupying Connie Mack Stadium in downtown Philadelphia since 1938. (The A’s had first opened the park in 1909.) Through its first two months of game action, the new multipurpose facility in South Philadelphia was gaining a reputation as a hitters’ park. Describing […]

The death of pitcher Bob Miller in September 2020 left only one survivor from the Philadelphia Phillies 1950 Whiz Kids, left-handed hurler Curt Simmons. Simmons was a key member of that 1950 pitching staff, going 17-8 during the pennant-winning season. Late in the season, he was called up to active duty in the Army and […]

Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”1 For the second time in less than three weeks, Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich had a perfect day at the plate while hitting for the cycle. Further, this accomplishment was against the same team (the Cincinnati Reds) victimized by his first cycle, which took place on August […]

The Sunday game at Handlan’s Park1 on September 19, 1915, drew an estimated crowd of 13,000 to watch the second-place St. Louis Terriers square off against the last-place Baltimore Terrapins.2 The Terriers, who had a record of 17-10-2 since August 23, were locked in a hotly contested three-team battle for the Federal League pennant. They […]

Mark Brouhard was a moon-faced reserve outfielder with some power and limited playing time for the Brewers in 1982. But in Game Four of the American League Championship Series against the California Angels, Brouhard was a hero. He drove in three runs with a single, double, and a home run, and scored an ALCS-record four […]

Rick Wise was a welcome success story for the Philadelphia Phillies. After he pitched his Portland, Oregon, high school to a state championship in 1963, the Phillies signed the 17-year- old to a major-league contract. Based on his $12,000 signing bonus, Wise was considered a “bonus baby.” The rules at the time required that he […]

Babe Ruth was on fire. He had already hit 14 home runs in September 1927, the most recent one being a grand slam on the 27th. No one had hit that many in a single month. His most recent blast was the first grand slam he hit all season and just the ninth of his […]

Already the author of both a pair of one-hitters and two-hitters in his fledgling career, Silvio Martinez of the St. Louis Cardinals came within four outs of a no-hitter against the high-flying Montreal Expos on June 27, 1979, at Busch Stadium. Backup catcher Duffy Dyer, with a lifetime .232 batting average entering the 1979 season, […]

Led by player-manager Ty Cobb, the third-place Tigers met the second-place Yankees for a four-game series in mid-June of 1921 at the Polo Grounds, hoping to leapfrog Babe Ruth and Co. in the American League standings. Only two games separated the teams, while the first-place Cleveland Indians led New York by just 2½ games. The 34-year-old Cobb was on his way to 197 hits in his 17th big-league […]

Home Runs and Comiskey Park. Those two didn’t mix much for most of the ballpark’s 80-year existence. When it opened it 1910, the Base Ball Palace of the World, as it was known, had dimensions of 420 feet in center field, 363 feet at the foul poles, and 382 feet in the power alley.1 Though […]

“It was a new pitching motion that did it for me,” explained Chicago White Sox right-hander Bob Keegan after tossing a no-hitter.1 Finally heeding the advice of skipper Al Lopez and pitching coach Ray Berres to slow down his preliminary motion before throwing the ball, Keegan baffled the Washington Senators, disrupting their timing and keeping […]

When the Yankees took the field at Comiskey Park on Chicago’s South Side, the question wasn’t whether the Bombers would capture their seventh pennant in eight years since Casey Stengel took over as skipper in 1949, but rather when they would clinch. Catapulted by a 27-6 run, which ended on July 30, the front-running Yankees […]

Born and raised in the northern St. Louis suburb of Maryland Heights, Missouri, John Fulgham grew up a Cardinals fan who imagined playing for his hometown team.1 His fantasy became reality on June 19, 1979, when Fulgham made his major-league debut with the Cardinals against the San Diego Padres. It wasn’t merely a postscript appearance […]

Once the Royals won the first game of the 2015 ALCS, the game plan for the rest of the series seemed simple. Win Game Two, pick up a win in one of the three games in Toronto, and come home needing to win just one of the last two games to advance to the World […]

Major-league baseball saw four Hall of Fame careers come to an end after the 1993 season: George Brett, Carlton Fisk, Nolan Ryan, and Robin Yount. The Hall of Fame elected Ryan (491 votes), Brett (488), and Yount (385) to the Class of 1999 in their first year of eligibility. Fisk was elected in 2000, receiving […]

The Padres are well-known for not (as of 2018) having a pitcher throw a no-hitter. They have, however, been no-hit 10 times: by Dock Ellis in 1970, Milt Pappas in 1972, Phil Niekro in 1973, twice in 2001 (A.J. Burnett and Bud Smith), Jonathan Sanchez in 2009, and Tim Lincecum in consecutive years, 2013-14, plus […]

Not every pitcher starts his career on a high note, but Juan Marichal certainly did. The first major-leaguer he faced — Phillies shortstop Ruben Amaro — took a called third strike. Amaro was the first — and last — of 19 consecutive batters Marichal retired to begin his initial game on the mound for the […]

A crowd of 1,236 turned out to watch the second-place Louisville Colonels (41-27) host the last-place Brooklyn Gladiators (20-47-1) at Eclipse Park, in an American Association matchup. The Colonels, often referred to as the Cyclones in the Louisville press, had been on a tear, winning 14 of 16 games since June 28, including a stretch […]