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After the first week of September 1950, the Cleveland Indians were completing an 18-game road trip. Leading up to the final game away from home, they had gone an unimpressive 9-8. Manager Lou Boudreau’s team started on August 22 by winning five straight, but then they lost six in a row, dropping to fourth place […]

Philadelphia Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer faced a dilemma. Who would pitch the first game of the World Series? His ace, Robin Roberts, had started three games in five days, including a 10-inning pennant-clinching effort on the last day of the season. He needed rest. Curt Simmons, whose 17 wins in the league were second only […]

“It was supposed to happen.” — Yankees manager Joe Torre1   It was a perfect storm. This early September game was the final contest of a three-game set between the Yankees and Red Sox at Fenway Park. This series had already seen stellar starting pitching performances, but pitching in this game would prove noteworthy. Boston […]

Because the third game of the 2018 World Series was being played in a National League city, NL rules applied – which meant there was no designated hitter. Red Sox manager Alex Cora elected to have J.D. Martinez play left field and Andrew Benintendi remain on the bench. Both teams started right-handers, Walker Buehler for […]

On June 19, 1955, Ted Williams homered off both Herb Score and Bob Feller in the same game. It was a Sunday afternoon Father’s Day game at Fenway Park between Williams’s Boston Red Sox and Score and Feller’s Cleveland Indians. Score, 22, was 7-4 with a 2.94 ERA before the game. By season’s end, he […]

“Tho’ much is taken, much abides … that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses   The night was perfect for baseball, as so many nights are […]

The Boston Red Sox had won three games in a row by spectacular scores — beating Cleveland 12-2 and 11-2 in Games Six and Seven of the American League Championship Series and opening the World Series with a 13-1 triumph over Colorado. After allowing 17 hits and 13 runs in Game One, the Rockies pitching […]

“Brooklyn will be lucky to get a foul off me today. If Spoke [Cleveland player-manager Tris Speaker] and the boys will give me one run, Cleveland will win.” — Cleveland pitcher Duster Mails1   The Cleveland Indians’ starting pitcher in Game Six of the 1920 World Series, John Walter Mails, certainly did not have an […]

Roger Kahn’s 1972 classic, The Boys of Summer, a nostalgic chronicle of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their teams of the 1950s, elevated him to the heights of baseball journalism. But his love for baseball even surpassed writing about it; “I enjoyed the illusion that the game belonged to nine-year-old right fielders and poets.”1 And after […]

The play is known as “The Slide” and it served two functions. The first was immediate; it allowed the Atlanta Braves to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 in Game Seven of the 1992 National League Championship Series and advance to the World Series. The second ushered in an era of futility for the Pirates that […]

The Boston Red Sox had won eight of their last nine games heading into the twin bill in St. Louis on June 12, 1941, but they hadn’t played for three days in a row, thanks to a scheduled offday and rainouts of their first two dates against the Browns.1 They got off to a solid […]

Entering the final month of the 1935 season, a September 1 matchup between the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Senators had little relevance in the eight-team American League. Both teams had long since said goodbye to any possibility of capturing the pennant, with Boston looking upward toward four other teams in the standings, a […]

The Philadelphia Phillies had lost all six games they had played against the New York Giants in 1930, including an 11-4 drubbing on May 21, when the teams met again on May 22. Could the Phillies turn it around? They could certainly slug the ball. In 1929 left fielder Lefty O’Doul batted .398 with 32 […]

Dave “Beauty” Bancroft made his name primarily on defense during his Hall of Fame career as a shortstop. One of his biggest days as a hitter came on June 28, 1920, when he went 6-for-6 in the New York Giants’ 18-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. Bancroft’s six-hit game […]

As dawn turned to noon on this Labor Day, Boston fans reveled in the success of both major-league entries. The Red Sox led the Yankees by half a game, with the Cleveland Indians lurking 3½ games back.The Braves clung to a 2½-game lead over St. Louis and Brooklyn, but only a single game in the […]

The story surrounding Joe Borden’s first no-hitter in professional baseball history is a microcosm of the state of baseball in 1875. Midway through the season, the Boston Red Stockings were steaming toward a 71-8-3 record and a fourth straight National Association pennant. Yet, the topic that dominated the sporting world was news of their looming […]

Josefa Antonia Nepomucena Pascuala Estrada’s grandson played for six major-league teams from 1907 through 1917. Her son Manuel Adolfo Wolter was a stable keeper in Monterey, California. He married Lucretia “Lucy” Little and the two had seven children – Charles, Mary Mamie, Lucy Eleanor, Manuel, Milton John, Grace, and Harry. Their youngest, Harry Meiggs Wolter, […]

Andy Karl was one of those ballplayers who were able to benefit by the departure of many established ballplayers during the Second World War. He broke into Organized Baseball in 1937, playing for the Boston Red Sox affiliate in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Karl was a right-handed pitcher who stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 175 pounds. […]

Joe Heving was born four years later than his brother Johnnie, but made his major league debut 10 years afterwards. John was a catcher who played professional ball from 1919 to 1946, including five years with the Red Sox from 1924-1930. Joe Heving heaved for a living – he was a right-handed pitcher, an early relief specialist […]

Fred Heimach’s grandfather was a house painter from Pennsylvania. Edward and Margaret Heimach both came from the Quaker State, but had been living across the river in Camden, New Jersey, since the 1880s.  Their son George was Fred’s father, but he and his wife had separated early, and the young Frederick Amos Heimach was raised […]

Baldomero Almada — “Melo” or (to Americans) “Mel” — was the first native Mexican ever to play in the majors. Almada was born in Huatabampo in the state of Sonora on February 7, 1913, but he grew up in Los Angeles from an early age. On September 8, 1933, less than two months after a […]

Every team Matt Zieser ever pitched for was a B-level minor-league team, except when he appeared in two games in the major leagues. Briefly a member of the 1914 Boston Red Sox, he was 19 years too early to be assigned a Red Sox cap with a “B” on its front. When he started professionally, […]

Sportswriters treated pitcher Monte Weaver as a curiosity during his nine seasons with the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox. He was a college professor, a mathematician, a hypochondriac and – most radically – a vegetarian, according to the sports pages. Montie Morton Weaver was born on June 15, 1906, in Helton, North Carolina, a […]

Kenneth Lowther Ash pitched in the minor leagues from 1924 to 1940 with trips to the majors for 49 games over four seasons. He compiled a none-too-impressive major league record of six wins against eight losses with a 4.96 ERA, mostly with Cincinnati between 1928 and 1930. As a minor league pitcher he notched over […]