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On Tuesday, July 1, 1997, Canada celebrated its 130th birthday and the major leagues’ only two Canadian franchises met in the second game of the first regular-season series between the clubs. It was the inaugural season of interleague baseball, which meant this was baseball’s first All-Canadian series. Unsurprisingly, the game drew a sellout crowd of […]

Mention 1994 to a fan of the Montreal Expos, and chances are his or her heart will immediately sink. It was the best of times, but it was also the worst of times, and the worst of times came at the end, when labor troubles shut down the season with the Expos far ahead in […]

When baseball’s 1994 calendar flipped from July to August, the clock was ticking towards the beginning of the infamous strike that ended what may have been the Montreal Expos’ finest season and destroyed their last and best chance at glory. When play began on August 1, the Expos had the best record in baseball at […]

With due respect to Ted Williams, for Montreal fans there was only one Kid. And if any player ever bled the colors of a franchise, it was The Kid, Gary Carter, who became the face of the Expos and led it through sometimes faltering steps from being an expansion novelty to a contender in the […]

Baseball fans feel many emotions during the course of a game. They may feel joy, anger, euphoria, or despair. But rarely, if ever, does a single, ordinary play become a moving, lump-in-your-throat memorable event. It did on this night. The 45,757 fans who attended the game at Olympic Stadium on September 17, 1993, felt all […]

The 1948 Detroit Tigers finished in fifth place, snapping a string of four consecutive top-two finishes, including a World Series win in 1945. The hopes for a Tigers turnaround in 1949 rested in part on a player who had played in only 12 major-league games in his career, 22-year-old center fielder Johnny Groth. Groth first […]

In 1976, Larry Parrish had batted only .232 in 154 games, and his prospects in 1977 appeared cloudy. However, he had a torrid spring and was named the starting third baseman by Expos manager Dick Williams. Unfortunately the hopes of spring soon faded as Parrish slumped both at the plate and in the field, and […]

It was the weakest arm in the Red Sox outfield against the fastest runner on the basepaths for the Chicago White Sox, but in this wild and wacky season, the Cardiac Kids found yet another way to pull out an improbable victory. Gimpy-armed right fielder Jose Tartabull became the instant hero when his throw from […]

As the second month of the 1920 season opened, the New York Yankees routed the Boston Red Sox at the Polo Grounds, 6-0, behind Babe Ruth’s first home run1 as a New Yorker. The first-place Red Sox, coming into this contest with a record of 10-2-1, had beaten the Yankees (4-7) in their four previous […]

On September 28, 1972, the entire country of Canada ceased to function. Businesses closed. Kids were let out of school. The occasion was Game Eight of the epic hockey series between a team of Canadian National Hockey League players and the Soviet national team. The series, which Team Canada was expected to win in a […]

70 in ’70! Most managers get fired for such modest predictions, but for Expos bench boss Gene Mauch, 70 wins represented an 18-game improvement for the second-year Montreal Expos. And when he made that prognostication at a news conference in Montreal in January 1970, he didn’t see the number as a final result, but as […]

On June 6, 1945, Tommy Holmes of the Boston Braves began a hitting streak that ended as a modern National League record of 37 games; the record lasted until 1978 when Cincinnati’s Pete Rose established the current (as of 2014) mark of 44 games. The Braves connection remained: Atlanta’s Gene Garber stopped Rose in Atlanta […]

“Boston went baseball crazy again yesterday,” exclaimed the Boston Globe in a front-page story on Monday, August 20, 1934.1 A record crowd of 46,995 watched the Boston Red Sox take on the league-leading Detroit Tigers. This amazing figure “set a new American League attendance record for … young Tom Yawkey’s attractive ball park,”2 eclipsing by […]

The Boston media had a veritable field day when the Braves’ affable right-hander, Jim Tobin, belted three consecutive home runs while pitching a complete game to defeat the Chicago Cubs, 6-5, at Braves Field on May 13, 1942. “One of the most astounding feats of baseball history,” exclaimed Howell Stevens of the Boston Post.1 An […]

The Boston Bees and the Brooklyn Dodgers raced the sun for 23 innings, over 5 hours and 15 minutes, on June 27, 1939, at the Beehive in Allston, and the sun won. Despite 179 plate appearances and 33 base hits,1 the two second-division teams ended tied 2-2 when plate umpire Babe Pinelli called the game […]

“The Greatest Rhubarb In The History Of Braves Field” So said Boston Traveler sportswriter John Drohan in the September 28, 1951, edition of his newspaper, remarking upon the happenings at the previous day’s Braves-Dodgers tilt at the Wigwam. Brooklyn’s Dodgers were struggling to retain the top spot in the senior circuit’s standings. Their advantage over […]

St. Patrick’s Church on Magazine Street in Roxbury was in need of funds to continue its charity work in what was slowly becoming the predominantly black section of Boston. It was May 1949, and the church decided to sponsor a baseball game at Braves Field, a three-mile line drive away and home of the NL-pennant-defending […]

The New York Mets had their backs to the wall after a disappointing loss in Game Four of the 2015 World Series. They were ahead in that game through the seventh inning and lost it on costly mistakes that had shaken their confidence. The Royals’ confidence, meanwhile, was growing. They needed to win just one […]

Sportswriter Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune called it “one of the more remarkable comebacks in recent memory.”1 Fellow beat reporter Phil Rogers described it as an “edge-of-the-seat victory.”2 Trailing the Detroit Tigers by six runs in the bottom of the eighth, the Chicago White Sox staged an unlikely comeback to tie the game in […]

Boston Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth, later nicknamed the Sultan of Swat, began his home run-hitting career in a game on May 6, 1915, against his future team, the New York Yankees. A crowd of about 5,000 visited the Polo Grounds for an American League matchup between the two rivals. (In the National League on […]

“Everybody has been swinging the bat unbelievable and the pitching has been great,” said Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. “That’s how you win games, when everybody contributes.”1 The Cubs exploded in the finale of their four-game series against the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field, trouncing the NL’s oldest franchise, 16-3, the third consecutive game […]

The New York Mets and Kansas City Royals squared off for the fourth game of the 2015 World Series on October 31. Noah Syndergaard had fired up the Mets with his solid performance in Game Three. It was now Steve Matz’s turn to take the mound. This was a dream come true for the left-hander. […]

“The record books recognize only those no-hitters that go nine innings or longer,” wrote The Sporting News, “but [this] feat nevertheless deserves high recommendation.”1 Less than two months after tossing a no-hitter against the Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Braves knuckleballer Jim Tobin held the Philadelphia Phillies hitless in the second game of a doubleheader that was […]

The game took only 1 hour and 48 minutes. Before a crowd of 10,941 on the last day of summer, Baltimore’s Hoyt Wilhelm joined the record books by pitching a no-hitter against the New York Yankees. He started against Don Larsen, who had pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series.1 Besides the few […]