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It was an unusual news story in a summer full of them. In the first week of July 1969, newspapers in Maine reported that Portland TV station WMTW, southern Maine’s home for Boston Red Sox telecasts, would also carry five New York Mets games “by special arrangement” that month.1 A station official said the Mets […]

It was the top of the ninth inning with a runner on first and one out. The date was September 15, 1979, and the visiting Boston Red Sox had a comfortable 5-2 lead over the Baltimore Orioles. The batter hit a ground ball to the shortstop, but instead of turning two to end the inning, […]

It was Ladies’ Day at Kansas City’s Gordon and Koppel Field on July 17, 1914, as the hometown Packers hosted the Chicago Federals and, according to the press, the crowd of 3,000 fans consisted of “mostly women.”1 Both the ladies and gentlemen who were present were no doubt pleased as “the battle probably was the […]

When fog rolls in, anything can happen. Just imagine a film noir detective pursuing a suspect through a murky mist, or a Lovecraftian horror story in which thick clouds hide unspeakable terror. The Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Rangers and Trois-Rivieres (Quebec) Aigles1 of the Double-A Eastern League encountered their own kind of drama on June 26, 1972, […]

The 1952 baseball season had turned the page to May, and the season’s stories were just starting to bloom like ivy on the brick walls of Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs led the National League with nine wins (against four losses), yet were percentage points behind the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers, who had a record of […]

The mood was gloomy and subdued at Sportsman’s Park in the Gateway City on October 4, 1930, as the Cardinals prepared to face the seemingly invincible Philadelphia Athletics in the third game of the World Series, having lost the first two contests in the City of Brotherly Love. There was “none of the concerted cheering, […]

“For some time now large John has been in danger of being booted clear back to his Texas domicile,” declared sportswriter W. Vernon Tietjen in the St. Louis Star and Times about the Browns’ embattled pitcher John Whitehead.1 The AP noted that the robust right-handed hurler almost “ate his way out of the majors.”2 The […]

The 1913 National League championship was decided not in the final days of the season, but on the final day of June. On June 30 the swaggering New York Giants overcame an early five-run deficit to beat the first-place Philadelphia Phillies in the 10th inning, 11-10 at Baker Bowl. Jim Nasium of the Philadelphia Inquirer […]

“They looked more like a softball team than a baseball team, but that was okay. They were different. They were allowed to look different. They were always in last place,” opined sportswriter Joe Falls about the St. Louis Browns.1 But this year was different. The Browns, a ragtag bunch of 4Fs and misfits, were in […]

St. Louis held its collective breath when reports emerged at the beginning of 1943 season that pitcher Mort Cooper’s right elbow was aching. To call Cooper an integral part of the Redbirds was an understatement. In what was then arguably the best season ever by a Cardinals pitcher, Cooper won the NL MVP award in […]

Could a “blowout game” make a difference, or the difference, in a baseball pennant race? As much as a 1-0 “nail-biter?” Or a late-inning comeback win? Or the schedule’s final game? The 1948 American League pennant race was very close, ending in a regular-season tie and a playoff game. On August 6 four teams were […]

Nearing the midway point of the 1900 season, Noodles Hahn made history by shutting out one of baseball’s most potent offenses without allowing a base hit. Hahn, a 5-foot-9, 160-pound left-hander with the Cincinnati Reds, blanked the Philadelphia Phillies on July 12, prompting the Cincinnati Enquirer to report, “No-hit games have been pitched before, but […]

The first no-hitter at Boston’s Fenway Park was thrown by a hometown pitcher, but not a member of the Red Sox. It was by George Davis of the National League’s Boston Braves, during the Miracle Braves’ improbable push from last place to the World Series championship in 1914.1 Boston’s National League team was making a […]

“His beautiful swing never varies,” raved Chicago Cubs beat reporter Edgar Munzel about Billy Williams. “[It’s] a marvel of repetitive action. And it doesn’t matter who the pitcher [is].1 In the midst of a torrid streak in 1972, the most productive season of Williams’s Hall of Fame career, the Whistler, Alabama, native’s extra-inning walk-off home […]

Part of the 1903 schedule had the Boston Americans and Cleveland Naps playing seven consecutive games against each other in June. The first three were played in Boston (the Naps won twice), and then a four-game series was scheduled to take place in Ohio. The first three of these were played at Cleveland’s League Park. […]

Jimmy Piersall played 20 years of professional baseball, including parts of 17 in the major leagues. He is best known for his nervous breakdown and hospitalization during his rookie season of 1952, an ordeal that led to a best-selling autobiography and two movies. Few could have imagined in 1952 that Piersall would have 15 years […]

Eric Wedge was a chronically injured catcher and designated hitter who appeared in 39 games with the Red Sox and Rockies from 1991 to 1994. Wedge then became an accomplished field leader, winning Manager of the Year awards three times in the minors and in the American League in 2007 as he led the Cleveland […]

In literature’s most famous soliloquy, Hamlet agonizes: To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? Hamlet chose to be. Willard Hershberger chose not to be. Why? The slings […]

The older brother of a similarly short-tenured major leaguer, Frank Bell was a 10-game catcher/utilityman for the 1885 Brooklyn Grays of the American Association. Bell was out of baseball several years after his brief big-league audition and working in security when his life came to an abrupt end at age 28. He was fatally shot […]

At 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs, Vean Gregg was a lanky, loose-jointed southpaw who had a world of confidence, a wicked curve ball, and a roller-coaster career hampered by arm injuries. As a 26-year-old rookie for the 1911 Cleveland Naps, Gregg was only three years removed from pitching in the deepest bush of the remote […]

Best known as the host of the 1960 television series, Home Run Derby, Mark Scott’s career encompassed acting, serving as a television broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds in 1956, and five-seasons (1952-55; 1957) as the radio play-by-play voice of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Scott was born Samuel Marks Solomon on February […]

Chester “Red” Torkelson, a chipper sorrel-topped spitballer, lived out all his boyhood daydreams in the American League shortly before reporting to the army during World War I. Never recalled to the big tent, he remade his career in several minor leagues as a player, manager, and popular baseball clown. Chet was the eldest of Knute […]

If you were drafting players in a fantasy baseball league, you would probably rely heavily on statistics to make your decisions. But if you were choosing players for a real team for an actual 154-game season, your choices might be very different. The rigors of travel, game pressures, team chemistry and other intangibles might cause […]

The intriguingly named Smead Jolley had a lengthy 16-year minor-league career wrapped around four years on the White Sox and Red Sox. He was large for the era (6-feet-3 and 210 pounds, a left-handed-hitting outfielder who threw right-handed and was at every level successful as a hitter. But he had a proclivity for the defensive […]