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On Saturday night, April 10, 2004, the Boston Red Sox evened their record at 3-3 with a 4-1 win over the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. The win went to Pedro Martínez, his first of the year. The hit that drove in Boston’s first two runs, making it the game-winner, was a two-run homer by David […]
On the morning of August 24, 1974, the Boston Red Sox boasted a season-high seven-game lead in the American League East Division over the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles. They possessed the best record in the AL to that point. By September 4, this lead had dissipated, the Orioles – division winners in four […]
After winning their fourth division title in 1995, the Atlanta Braves were on a quest for their first World Series championship, having captured three division titles but losing two World Series in the first half of the decade. Their chances were looking optimistic after they defeated the Colorado Rockies in four games in the Division […]
In a stretch of just over a year, Boston Red Sox shortstop Vern Stephens hit two game-winning walk-off grand slams at Fenway Park – one in August 1949 and one in August 1950. They were the third and fourth such walk-off grand slams in Red Sox history.1 The 28-year-old Stephens was headed for a career […]
It had been a very long week for the Philadelphia Athletics. They had played five games from June 13 to 20 and had dropped all five, scoring a total of only nine runs while allowing40. They had lost an extra-innings game at home to the Louisville Eclipse and had been shut out twice on the […]
After more than two decades as Expos owner, Charles Bronfman had become disillusioned with the business of baseball. He was looking to sell the team, and he wanted to go out a winner, so he had his GM, 32-year-old Dave Dombrowski, make a move that wasn’t normally part of the Montreal playbook.1 On May 25, […]
A combination of fine weather, a state holiday,1 the largest recorded crowd at the South End Grounds to date, and serious Boston batting made the Beaneaters’ 1896 home opener an event to be remembered for some time, although not for the quality of the baseball. In 1896 the South End Grounds in its third iteration […]
“He has that old stroke back and he’s swinging a fast bat again.” — Pittsburgh Pirates batting coach George Sisler on Bob Skinner during spring training in 1960.1 A new decade of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball dawned in 1960. One couldn’t blame the team for bidding a fond farewell to the 1950s. From 1950 to […]
It was still early in the 1919 season, one in which the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant. The Boston Red Sox – World Series champions from the year before – were headed for sixth place, percentage points behind the fifth-place St. Louis Browns, 20½ games back. Indeed, a “Sox” team had won […]
George Scott. Fred Lynn. Butch Hobson. Bernie Carbo. Lynn again. Jim Rice. Carl Yastrzemski. Scott again. Every one of these Red Sox players hit a home run in the July 4, 1977, game at Fenway Park against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Red Sox came into the game having lost nine in a row. They […]
For both major leagues, 1912 “was a banner year for streaks by pitchers,” as noted at the start of a SABR article on such accomplishments.1 Future Hall of Famers in each league had already tied or set records for consecutive wins as the Tigers prepared to face Red Sox ace Joe Wood during the second […]
Hank Aaron quietly and unassumingly approached another significant career milestone. Eighteen seasons into his major-league career in April 1971, the 37-year-old Aaron was one home run shy of joining two fellow sluggers, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, as the only players in baseball history with at least 600 career homers. Ruth topped the leaderboard with […]
The 1916 season began with the reigning world champion Boston Red Sox featuring much the same roster as the year before. The two major changes were the loss of Tris Speaker and Smoky Joe Wood. Considering their iconic status, one might have expected the losses to have hurt more than they did. Tillie Walker took […]
Dave “Boo” Ferriss came out of nowhere to win 21 games in his rookie season of 1945. With many of the major-league players still in military service during World War II in 1945 and rosters consequently being filled with many less experienced players, there was speculation that Ferriss was just a flash in the pan […]
Red Sox fans — just shy of 30,000 — filed into Fenway Park hoping for some early September magic which could kickstart a final push. It was a Wednesday night game against the Angels, and the Sox were in third place in the Al East, though just 5½ games behind the Blue Jays. The Tigers […]
The 1961 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees moved to Cincinnati’s Crosley Field for a pivotal third game with the Series tied at a game apiece. The Reds, under temperamental manager Fred Hutchinson, had won the National League pennant by four games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 They were in […]
A huge man for the Deadball Era, standing 6’2″ and weighing 214 lbs., Orval Overall was a right-handed curveball specialist who compiled a lifetime 108-71 record and 2.23 ERA, the eighth best ERA in major-league history. “Overall pitches his curve with a wide, sweeping overhand swing, releasing the ball over the side of the index […]
Del Pratt was arguably the second-best second baseman of the second decade of the 20th century. And his argumentative nature led The New York Times’ John Kieran to call him “the greatest clubhouse lawyer baseball ever knew.” Pratt was born into a well-off family on January 10, 1888, in Walhalla, South Carolina, near the Georgia-North […]
During the fourth game of the 1927 World Series, Pittsburgh hurler Johnny Miljus threw a wild pitch in the ninth inning that scored Earle Combs from third base, completing a sweep by the New York Yankees. Perhaps the happiest player that day was New York shortstop Mark Koenig. His .500 batting average in the Series […]
Buck Herzog was one of the most versatile infielders in the history of the major leagues; his 1,493 games were divided almost equally among second base, shortstop, and third base. His motto, “When you get ’em down, choke ’em,” earned him the nickname “Choke ‘Em Charley.” John McGraw signed Herzog for the New York Giants […]
It would not be inaccurate to call the 1929 Cubs team president William L. Veeck’s crowning achievement. Arguably baseball’s strongest franchise — even the Ruth/Gehrig New York Yankees could not have been rated higher at this juncture — the Cubs had been built player by player over a decade by Veeck, with assistance from keen […]
Michael James Ryan was born on November 25, 1941 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, to parents John and Lorraine Ryan. He was born into athletic stock, his father John a tackle who nearly made the Boston Yanks of the National Football League. His grandfather’s cousin Jack Ryan had been a major-league ballplayer, breaking in with Louisville of […]
Many people can go through an entire life without a lifelong friend and even if they have one, at some point they will be separated for many years. The friendship of Jim Frey and Don Zimmer not only has endured for many decades since childhood, but the two spent the bulk of their friendship in […]
Behind the scenes maneuvering resulted in Bud Lally being added to the National League’s staff of umpires for the second half of the 1896 season. In an era of rough and tumble baseball, Lally’s experience as a professional boxer was thought to be an asset. But his lack of knowledge and experience soon became apparent, […]