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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 […]

“You look out and you’re in a big-league park, you’re on a big-league field, you’re going to pitch. It’s a hundred emotions going through you.” – Abe Alvarez, on his major-league debut with the 2004 Boston Red Sox1 Abe Alvarez pitched four games in the major leagues, including his debut for the 2004 Boston Red […]

At 6-feet-4, and close to 300 pounds, Jumbo Brown lived up to his name.1 Part of baseball’s first wave of relief pitchers, the massive righty saw action in 249 major-league games, starting just 23. He compiled a 33-31 won-lost record with 28 saves and a 4.07 ERA. The Rhode Island native played with many of […]

The Cleveland Indians paid Pat Donahue $200 for a tip that led to the signing of Bob Feller in 1935. They later gave him another $200 to forestall him from making any claims for additional compensation. Donahue saw Rapid Robert while umpiring a semipro game in Des Moines. Before he moved on to umpiring, and […]

[With research assistance from John Leidy] Ray Fisher has been justly honored for his 38 seasons as head baseball coach at the University of Michigan. He was elected to Michigan’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1959, the American Association of College Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1966, and the University of Michigan Hall of […]

First baseman Candy LaChance was a switch-hitting 33-year-old veteran when his Boston Americans won the first World Series, in 1903. He played in every one of his team’s 141 regular-season games that year and each of the eight World Series games as well. That kind of “iron man” endurance wasn’t so uncommon at the time; […]

“Don’t ever get comfortable, because the game has a way of humbling you.” – Terry Adams1  A relief pitcher most of his career, Terry Adams won his first and only World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2004. Standing 6-feet-3-inches tall and weighing 225 pounds, the fiery right-hander was an imposing presence on the […]

Cuban infielder Giraldo Sablón – known in the U.S. as Chico Ruiz – ignited two tinderboxes. On September 21, 1964, his steal of home scored the game’s only run, starting the collapse of ten straight losses that cost the Philadelphia Phillies the National League pennant. On June 13, 1971, he waved a handgun in the […]

The shortest home run in major-league history? It was hit in 1929 by South Carolina’s Norm McMillan, who played every position except left field, catcher, and pitcher, but was remembered in his obituary for hitting that homer. He was born in the small town of Latta in northeastern Dillon County. His father, Sidney Alexis McMillan, […]

The high mark of Frank Allen’s six-year major-league career surely took place on April 24, 1915, when, in his fifth appearance for the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League, he pitched a no-hitter in defeating the St. Louis Terriers 2-0 at Handlan’s Park in St. Louis. The masterpiece brought the 26-year-old southpaw’s record to 4-0 […]

In early 1925, the New York Yankees offered to trade Lou Gehrig to the Boston Red Sox for first baseman Phil Todt to repay Boston for the blockbuster Babe Ruth trade a few years earlier. The Red Sox turned the Yankees down. So says the official Gehrig site (www.lougehrig.com). But was it true? Both debuted […]

For three years in a row, Jud McLaughlin tried to win a game for the Boston Red Sox. He never did. He pitched in 16 games from June 23, 1931, to May 18, 1933, all in relief, finishing 11 games but never starting a game. Looking on the brighter side, he never lost a game, […]

Outfielder Steve Salvato never played a day in the major leagues, but he once got three hits in a regular-season game at a big-league ballpark. Same thing with pitcher Henry Bunnell: He never appeared in the majors, but he once earned a win in a big-league park. These unusual events happened in June 1972, when […]

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 […]

Many decades later, it’s still a well-known piece of Eastern Pennsylvania sports lore. In June 1947 the Philadelphia Phillies played an off-day exhibition in the small Lehigh Valley village of Egypt, about 65 miles north of Philadelphia. The Phils agreed to play the game to court 18-year-old prospect Curt Simmons, who pitched a local team […]

In the first chapter of Lawrence S. Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times, published in 1966, pitcher Rube Marquard recounts how a perfect game he authored in September 1908 precipitated a record-setting sale of his contract from the American Association’s Indianapolis Indians to the National League’s New York Giants.1 An impressive tale, but the Hall […]

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 […]

Hey, it’s Opening Day. Fans had been without live baseball for more than five months. You’d think fans would want to stick around and see a full game. But at the Fenway Park home opener on April 10, 1998, Peter Gammons wrote, there were only “about 13,000 remaining” of the 32,805 in attendance at the start.1 […]

The first radio broadcast at Braves Field took place on April 14, 1925. The WBZ broadcast was believed to be the “First Time Radio Fans Have Been Given Such a Treat, Other Than During the World’s Series,” wrote the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican.1 Both the pregame ceremony and the game would be broadcast in their entirety, […]

Greater Boston native son Tony Conigliaro was a star for the Boston Red Sox. He hit a home run over Fenway Park’s left-field wall on the first pitch he saw as a member of the Red Sox.1 He hit 24 homers in his 1964 rookie year, setting a major-league rookie record for the most home […]

He was just 21 and only in his second full season but Babe Ruth was already proving to be a man who could do the undoable. As a rookie in 1915 he won 18 games for the World Series champion Boston Red Sox. He did pretty well at his side job as a hitter, too, […]

On a stormy Friday night in Cincinnati, the Reds won a dramatic victory over the Milwaukee Braves on a grand slam by catcher Ed Bailey in a tie game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Reds overcame a five-run deficit built by two home runs from the Braves’ Eddie Mathews […]

The start of the second game of a four-game series between the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners on July 8, 1994, was delayed by rain for just over an hour, but for the 33,355 fans at Fenway Park that night, it was worth the wait. Their patience was rewarded with a memorable 4-3 Red […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project. Eddie Collins, left, and manager Kid Gleason were left to pick up the pieces after the Chicago White Sox lost most of their championship core following the Black Sox Scandal. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)   The 1921 Chicago White […]