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Joe Cicero had everything going for him. The Atlantic City, New Jersey, native led his Holy Spirit High School football team in scoring in each of his first three years at the school (two of which saw the squad undefeated), led the basketball team in scoring in each of his first three years, and led […]

In a column for the St. Louis Star in 1910, sportswriter Billy Murphy proclaimed, “We’re going to put you wise to the fact that the fastest man who ever played baseball lives in this city. ’Tis John Magner, who played with the Browns in the early ’80s. Magner was not speedy – he was lightning.”1 […]

It was raining on October 11, a day that Luther Taylor had awaited since he began playing in the major leagues, a chance to start a World Series game. So the game was cancelled. The next day Christy Mathewson would take the mound, to pitch the second of his three shutouts in the 1905 Series. […]

When and where someone happened upon a young infielder named Jim West is imprecise. It may very well have been in 1929, when he played for the Birmingham Negro Industrial League.1 Although lacking details of West’s early life and baseball career, his fine play at first base – perhaps noted by Bill Gatewood – prompted […]

“He’s that baseball dude who got banned for steroids or something, which makes him more than famous. He’s like infamous, and dangerous, and a kind of cool, a cross between Babe Ruth and Count Dracula.”1 – J.R. Moehringer, writing of Alex Rodríguez in 2015. What is fame? “I’m not too sure but I’ll know it […]

Harry “Cozy” Dolan was from Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across the Charles River from Boston and in the shadow of MIT and Harvard. The promising left–handed pitcher got the opportunity to pitch for the Boston Beaneaters in 1895–1896. He struggled on the mound, and then bounced around the minors before returning to the majors four years […]

Don Lock was a strong defensive center fielder who twice placed in the top 10 in homers in the American League. He played in 921 major-league games from 1962 to 1969. Lock was originally signed in March 1958 by New York Yankees scout Tom Greenwade, the same scout who signed Mickey Mantle. Greenwade signed Lock […]

Between growing up on a dairy farm and working as a Federal crop inspector for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Jim Bucher wedged in 17 years of playing professional baseball from 1930 to 1946. Bucher was an infielder and occasional outfielder who batted left-handed and threw right-handed, and spent his better years in the […]

He was always Johnny Tobin in St. Louis but is listed in standard reference sources as Jack, which he was occasionally called on the road. Contemporary news coverage and players who knew him invariably called him Johnny. Tobin played his first 11 seasons in the major leagues for hometown teams – first the Federal League’s […]

Roger Clemens’ last major-league start, on October 7, 2007 — for the New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians, the very team against which he had made his major-league debut in May 1984 — ended with him limping off the mound after only 2⅓ innings with a hamstring injury. Clemens had already allowed the Indians […]

Though he didn’t invent the pitch, Eddie “Knuckles” Cicotte was perhaps the first major-league pitcher to master the knuckleball. According to one description, Cicotte gripped the knuckler by holding the ball “on the three fingers of a closed hand, with his thumb and forefinger to guide it, throwing it with an overhand motion, and sending […]

Over a three-year span, 1912 to 1914, Larry Cheney was one of the National League’s most durable and effective pitchers, racking up more than 300 innings each season and joining Joe McGinnity, Deacon Phillippe, Vean Gregg, and Wes Ferrell as the only hurlers ever to reach the 20-win mark in each of their first three […]

Pete Charton’s time in the big leagues was brief; he pitched in 25 games for the Boston Red Sox in 1964. It hadn’t taken him long to get there, having worked just one season in the minors beforehand. He showed considerable promise, but professional baseball did not hold the attraction he had hoped for. Before […]

A season of great promise suddenly looked impossible. The Red Sox fans who stayed to the end of this evening’s game at Fenway Park could hardly have been more despondent. Boston fans had been waiting 86 years for a world championship and 18 years since their team’s spirit-crushing defeat at the hands of the New […]

Early in the 2006 season, the Baltimore Orioles were no strangers to blowouts, having beaten the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 16-6 in their second game of the season on April 5 before losing 14-8 to the Boston Red Sox on April 7. They ran off a string of one-run victories against the Devil Rays and […]

The game, rescheduled from an April 12 rainout, unremarkable. The 72-80 Cincinnati Reds visited Connie Mack Stadium to face the 63-88 Philadelphia Phillies. In the nightcap of a twi-night doubleheader, a paid crowd of 8,533 saw Vada Pinson hit his 20th home run of the season in the fourth inning, a two-run shot off winning […]

The 1922 Pittsburgh Pirates were 32-33 on June 30 when manager George Gibson resigned and Bill McKechnie succeeded him. The 35-year-old McKechnie, who grew up near Pittsburgh, had played in 846 major-league games in an 11-season career, including six seasons with his hometown Pirates. His previous managerial experience had come in 1915, as the player-manager […]

Keith Foulke signed as a free agent with the Boston Red Sox on January 7, 2004.1 The 2003 team had finished one win short of the World Series while relying on Byung-Hyun Kim to close 35 games and Brandon Lyon to close 31.2 General manager Theo Epstein looked to Foulke after the 31-year-old right-hander, formerly […]

The final day of the 1895 National League season, September 30, saw four games played in the 12-team league. The Baltimore Orioles, who had already locked up their second of three straight pennants, defeated the New York Giants, 8-3. The Philadelphia Phillies edged the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in a slugfest, 10-9. And the sixth-place Boston Beaneaters […]

It was a year in which the Red Sox had never lost more than three games in a row all season long. And now they had won the first game of the 2018 World Series, 8-4. The Dodgers started the same nine in Game Two. Facing them was David Price, who seemed to have overcome […]

“The old White Elephant stands above the great throbbing world of baseball,” gushed sportswriter Jim Nasium following the Philadelphia Athletics crushing 13-2 victory over the New York Giants in Game Six of the 1911 World Series to capture their second consecutive title.1 “The Athletics were positively savage the with the bat,” opined scribe Thomas S. […]

On a warm Saturday afternoon in early May 1932,1 the day Burgoo King captured the 58th running of the Kentucky Derby, young Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi proved he was “king” of Redland Field when his screaming line-drive triple in the 12th inning completed an improbable 9-8 comeback victory for the hometown club over the Boston […]

Early in the morning of September 13, 1948, an Oroville, California, telephone operator told police the phone was off the hook in the Myers Street apartment that was the home of the Oroville Red Sox’ business manager Julian Wera, the former New York Yankees third baseman. Wera’s wife, Ruth, and her nine-year-old daughter, Jerry, had […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 as part of the SABR Century 1921 Project.   1921 New York Giants team photo (SABR-RUCKER ARCHIVE)   The New York Giants and their manager, John J. McGraw, were optimistic that the 1921 season would result in a World Series triumph. Hopefully, this would end the […]