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How about batting third in the lineup, between eventual Hall of Famers Max Carey and Honus Wagner, in your first major-league start? Frank Edington could rake, and he gave the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates an offensive shot in the arm for three weeks during the summer of 1912. Yet as it turned out, the 20-year-old never […]

The earliest known connection between dentistry and the Boston Red Sox is Fred Anderson, a pitcher. You’ll find him in the record books, as playing for the Red Sox in 1909 and then again in 1913. It is said that he passed up an opportunity to join the Red Sox until he finished his dentistry […]

When looking back at the career of Rick “The Rooster” Burleson, the fiery, intense shortstop of the Boston Red Sox, California Angels and Baltimore Orioles from 1974 to 1987, a quotation from former teammate Bill Lee perhaps sums it up best: “Some guys didn’t like to lose, but Rick got angry if the score was […]

When a ballplayer leads the league in multiple offensive categories for only one season, it may be said that he had a “career year.” This term may take on even more significance if the player never comes close to duplicating the statistics he put up in his magical season. One might suggest that Ken Williams […]

If the fates had been kinder to George “Kiddo” Davis, he would have had the opportunity to display his skills in five World Series during his eight major-league seasons. In two Series with the New York Giants, 1933 and 1936, the center fielder complemented his outstanding defensive work with 8 hits in 21 at-bats, a […]

In 1970, Tommy Harper became a member of what was once among the most exclusive “clubs” in baseball. That year, his first with the Milwaukee Brewers, he hit 31 homers and stole 38 bases, thereby joining the “30-30 Club.” At the time, the only other members of the club were Hank Aaron, Bobby Bonds, Willie […]

“Now Ol’ Rebel Oakes come up from the South With some tan on his face and a chew in his mouth; When asked if he thought he could build up a team That can drag down a pennant and fulfil a dream, Ol’ Oakes, he say: ‘Mebbe so!’”1 Ennis Telfair Oakes was born in the […]

Twelve seasons in the major leagues. That’s quite a run at that level of baseball. Let’s face it, how many people get to live their dream of being a major-league baseball player? Looking back throughout the history of major-league baseball, Fred Kendall will be looked at as an average catcher who had a less than […]

Bob Osborn was a right-handed pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates in parts of six seasons from 1925 until 1931.  A spot starter and reliever in 1926 and 1927 for the Cubs, Osborn spent all of 1928 and most of 1929 in the minor leagues before Chicago made him a late-season call-up […]

In 1923, the National League Braves and the American League Red Sox, besides sharing the city of Boston, had a couple of other notable things in common. One was that they both had truly awful seasons. With a record of 61-91, the Red Sox finished at the bottom of the junior circuit, 37 games behind […]

For a certain type of twenty-first-century baseball fan – one numbed by too many pitching changes, mascot races, launch angle analyses, and Internet hot takes – a kind of mental balm can be achieved by contemplating an afternoon pitchers’ duel on a cold, windy, overcast day in South Dakota a century of Septembers ago. The […]

Frigid cold, a small crowd, and a career-ending injury are three things no one wants to see at an exhibition game. Unfortunately, all three marred the Boston Red Sox’ game against their Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on May 6, 1974. Temperatures in the 40s limited attendance to fewer than 2,500 people, and those […]

A warm, humid Sunday afternoon hovered over the west side of Cincinnati on July 16, 1933, as the struggling hometown Reds (35-49, in the cellar of the National League) got set to do battle in a doubleheader against the mighty New York Giants at Redland Field. The Giants were at the other end of the […]

 “It’s a great day for a ball game; let’s play two!” — Ernie Banks   It’s been a century since there was a tripleheader played in major-league baseball. Research has turned up only three instances of tripleheaders. The most recent one was played at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on October 2, 1920, and it definitively determined […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates hit two grand slams and beat the Philadelphia Phillies 10-0 on May 1, 1933. The Pirates had five future Hall of Famers in their lineup (Freddie Lindstrom, Pie Traynor, Arky Vaughan, Lloyd Waner, and Paul Waner), and all five had at least one hit in the shutout win. It was “a fine […]

Twelve games into the 1939 season found both the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns at or near the bottom of the American League standings. The Athletics had managed only three wins, with only one victory in their last eight games. They had scored just 18 runs in that span. The Browns did not have […]

In the early months of the 1952 season, the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox were battling for the American League lead. Cleveland had grabbed a share of the top position with Boston on May 8, and both teams won 10 of their next 21 games. On June 2 the two squads (Boston was 24-17, […]

On June 21, 1967, the fourth-place Boston Red Sox faced the ninth-place New York Yankees in the second game of a two-game set at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox had easily won the previous game, 7-1, behind the five-hit pitching of Gary Bell and home runs by Joe Foy and Carl Yastrzemski. The loss was […]

The 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates were one of the greatest teams in baseball history; during the season’s last weekend, they were on the verge of completing the season with an exclamation point. In the midst of a three-year reign atop the National League, the Pirates handily won the 1901 NL pennant with a 90-49 record, the […]

In 1910 attendance at the South End Grounds, home of the Boston Doves, was the lowest in the National League. By all accounts, only 985 fans showed up to see “the first game of the last series of 1910 on the local grounds,”1 a contest between Boston and the Philadelphia Phillies. The spectators witnessed the […]

The 1915 Red Sox won 101 games and the American League pennant, and needed only five games to beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, but they didn’t really get going until June. They had a losing record in April and were 15-15 entering the final day of May. The Red Sox were 3-3 […]

Bill Hallahan “cast a spell of impotence over the bats of the slugging Athletics,” gushed St. Louis scribe J. Roy Stockton after the Cardinals southpaw’s overpowering three-hit shutout of heavily favored Philadelphia.1 Hallahan “pitched magnificently,” in the eyes of sportswriter S.O. Grauley of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “His curve ball was just wild enough to keep […]

The New York Yankees broke a 2-2 tie with four runs in the eighth inning of Game Seven to win the 1958 World Series, reversing the result from the previous year, capturing the Bronx Bombers’ sixth title of the 1950s, and becoming the first team to win a Series by taking the final two games […]

As the 49-year-old midtown Cincinnati ballpark hosted Game Five of what proved to be its final postseason, it sported a new paint job, applied after the end of the 1961 regular season. Crosley Field was all dressed up in its gaudiest colors in years. The outside of the ballpark had a gleaming coat of white […]