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It was only fitting that Tom Glavine was on the mound for the Atlanta Braves in Game Six of the 1995 World Series. After all, he was on the mound during the franchise’s leanest years, leading the National League in losses in 1988. He was on the mound for the Braves’ dramatic turnaround in 1991, […]

Major League Baseball dates its inception to 1876, but nearly all of the men who played in the newly formed National League had played in its predecessor circuit, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs, which operated from 1871 through 1875. The 1871 pennant race went down to the final day amid improbable and […]

Winning their fourth title, the New York Yankees crushed the Chicago Cubs 13-6 to sweep the 1932 World Series. Guy Bush started for Chicago and opposed Johnny Allen of New York. Both exited early. After averaging eight runs over the first three games of the Series, the Yankees got off to another good start offensively, […]

“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 […]

The St. Louis Cardinals were back in Busch Stadium, back home after losing the first two games of the 2004 World Series to the Boston Red Sox. They were hoping that the proverbial “home cooking” might help even things up. Their home and away splits hadn’t been appreciably different; they’d won 53 regular-season games at […]

Going into this June 1967 Crosley Field game between San Francisco and Cincinnati, the mound opponents seemed a baseball version of David vs. Goliath. Starting for the visitors was right-hander and five-time All-Star Juan Marichal, then in his eighth season. Only weeks before, after a win against the Dodgers, he had become, “percentage-wise, the top […]

They made an odd couple on Opening Day 1923 at Braves Field – a scowling, upright Midwesterner who had sat behind a federal judge’s bench, and a beaming, roguish Boston Irishman who had stood before one. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the Midwesterner, had a cold personality and a reputation for probity. Since taking office in […]

On June 19, 1999, Todd Helton became the third person in the Colorado Rockies’ seven-season history to hit for the cycle.  Helton had just four at-bats, but he had four different hits — a single, double, triple and home run — and he became the first batter to hit for the cycle while leading off an […]

The New York Mets arrived in St. Louis after losing an exhibition game to their Jacksonville farm team on May 2. New York managed to keep the Triple-A Suns hitless but still lost the rain-shortened game. The Jacksonville team was loaded with future Mets including Tom Seaver, Bud Harrelson, and Greg Goossen. Despite needing some […]

Owing to four rescheduled rainouts, the Terrapins and the Buf-Feds were playing their fifth doubleheader and 12th and 13th games against each other in nine days. Baltimore had taken seven of the first 11 with one tie, and the Buf-Feds were banged up and bruised. Buffalo manager Larry Schlafly might have done well to concede […]

For John Denny and George Hendrick, their actions absolutely spoke louder than their words on August 19, 1979, when the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the San Francisco Giants, 4-0, before a crowd of 42,622 at Busch Stadium. Denny pitched 6⅓ shutout innings and Hendrick powdered two home runs to lead the Cardinals to a three-game […]

The romantic affection which Boston always has for the players who have made big league history throbbed into thunderous beat.” – Burt Whitman, Boston Herald.1   The band began to play some old familiar favorites, including “Silver Threads Among the Gold” and “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” a grand beginning on that picturesque Boston day. Then, […]

July 6, 1933: the first All-Star Game at Comiskey Park and, in the third inning, the first home run – quite appropriately off the bat of Babe Ruth as part of a 4-2 American League victory. Fast forward exactly 50 years at the same venue, and another long-ball feat was achieved: The first grand slam […]

The Angels came into the August 29 game with an AL West-leading record of 71-56. Three weeks before, they had lost three straight and saw their four-game lead shrink to 1½ games. But now they had won four games in a row and 15 of 22, and were back in front by 4½. The Tigers, […]

“With an unmistakable defeat about to engulf them,” the Chicago White Sox “set the wheels of victory in motion in the ninth and kept going until a six run rally had provided enough to knock off Boston’s Red Hose.”1— Irving Vaughan, Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1931   Spring is a time for optimism. After finishing […]

Forty-year-old Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves was only three victories shy of 300 for his career when he faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 22, 1961. Spahn pitched just three innings that day, preventing him from pushing even closer to the magical pinnacle, but he did hit a second-inning blast into Forbes Field’s right-field […]

Pepper pot. Bulldog. Firebrand. Scrapper. Solly Hemus answered to all those descriptions in 11 years as a major-league player and 2½ as a manager. Also: racist. Two future stars he disdained and disrespected, Bob Gibson and Curt Flood, branded him a bigot. “Hemus acted as if I smelled bad,” Flood wrote.1 “Solly was a hell-bent-for-leather, […]

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 — […]

At age 22, crafty left-hander Jerry Nops was a budding star, a 20-game winner for the 1897 Temple Cup champion Baltimore Orioles. By age 26, his major league career was behind him, a sterling .637 winning percentage notwithstanding. Undone by alcohol abuse and behavioral issues, Nops – whom Cooperstown-bound manager Ned Hanlon once described as […]

Tex Vache was a reasonably sizable ballplayer for his era who performed well at the plate during his one year in big-league ball, with the 1925 Boston Red Sox. Even though the Red Sox of the day were in no position to be too selective with their signings, one can reasonably guess that Vache’s poor […]

Charlie French led off for the White Sox in the very first game played at the original Comiskey Park, on July 1, 1910. He played in 105 games for two Sox teams, Boston and Chicago, in 1909 and 1910, and then returned back to the minor leagues. French’s family background was England, not France. His […]

Robert Francis “Red” Daughters appeared for the Boston Red Sox in a game against the New York Yankees on April 24, 1937, and for the next five decades could reminisce about how he’d played with Bobby Doerr, Joe Cronin, Lefty Grove, Pinky Higgins, and Doc Cramer against Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, Frankie Crosetti, Red Rolfe, and […]

“If after five years in the Yankee chain, I still am not eligible for major league baseball, what’s the use of kidding myself?  If I can’t make the big leagues in this war situation, I should go into something that has a better future.”1  Those were the words of Joe Buzas when directed during the […]

There was actually method to the madness behind Charlie Finley’s idea that people would want to see his ass. Finley had some bizarre ideas when he owned the Kansas City-Oakland A’s, such as orange baseballs and designated runners, but even he didn’t go so far as to moon the fans. In 1965, however, he bought […]