Search Results

In major-league baseball when a team dominates its opponents for several years, it’s usually because it has a solid nucleus of players. For instance, in the early 1970s in the American League the Oakland Athletics captured three successive World Series. In the National League the Cincinnati Reds were a powerhouse. Both clubs had a strong […]

At the end of the 2019 baseball season, 25 former major-league baseball players who had seen military service in World War II survived. One of them was Massachusetts native George Edward Yankowski, who served in the United States Army and saw combat with General George S. Patton’s Third Army. At age 96, this ex-catcher said […]

Guy Cooper pitched for two teams, the Yankees and the Red Sox. He never won a game for New York, never lost a game for Boston, and never made an error fielding for either team. Cooper came to professional baseball only after honing his craft in the United States Navy. A native of Rome, Georgia, […]

Chick Hafey was one of the first position players in the major leagues to wear eyeglasses. Problems with his eyesight did not prevent him from winning a National League batting title and being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.   Hafey broke into the major leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1924, and most […]

Before the 1915 Army-Navy baseball game, 24-year-old Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower led his fellow Army cadets in the “Long Corps” yell: “Rah, Rah, Ray! Rah, Rah, Ray! West Point, West Point, AR-MAY!”1 Playing left field for the Army team was 22-year-old Omar Bradley. By a score of 6-5, Army defeated Navy for the seventh consecutive year […]

Baseball is a game of numbers, so it is fitting to begin this story with the number Four Thousand Two Hundred Seventy-Two. No one had ever taken longer to get to the World Series – 4,272 major-league games as player and manager before his first Series game in 1996. As Joe Torre stated in Chasing […]

You would not be expected to play major-league baseball if you were five-feet-six and 155 pounds. Nor would you be expected to play on the left side of the infield if you threw left-handed. You most certainly would not be expected to spend nearly 20 years in a jail if you had never been charged […]

When pitcher Jack Warhop “has control he is one of the hardest men in the league to hit. For a little fellow he has a surprising amount of speed, and this, together with that peculiar underhand delivery, baffles most batsmen.”1 — Ed Grillo, Washington Star, 1911   Before the New York Yankees became a perennial […]

On November 12, 1982, Joe Altobelli was named the seventh manager in Baltimore Orioles history. Piloting one of the 26 major-league teams was surely an enviable position to hold. Unfortunately, for Altobelli, he was supplanting a legend. Earl Weaver, Baltimore’s field manager from mid-1968 to 1982, led the Orioles to six division titles, four pennants […]

There have been 34 major-league ballplayers born in England. Yeadon, West Yorkshire, in England was a “traditional Victorian textile village,” according to the Aireborough Historical Society. It was the birthplace on July 6, 1881, of Walter Carlisle, son of Ann and Matthew Carlisle. Matthew was a painter, per the 1881 England census. His mother brought […]

While appearing in only 176 major-league games over six seasons, George McConnell split his time among three leagues (American, Federal, and National) and between two positions requiring different skill sets (first base and pitcher). McConnell’s versatility hampered his development, because he could not focus on pitching until after he had passed his athletic peak. A […]

From his key contributions as a rookie on the pennant-winning Boston Red Sox of 1967 to his final games spent entangled in one of the most controversial incidents in World Series history, Mike Andrews packed plenty of memorable moments into seven-plus big-league seasons. And while his baseball career may not have lasted as long — […]

George Kaiserling was born to a German immigrant couple, Frederick and Johanna (Becker) Kaiserling, on May 12, 1893, in Steubenville, Ohio. He was the sixth born of eight, six sons and two daughters. His father worked as a millhand in the basic steelmaking industry and his mother was a homemaker.1   There is only data […]

On December 6, 1960, the American League awarded Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., expansion franchises that would play in the league beginning in April 1961. With only four months to put a franchise together, Los Angeles owner Gene Autry first hired Bob Reynolds as team president and Fred Haney as general manager. When it came […]

The 1882 Providence Grays. Back: Paul Hines, Jerry Denny, Hoss Radbourn, Jack Farrell. Middle: Tom York, Joe Start, Harry Wright, George Wright, John Ward. Front: Charlie Reilley, Sandy Nava, Barney Gilligan. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY, COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.)   Competing in the National League from 1878 to 1885, the Providence ballclub won the championship […]

As the Mutuals of New York prepared to host the Athletics of Philadelphia in a National League championship (regular-season) contest on August 10, 1876, the two clubs seemed to be moving in opposite directions. In fact, they were both headed to oblivion. The Mutuals had won 7 of their last 11 after a disappointing 10-20 […]

Usually the opening game of a World Series generates a great deal of excitement. Hometown fans are thrilled that their club has reached the ultimate series to determine who will reign as the world champion. While that occurred in 1942, it played out against a different, more somber backdrop. World War II was well under […]

When Fenway Park opened in 1912, its seating capacity was 24,000. In 1934, after a renovation under new owner Tom Yawkey, capacity increased to 33,200.1 (In 2024 the capacity was 37,535.2) With standing-room crowds, game attendance at Fenway topped 40,000 several times from 1934 through 1937. The peak announced attendance was 47,627 on Sunday, September […]

There was concern in Red Sox Nation as to whether Clay Buchholz would be up to the task of starting Game Four. The Cardinals now held a two-games-to-one lead, with Games Four and Five slated for St. Louis, where they had proved exceptionally strong during both the 2013 regular season (54-27) and the postseason (6-1). […]

“I didn’t know if I’d ever play ball again,” Eddie Waitkus understated during spring training in Clearwater, Florida, “not even when I came down here in November. Once I got down here I felt better. I didn’t do too much for the first month, just picking up weight. I weighed 140 when I got out […]

 Boston’s Tris Speaker, described in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as “the greatest center fielder playing the game today,”1 led the Red Sox in a 9-2 romp over the St. Louis Browns, as he hit for the cycle, collecting a single, double, triple and home run in the same game. The 1912 American League Bostonians were […]

“If a showman had arranged it,” opined the AP’s Paul Mickelson, “he couldn’t have staged a more dramatic finish than that of today.”1 The pennant hopes of the St. Louis Cardinals hinged on the last day of the season. A victory over the lowly Cincinnati Reds guaranteed the Redbirds the pennant; their loss and a […]

On July 8, 1984, before a reported crowd of 3,846 at Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium, the Pawtucket Red Sox swept a doubleheader with the Rochester Red Wings. The pair of wins, coupled with a split by the Maine Guides in their twin bill with the Syracuse Chiefs, propelled Pawtucket into a tie for first place with […]

In the middle of an instant classic between the Red Sox and Yankees, Derek Jeter made the most dangerous catch of his career, hurtling headfirst into the stands to catch a popup off the bat of Trot Nixon. The play kept the score tied in a game New York went on to win on a […]