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A data scientist for Google by day, Chris Thoms lives in California’s Bay Area while overseeing official scorers in the Cape Cod League in Massachusetts. From the other end of the continent, he monitors games on choppy video and internet radio (even scoring a game off YouTube while on his honeymoon in Tokyo), and goes […]
“What a happy world this would be if every one was accomplished as George Herman Ruth.” – Copeland C. Burg, September 29, 19301 On September 20, 1919, at Boston’s Fenway Park, Babe Ruth started on the mound for the Red Sox in the first game of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. Staked […]
Many pitchers in baseball history have been associated with strikeouts. Christy Mathewson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rube Waddell, Walter Johnson, Dazzy Vance, Bob Feller, Lefty Grove, and Sandy Koufax are well known because of their strikeout prowess. Max Surkont belongs on this list, despite his obscurity today. His amazing performance in the second game on May […]
This is a true baseball story. In 1969 two minor-league teams were supposed to play each other 28 times. Somehow they lost count and played 29. When the Elmira Pioneers beat the Waterbury Indians on August 11, 1969, the daily newspapers covering the Eastern League reported that the Pioneers had won the teams’ season series, […]
The largest crowd to ever watch a baseball game was 115,300 at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday, March 29, 2008, for an exhibition between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the reigning World Series champion Boston Red Sox.1 It outdrew the crowd of “about 114,000”2 who had seen a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground […]
As the Los Angeles Angels rolled into town on July 1, Red Sox fans were uneasy. High hopes for the Red Sox were being dashed. They had lost 17 of their last 29 games and trailed the Baltimore Orioles by four games for the AL East lead. Many of the Red Sox faithful were looking […]
With 2½ weeks left in the 1988 season, the Boston Red Sox were in a good position to capture their second American League East crown in three years. Surging out of fourth place by winning 12 in a row and 18 of 19 after Joe Morgan replaced John McNamara as manager at the All-Star break, […]
Joe Adcock was a slugger. On July 31, 1954, the Milwaukee Braves first baseman equaled a major-league record with four home runs in one game at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. In 1956 he tied for second in the National League with 38 homers, more than his Hall of Fame teammates Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews. Only […]
On April 28, 1986, the Biddeford (Maine) Journal-Tribune declared that that night’s scheduled exhibition between the Cleveland Indians and their Triple-A farm team, the Maine Guides, would be “the first time ever that a major league team has played in the state.”1 It wasn’t, but the sportswriter might be excused for not knowing that. America’s […]
“‘Double Duty’ Radcliffe—he was a good one. Pitched and catch. He was a legend.” — Red Moore1 Theodore Roosevelt Radcliffe sported one of the most iconic nicknames in the history of baseball: Double Duty. Few are so evocative of a player’s place in the game. Two jobs at the same time. Two for the […]
In July 1883, the Cleveland Blues were in the thick of the National League pennant race. Pitcher James McCormick began complaining of a lame arm and leg problems.1 In an era where teams used a two-man pitching rotation, McCormick’s condition put a strain on his pitching partner, Hugh “One Arm” Daily. Manager Frank Bancroft was […]
Ralph Houk was the first manager to have two World Series championships in his first two seasons, piloting the 1961 and 1962 New York Yankees to triumphs over the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. His Yankees won a third consecutive pennant in 1963, but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers. A […]
A lifetime .500 hitter in the major leagues, flawless in the field, Kim Darrell Andrew had a couple of sips of coffee early in the season with the pennant-winning 1975 Red Sox but two years later found himself playing professional baseball in Italy. Andrew was a Californian, born to Elbert L. Andrew and Frances Schandel […]
Even if Pete Varney had never strapped on a chest protector and shin guards for Harvard, he would have had a place in the hearts of the Crimson sports faithful forever from one momentous football game in 1968. But baseball was his game, as he gained All-American recognition and led Harvard into the 1971 College […]
Once labeled the “lightest player in the major leagues,”1 Eddie “The Midget” Mensor (5-feet-6, 125 pounds) had over 2,600 professional career at-bats, yet he never hit a home run that landed over a fence. Nonetheless, the utility player drew the affection of Pittsburgh Pirates manager Fred Clarke and owner Barney Dreyfuss during the 1912-1914 National […]
Once labeled the “lightest player in the major leagues,”1 Eddie “The Midget” Mensor (5-feet-6, 125 pounds) had over 2,600 professional career at-bats, yet he never hit a home run that landed over a fence. Nonetheless, the utility player drew the affection of Pittsburgh Pirates manager Fred Clarke and owner Barney Dreyfuss during the 1912-1914 National […]
In a career that spanned from 1906 to 1940, Jack Lelivelt was one of the great hitters and managers of minor-league baseball. As a hitter, he had more than 3,000 hits and averaged .328 over 20 seasons, including six seasons in the American League. His major-league career was curtailed by leg injuries. As a manager, […]
In a 1973 SABR survey, Birdie Tebbetts narrowly missed being chosen Vermont’s greatest baseball player, finishing second to Larry Gardner by a mere handful of votes. In almost every respect, Tebbetts was a solid candidate: a lifetime .270 hitter, Birdie amassed exactly 1,000 hits in a career that spanned 17 years, three of which were […]
Bobby Guindon’s major-league career spanned nine days in 1964, but he worked hard for six more years hoping for another shot, even converting from a first baseman/outfielder to a pitcher after a horrific encounter with a snow blower permanently hampered his ability to grip a baseball bat. Robert Joseph Guindon was born just down the […]
Manager Casey Stengel summed up Bob Porterfield’s career with the Yankees: “There was always something wrong — sore arm, sore head, sore back, sore legs.”1 A pitching Big Three of Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, and Ed Lopat powered the Yankee dynasty of the late 1940s and early 1950s, but the club was constantly searching for […]
Following his death in February 1945, long-forgotten turn-of-the-century pitcher Ham Iburg was accorded a singular accolade by The Sporting News. “Iburg is credited with having the slowest ball ever hurled in the majors or higher minors,” declared the Bible of Baseball. “He had three speeds – slow, slower and slowest.”1 Some 40-plus years earlier, it […]
Hustling isn’t just for ballplayers. It’s for novelty salesmen, too. Danny Goodman wasn’t just a guy to crank out caps and keychains, but one who was always looking for a fresh opportunity to transfer money from the customer’s pocket to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ cash registers. For 25 years he presided over an operation that […]
Greg Terlecky was a starting pitcher for most of his decade-long professional baseball career, though all 20 of his major-league outings came in relief for the 1975 St. Louis Cardinals. He registered a loss in his only decision and carried a 4.45 ERA over 30⅓ innings. He began his brief tenure in the majors by […]
Like the hotel wallpaper, Ashley Lloyd was little noticed at the National League meetings that he regularly attended as a front-office executive and minority-interest baseball club owner. Now a century later, Lloyd is virtually forgotten, with his name mentioned only in passing, if at all, in most histories of the Cincinnati Reds and New York […]