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Everyone watching the game knew Dave Roberts was put in to try to steal second base. It was Game Four of the 2004 ALCS, and the Red Sox had lost each of the first three games of the best-of-seven series to their archrivals, the New York Yankees. The third of the three losses hadn’t even […]

The New York Giants appeared to be well on their way to winning their July 16, 1908, game against the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs. But Giants rookie starting pitcher Doc Crandall suddenly began to buckle under the pressure in the ninth inning. The Cubs loaded the bases with one out, bringing the potential […]

More than nine years before Pumpsie Green first played for the Boston Red Sox – the last team in baseball to desegregate – Sam Jethroe played for Boston’s first major-league team, the Boston Braves. Jethroe’s first two games were on the road, against the Giants at the Polo Grounds, on April 18 and 19, 1950. […]

By the late 1920s, the longstanding prohibition against playing baseball on the Sabbath had largely evaporated. Not surprisingly, Puritan Boston was one of the last major-league locales to sanction attendance at Sunday rites in the Green Cathedrals of the national pastime.1 By order of the people, as expressed through a November 1928 statewide ballot question, […]

After the brilliant high of winning the first World Series championship in franchise history in 1919, the Reds remained competitive. Under the steady leadership of manager Pat Moran, the Reds finished in second or third in three of the next four years, a period of sustained success that was nearly unprecedented in the Queen City.1 […]

In response to the new “freak delivery” rules implemented for 1920, American League President Ban Johnson allowed teams to designate two pitchers who could continue throwing the spitball for one more season,1 while the National League did not limit the number of authorized spitball pitchers.2 The thought was that the transitional year would give those […]

Bill Moore’s major-league career was brief and unfortunate. Pitching in relief for the Detroit Tigers on April 15, 1925, Moore began the sixth inning by walking the only three Chicago White Sox batters he faced. He was removed from the game and never appeared in the majors again. Reliever Lil Stoner allowed two of the […]

With the passage of time, most memories fade into oblivion but some events will never leave one’s consciousness. The decade of the 1960s was defined by such moments – from exhilaration to tragedy, and from events in the athletic arena to events on the world stage. These moments marked, for a generation of Americans, a […]

Few baseball writers predicted big things for the 1926 Boston Red Sox. The consensus was that the Red Sox were still in dire need of improvement after three eighth-place finishes in four seasons.1 But manager Lee Fohl ignored the naysayers and remained optimistic about his team’s prospects. Fohl insisted the Red Sox would do better […]

Few rookies ever made a bigger splash in their debut than Chicago White Sox first baseman Art Shires.1 Most of the fanfare came from Shires, who nicknamed himself “The Great” and was also known by the sobriquet “Whataman.” The native of Italy, Texas, starred for Waco of the Class A Texas League, where he batted […]

Tom Seaver became a New York Met in a very unusual way. In 1966 a rule prevented any team from signing a college player while his season was still in progress. Since the Atlanta Braves had signed Seaver illegally, Commissioner William Eckert voided the contract and allowed any team to match the Braves’ offer of […]

Some baseball games, like some roller coasters and some horror movies, should come with warnings that their ups and downs are not for the faint of constitution. One such game took place on June 14, 1975, in the Triple-A International League. An umpire’s mistake spawned an unusual protest that overturned the game’s original ending, requiring […]

The names of baseball’s most famous lineups are familiar: Murderers’ Row, the Big Red Machine, the Black Sox. The people who make up those lineups are familiar, too: Ruth, Rose, Shoeless Joe. However, even baseball’s most prominent teams include men more or less forgotten to history. Of the nine men in the starting lineup for […]

Howard Camp was a teenage starter in the inaugural game of the Georgia-Alabama League for the Talladega (Alabama) Indians, later becoming a manager and umpire in multiple Southern leagues, and, finally, a Detroit Tigers scout. He was one of a quartet of New York Yankees to make their debut on the same September 1917 afternoon. […]

George “Jeff” Jefferson’s meteoric rise and fall differed greatly from the trajectory of his older brother Willie’s late-blooming career. At just 22 years old, George was pitching in the Negro World Series for the Cleveland Buckeyes, and by his 30th birthday he was out of professional baseball. George Leo Jefferson was born 18 years after […]

Was Babe Danzig of Polish ancestry, or German? If his father had come to the United States before 1793, the city that is his last name would have been – as it is today – Gdansk, part of Poland. But all but seven years from 1793 through 1919, the city was Danzig and part of […]

At least 23 major-leaguers have been nicknamed “Deacon” as of 2022, all but two of whom debuted before 1952.1 So, it was not Ray “Deacon” Murray’s sobriquet that made him stand out during a big-league career spanning all or parts of six seasons (1948, 1950-1954) with the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. Instead, […]

David Leslie Stapleton played his entire seven-year major-league career with the Boston Red Sox. An infielder and renowned utilityman, Stapleton made his lone World Series appearance as a member of the 1986 American League Champion Red Sox. Stapleton was born on January 16, 1954, in Fairhope, Alabama. He grew up in Loxley, Alabama with his […]

When Baltimore Orioles shortstop Bobby Floyd fielded the final out to preserve Jim Palmer’s no-hitter on August 13, 1969, it was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the little-used Floyd’s career. His was not a household name. The quintessential good-field, no-hit utility infielder who usually played only when a starter was hurt or needed a […]

A cursory glance at Jimmy Williams’ record does not capture his colorful 20-year path through minor- and major-league play. His final statistics reflect a slightly above-average player — but his solid career was speckled with historic participation and achievements, including one possibly unbreakable record. James Thomas Williams was born on December 20, 1876, in St. […]

Joseph Patton Evans was born on May 15, 1895, in Meridian, Mississippi, the fourth of nine children born to Albert and Ida Evans. Albert supported his family by working as an engineer on a locomotive.1 Eventually a 5’9”, 146-pound man, Joe Evans was given the name “Little Joe” by his classmates much earlier. In truth, […]

James Thomas “Jim” Northrup, who was born and raised in a small town in Michigan, starred in several sports, including baseball and football, at Alma College, also in Michigan. Later, he made it to the major leagues and enjoyed a fine career as an outfielder with the Detroit Tigers. Highlighting his fourth full season with […]

Though a renowned power hitter in 12 seasons in the Pacific Coast League and a bit player in a handful of films at midcentury, Frankie Kelleher’s top billing as a slugger and a star is perhaps dubiously enshrined in a one-night performance he sparked on a hot Los Angeles Sunday afternoon in 1953, a scene […]

In conjunction with SABR’s Eight Myths Out project, here are specific examples of factual errors or misinformation that appear in Eight Men Out, both the 1963 best-selling book written by Eliot Asinof and the 1988 film directed by John Sayles. Certain entries on this list may seem like pedantic nitpicking: surnames misspelled, Abe Attell’s boxing […]