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If the Boston Red Sox taking the 1975 World Series opener from the Big Red Machine was surprising, 95-win Boston taking a two-games-to-none lead over the 108-win Cincinnati Reds would have been a complete shock to the baseball system. And for the better part of Sunday afternoon, October 12, it seemed that the Red Sox […]

The St. Louis Cardinals held a three games to one lead before what could be the last game of the 1967 World Series. “It’s as one-sided as a cat eating a canary,” wrote Jim Murray in the Los Angeles Times.1 The Cards had overpowered the Boston Red Sox. They out-hit, out-ran, and with the exception […]

In late April of 1967, the Detroit Tigers traveled to Baltimore to play four games against the defending world champion Orioles at Memorial Stadium. The Orioles’ Dave McNally bested the Tigers’ Denny McLain in the first contest, 5-3. Detroit’s Mickey Lolich evened the score the following day by defeating Wally Bunker, 4-2. On April 30, […]

Dave “Boo” Ferriss, an ex-G.I. discharged from the Army Air Corps in February 1945, began his major-league career with an astonishing eight consecutive wins for the Boston Red Sox in 1945. His achievement was even more remarkable given that he had only one season in the minor leagues before becoming a major leaguer. In his […]

It was a brilliant day for a ballgame. The skies were clear and azure blue, the temperature in the low 80s. Wednesday, June 30, 1909, was the culmination of a glorious week of parties and galas in Pittsburgh celebrating the opening of owner Barney Dreyfuss’s million-dollar brainchild, Forbes Field, the new home of the Pittsburgh […]

On July 4, 1939, the Boston Red Sox engaged the Philadelphia Athletics in a holiday doubleheader at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. A “punch-drunk Independence Day throng of 22,030”1 witnessed a slugfest between the two American League teams. In the first game, Boston jumped out to a quick lead and had a 10-0 advantage going into […]

Baseball purists claim to love a 1-0 game settled in extra innings. Partisans of a particular team often take great pleasure in a true blowout – when it’s their team that comes out on top. Through the 2014 season the Red Sox have played in only four games in which they scored at least two […]

Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey anticipated that his outfit would be competitive and draw strong crowds during the American League’s first season as a declared major league in 1901, but even he was taken aback by how many fans descended upon South Side Park on April 28 for the first Sunday game of the […]

“It was a tough play I needed to make, and I didn’t make it” — Pete Harnisch 1   Somewhere around the fifth inning of a potential no-hitter, the whispers begin in the stands. Nobody uses the dreaded “no-hitter” term for fear of jinxing the pitcher. All anyone might say is that things are starting […]

The 1965 baseball season was one of great excitement for fans in Houston. Their National League team had moved into the newly built Astrodome and renamed itself the Houston Astros. The novelty of indoor baseball brought fans from all over the area to see major-league play in the modern air-conditioned comfort of the “Eighth Wonder […]

In 1889 the Louisville Colonels of the American Association were a woeful baseball team. Over the season, Louisville went 27-111-2, with a record-setting 26-game losing streak. The team churned through four managers – Dude Esterbrook (2-8), Jimmy “Chicken” Wolf (14-51), Dan Shannon (10-46-2), and Jack Chapman (1-6) – with equally dismal results. By July 27, […]

Although they had not yet clinched the 1919 American League pennant, the Chicago White Sox were already looking ahead to the World Series as they took a midnight train1 to Boston to face the Red Sox. Back at home, White Sox team secretary Harry Grabiner announced that advance tickets would go on sale to fans […]

“The St. Louis Cardinals are as bush as the name of the beer company that owns them,” sniped Boston Red Sox manager Dick Williams in his ghostwritten column, referring to the inside pitching of the St. Louis staff.1 His Hearst-syndicated column ran on the front page of the Boston Sunday Advertiser; the headline for the […]

In early May of 1980, Boston’s Fred Lynn was playing like there was no tomorrow. In fact, many in baseball felt that a strike was imminent, and that the national pastime might cease to be played. Players had gone on strike late in spring training, forcing the final eight days’ worth of games to be […]

But for a bucket kick, Bill Werber might reside in the Hall of Fame rather than be remembered as a good major-league ballplayer of the 1930s who helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to National League pennants in 1939 and 1940 and to the world’s championship in 1940. It happened in 1934, toward the end of […]

He began his baseball life as the mascot of his college team, but the diminutive Ed Burns grew into a World Series catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. On October 31, 18871, in San Francisco, Edward Aloysius Burns and his wife Louisa (née Schaufele) welcomed their only child. Edward James Burns. into the world. The elder Edward […]

Jimmy Barrett arrived in the majors with a brilliant one-month trial in 1899 and followed with five years as scintillating outfielder, superior batter, and speed darling of fans in Cincinnati and Detroit. Prior to injuring his knee in 1905, Barrett was called the finest throwing outfielder and the fastest man to first base in his […]

Over a major-league career that lasted 10 seasons, Elden Auker played for Hall of Fame managers Bucky Harris, Mickey Cochrane (who called him “Mule Ears”), and Joe Cronin (who severely limited Auker’s effectiveness by calling, from his shortstop position, each pitch Auker was to throw). Auker was a teammate of Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg, Charlie […]

Known as one of the feistiest players in baseball history, Edd Roush channeled that energy into a Hall of Fame career. An old-timer was quoted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1919 saying that Roush was more like the fiery old Baltimore Orioles of the 1890’s than any other player in the National League. The […]

 A nickname like Squanto is a pretty good clue that George Francis Wilson was portrayed as Native American. Newspaper stories remarked on Wilson’s dark complexion and Indian nickname, though it is possible that people just dubbed him Squanto the way they might call another player Nig (Nig Cuppy, for instance) or another such name. There […]

Shortstop Johnny Lipon played in American League games from 1942 through 1953; the one game he played in the National League in 1954 was his last in the big leagues. He started his career with a game that earned him a headline in the Boston Globe: “Lipon, Tiger Rookie, Called Star After Only One Game.”1 […]

Outfielder Joe Kelley’s sensational play on the diamond earned him the well-deserved title “Kingpin of the Orioles.” He along with John McGraw, Willie Keeler, and Hughie Jennings made up the “Big Four” of the great Baltimore teams of the middle 1890s. Kelley was fleet of foot, sure-handed in the field, and blessed with a powerful […]

Many major leaguers who have died while still active have met their ends in dramatic accidents. Their careers have been cut short by cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, guns, and—in one case—the Niagara Falls. George Prentiss’s death in 1902, one of the first recorded in the American League, was less sensational. Yet the 26-year-old Prentiss had […]

After Fred Thomas of the Boston Red Sox left for the Navy in July of 1918, third base was a tough position for manager Ed Barrow to fill. Catcher Wally Schang played there on occasion, but the hot corner was mostly played by a succession of career minor leaguers. All had strengths and weaknesses as […]