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Not often does a solo home run in the first inning turn out to the game-winning hit in a ballgame,1 but those were the circumstances of Ted Williams’s 383rd career homer, which won this game between the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers. Over the course of his career, Williams hit 16 first-inning home runs […]
It was “perhaps the most remarkable pitching performance in the nine-year history of the Amazin’ Mets,” gushed Gotham City sportswriter Dana Mozley after 23-year-old flamethrower Nolan Ryan surrendered a single to the first batter he faced, then finished with a sparkling one-hitter and a team-record 15 strikeouts in his 1970 debut.1 “Nobody throws the ball […]
Milwaukee Braves beat reporter Lou Chapman characterized the accomplishment as “stranger than fiction.”1 Jim Wilson, a 32-year-old spot starter who had almost been placed on waivers in spring training, tossed the first no-hitter in the history of County Stadium on June 12, 1954, when he blanked the Philadelphia Phillies. Described by Lloyd Larson as “one of […]
The Pittsburgh Pirates’ bid for a fourth straight National League East Division title in 1973 remained alive, even though the Pirates trailed the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals when the schedule’s final day had concluded. With rainouts rescheduled for Monday, October 1 – a Mets-Chicago Cubs doubleheader and a single game between Pittsburgh […]
If there was ever a pitcher who was the face of bad luck, it had to be Dave Stieb. Three times, the ace right-hander of the Toronto Blue Jays was one out away from pitching the franchise’s first no-hitter. All three times, he came up empty. On September 24, 1988, at Cleveland Stadium, Julio Franco […]
Rodney Dangerfield is credited with saying, “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.”1 If we replace hockey with baseball, we could get an idea of what happened in Cincinnati on July 22, 1986. In what he termed “the strangest game I’ve ever been in,”2 New York Mets manager […]
When Boston Red Sox catcher Rick Ferrell hit a home run off his younger brother Wes on July 19, 1933, he was an unlikely batter to homer off the Cleveland Indians ace, since he had hit only nine home runs in five major-league seasons. In fact, Wes was more of a home-run threat than Rick, […]
Red Grier wouldn’t have had the chance to pitch one of the most famous games in Negro leagues history in 1926 if he hadn’t hurled so poorly the day before. Grier was the choice to start the second game of the Negro World Series for his Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, the Eastern Colored League champions, […]
The Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds split the first four games in the best-of-five 1972 National League Championship Series. The defending World Series champion Pirates had cruised to the Eastern Division title with a regular-season record of 96-59, 11 games ahead of the second-place Cubs. The Reds (95-59), who had defeated the Pirates in the […]
In 2003 the Boston Red Sox were in the postseason for the first time since 1999. Back then, the New York Yankees had eliminated them in the American League Championship Series, but Red Sox fans were hoping that this time would be different. The ’03 Red Sox, who finished six games behind the Yankees with […]
“Chicken Strikes Again” was a newspaper headline after Garey Ingram had a particularly good game with the Pawtucket Red Sox. His manager, Gary Jones, called him “Chicken.” The nickname came from a college teammate who first called him “Blue Chicken” about 10 years earlier. He wondered where that name came from since the team colors […]
Describing his philosophy of building pitching staffs, Sparky Anderson once remarked, “To get the real top-flight pitchers, you have to strip yourself of so much talent that if you make such a deal, you find you don’t have enough left to win. So you try to obtain a pitcher who has pitched well against your […]
Clarence “Lefty” Russell was the most sought-after pitcher in the minor leagues during the summer of 1910. The Baltimore Oriole southpaw was the sensation of the Eastern League, baffling hitters with his crackling fastball, roundhouse curve, and elusive spitball. Russell’s domination of opposing batters quickly drew the attention of quite a few major league teams, […]
Over the winter of 1909-10, Bill Schwartz refused to sign with the Nashville Volunteers, who had drafted him from Akron. The local paper opined that Schwartz was jeopardizing any chance he had of returning to the majors, writing that he was “easily as good as Tom Jones of Detroit and is a much better fielder […]
With a flattened nose and the grim jaw of a heavyweight boxer, Steve O’Neill looked like someone born to be a catcher, and for much of his 17-year major-league career he was arguably the best all-around backstop in the game. An extremely smart man, O’Neill did all the things a good catcher is supposed to […]
A catcher’s close proximity to the home plate umpire doesn’t bode well for a receiver with a propensity for umpire baiting and “rowdy tactics.” This was the case for Harry “Spike” LaRoss, whose many fines and suspensions, along with many injuries, necessitated a move to the outfield early in his career. The 5’11”, 170 pound […]
On September 13, 1910, the Chicago Tribune announced that James “Red” Bowser would start in that day’s game for the Chicago White Sox. The article – by columnist Ring Lardner, who went on to become one of the most famous writers of the era, in sports and beyond – expressed high praise and expectations for […]
Who hits the ball and makes it go? Dominic DiMaggio. Who runs the bases fast, not slow? Dominic DiMaggio. Who’s better than his brother Joe? Dominic DiMaggio. But when it comes to gettin’ dough, They give it all to brother Joe. — Parody of Les Brown song, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio It is easy to overlook […]
Helen Dettweiler was “The Girl of Summer” in 1938 when she became the first woman to broadcast professional baseball, according to The Sporting News. A promotional stunt for a radio sponsor, it was just one stop in a life of adventure. She served as a World War II code-breaker and military pilot, and was one […]
On July 23, 2000, Marty Brennaman, radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds since 1974, was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest award bestowed on a baseball broadcaster. (Honored with Hall of Fame induction that day were former Reds manager Sparky Anderson and former Reds first baseman […]
It is the coldest of cold cases – a 104-year-old homicide with no suspects, no eyewitnesses, no incriminating admissions, no police informant information, and scant physical evidence. About all investigators from the Indianapolis Police Department had to go on was a brief account of the crime supplied by the mortally wounded victim before he lapsed […]
For Stan Palys playing baseball wasn’t just a career, it was an odyssey. An odyssey that began in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, in 1950 and — with MLB stops in Philadelphia and Cincinnati in between — took him to Schenectady, Syracuse and Terre Haute; to Charleston, Birmingham and Nashville; to Corpus Christi, Puerto Rico and Panama; to […]
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Black Sox Scandal Committee’s December 2023 newsletter. Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, center left, and American League president Ban Johnson, center right, seen here in 1911, were friends and business partners when they founded the AL together at the turn of the 20th century. Two decades […]
This article appears in SABR’s “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández. Major-League Spring Training in Puerto Rico The 1936 Cincinnati Reds “The Cincinnati Reds put on the first major league baseball game in Puerto Rican history yesterday” was lead of an AP wire story on February […]