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Steve Rogers was preparing for a showdown against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the heat of the 1979 National League East Division pennant race when a reporter told him that manager Dick Williams had just said he would have preferred to start one of his good pitchers but that he had to go with Rogers. This […]

“He can pitch,” said Montreal Expos skipper Gene Mauch about rookie right-hander Steve Rogers, who tossed a brilliant one-hit shutout over the Philadelphia Phillies to earn his first big-league win in his second start. “Rarely does a man with such experience have the confidence in his control of so many pitches.”1 Described by Pat Jordan […]

On ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, a national cable audience watched the Baltimore Orioles set a few records as they pounded the Texas Rangers, 15-6. A crowd of 40,516 packed Oriole Park at Camden Yards to celebrate a promotion called Texas Barbecue Night, and they were treated to Baltimore batters “grilling a couple of Texas pitchers.”1 […]

Vern Bickford came close to a no-hitter on September 5, 1947, pitching eight hitless innings in the American Association as a Milwaukee Brewer against the Minneapolis Millers, losing the no-hitter on a lead-off single in the ninth by pinch-hitter Andy Gilbert. But he would not be denied on August 11, 1950, seven days before his […]

Buried midway down the front page in most of the country’s sports sections was the fact that Chicago right fielder Billy Williams hit for the cycle, propelling the Cubs to a 7-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a Sunday doubleheader. The bigger news of the day involved Jim Ryun, […]

It had been a long time for both teams. A very long time since either the Boston Braves or the Cleveland Indians had won a pennant and earned a trip to the World Series. The Miracle Braves were a true rags-to-riches story, winning the 1914 World Series over the Philadelphia Athletics, after they had lost […]

On a dreary Monday night at Cleveland Stadium, 22,456 fans “shivered through 3 hours and 1 minute of action,”1 including errors, arguments, ejections, a rain delay, poor pitching, and, finally, great pitching. On May 10, 1954, the Indians prevailed over the New York Yankees, 8-7. The game began with an explosion of runs in the […]

One of the attributes of the great game of baseball is the memories, whether it is of a favorite player, a beloved team, or a stadium. Perhaps the recollection is of the company of your family or friends at the ballgame. It is also the memories that are passed on to the younger fans by […]

April 16, 1972, was a big day for history in Houston. At the Manned Spacecraft Center (later renamed the Johnson Space Center), flight controllers watched as Apollo 16 blasted off with the next-to-last lunar mission of the decade. Across town at the ballpark, San Francisco’s Dave Kingman, playing in his first full season in the […]

When five Philadelphia Phillies pitchers stopped David Dahl without a hit on August 12, 2016, the Rockies’ rookie left fielder missed an opportunity to post a new MLB record. He’d hit safely in all 17 games of his career since debuting on July 25, tying a record set 75 years earlier by Chuck Aleno of […]

It was July 14, 1970, in Cincinnati, where the 41st Major League All-Star Game was played at the brand-new Riverfront Stadium in front of 51,838 fans. It was an era of turmoil. Just 2½ months earlier, President Richard Nixon had announced that the United States had invaded Cambodia to hunt out the Viet Cong in […]

The year 1942 was a pivotal one in baseball. Concerns that the season might be canceled were put to rest when President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the “Green Light” letter to baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, ensuring that the season would be played. The US war effort was in full swing and many of the […]

The American Association commenced its sixth season as a major league on April 16, 1887, with a full slate of games. In the top of the first inning of the Baltimore Orioles’ tilt against the Philadelphia Athletics, rookie center fielder Mike Griffin stepped to the plate for his maiden big-league at-bat and promptly hit one […]

April 9 was Opening Day in 1982 … at least, that’s what it turned out to be for numerous teams in the Northern cities of the major leagues. Teams like the Milwaukee Brewers and the Toronto Blue Jays were unable to play their scheduled Opening Day contests on April 5 after waves of snow rushed […]

April 16 is an important date in Cleveland Indians and major-league history. On that date in 1940, Bob Feller hurled the first-ever Opening Day no-hitter.1 On a cold, raw day at Comiskey Park, Feller accomplished the rarest of feats against Chicago’s South Side club. Feller struck out eight White Sox batters but also surrendered five […]

The 1959 Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant — the franchise’s first in 40 years — with a “small-ball” team that ranked sixth in the eight-team American League in runs scored (669) while allowing the fewest (588). Chicago’s 9-7 Opening Day win over the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium1 on April 10 was […]

Coming into the 2004 season the Padres had played 2,775 regular-season games in 35 seasons at San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium (1969-2003), a multipurpose stadium typical of other major-league baseball venues of that period. The opening of San Diego’s Petco Park represented another period in baseball venues, one in which stadiums were designed for baseball purposes […]

It was a few minutes after 4 P.M. on September 29, 2004, and the telephone rang in the office of Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams. It was Commissioner Bud Selig calling with a short but monumental message, “Congratulations. It’s been a long time coming.”1 Washington had a major-league baseball team for the first time since […]

The Havana Red Sox baseball team arrived in Miami in March of 1929. The Red Sox, who had just finished playing winter ball in Cuba, were stopping off in Florida to tune up for their coming barnstorming tour of the United States. The eight games they played in Miami before they embarked on the trip […]

The best winning percentage the New York Yankees ever enjoyed was .714 in their 110–44 1927 world championship season. The Yankees would have had to improve to 139–15 to match the .899 winning percentage the Boston Red Caps (71–8) held at the end of the 1875 season. It was as good a year as any […]

Bob Swift of the Detroit Tigers catches a pitch as St. Louis Browns pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel stands at the plate on August 19, 1951. (SABR-Rucker Archive)    Search online for a definition of the word incongruous and among several provided on the Merriam-Webster website is “inconsistent within itself.” Well, that’s perfectly clear. In other words, […]

On August 29, 1948, before a season record crowd of 33,826 at Sportsman’s Park, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals played in a “furiously fought doubleheader”1 that had postseason implications. In the first game, Brooklyn second baseman Jackie Robinson hit for the cycle,2 leading the Dodgers to a victory over the St. Louis […]

With only a little over a week until the 1935 All-Star Game, the St. Louis Cardinals played the second of a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. The visiting Cardinals (36-27) had lost their last two games and were clinging to third place in the National League, eight games behind the New York Giants. The […]

On June 4, 1951, a meager crowd of 2,343 came to Shibe Park to witness the third and final game of a series between Pennsylvania’s cross-state rivals. A month and a half into the season, the Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates were occupying the bottom two spots in the National League standings. The visiting Pirates […]