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When Tom Seaver pitched his last game in a major-league uniform, Top Gun dominated the box office. Two other Toms starred in this 1986 blockbuster. Tom Cruise played a Navy fighter pilot striving to be “the best of the best” and Tom Skerritt played his mentor, a veteran pilot who flew with the young pilot’s […]

The Angels rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning against Roger Clemens and Calvin Schiraldi, and won the game, 4-3, in the 11th when Bobby Grich‘s one-out single scored Jerry Narron. California took a three-games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven ALCS, and put themselves one victory away from the franchise’s first trip […]

A week after the 2015 midsummer classic, Texas Rangers outfielder Shin-Soo Choo exploded for a single, double, triple, and home run against the Colorado Rockies. In doing so, he became the first Korean to hit for the cycle in the major leagues.  The Rangers (43-49) were sitting in third place in the American League’s West […]

Rookie knuckleballer Tim Wakefield boosted the Pittsburgh Pirates to their third consecutive National League East Division crown in 1992 after getting called up in July to fortify a shorthanded starting rotation. With the Pirates trailing the Atlanta Braves two games to none in the NL Championship Series, Wakefield continued his late-season infusion, tossing a five-hit […]

The Boston Braves played 15 doubleheaders in 25 days while wrapping up their 1928 schedule – all but two at home at Braves Field. Their grueling stretch began on August 31 when they hosted the Philadelphia Phillies in a doubleheader, in part to make up their rained-out Fourth of July game. The Braves lost the […]

Throwing a complete game had become a remarkable event by 2004. In the entire season, Boston Red Sox pitchers threw a total of only four complete games. Curt Schilling had three of them, and Pedro Martínez threw this one, on August 12 at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.1 Martínez, in his seventh […]

After the Pirates lost the first two games of the 1971 World Series to the Orioles in Baltimore, the Series moved to Pittsburgh, and the Pirates rode a complete-game three-hitter by Steve Blass to their first victory. It may have been too much for the Steel City nine to expect Game Four starter Luke Walker […]

In the final scene of the Marvel movie Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers wakes up to find himself in a basic 1940s-style hospital room, with a white metal bed frame, a ceiling fan turning slowly above, and the sound of a baseball game wafting from a wooden console radio. As the camera holds a close-up […]

The New York Giants arrived in Indianapolis in August 1889 after winning five straight games – two against the Philadelphia Phillies, followed by a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Stockings. The Indianapolis Hoosiers had won two straight, and eight of their last 10 games, before facing the Giants.1 After the Hoosiers’ 14-4 win in […]

After the 50-day players strike in 1981, in which about a third of the season was eliminated, major-league club owners elected to divide the season into two halves, each with its own division champions. The Los Angeles Dodgers ended the first half of the season with a record of 36-21, the best in baseball, a […]

Over the years, there has been no shortage of adjectives to describe the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals.  Raucous, rambunctious, and rowdy have been just a few of the terms used to portray the Deans, Durochers, Martins, and Medwicks of the club.  Yet not everyone on the team fit the public’s perception of this hell-raising, pennant-winning […]

On December 14, 1977, the Boston Red Sox traded pitcher Fergie Jenkins, who had clashed with manager Don Zimmer, to the Texas Rangers for 6-foot-5, 210-pound left-hander John Poloni and $25,000 cash.1 Poloni had made his major-league debut with the Rangers in September after spending the season at Triple-A Tucson. “It’s not that we wanted […]

For many years, “Hartford” Jack Farrell’s baseball record showed him making three appearances as an 18-year-old for his hometown club in the National Association in 1874. Eventually it emerged that the remainder of his big-league career consisted of two games in 1882. And when one looks under the surface, one finds that Farrell enjoyed 15-plus […]

Bob Davids, a career Federal government employee, never played professional baseball. However, he had a deep and lasting impact on the game by founding the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) in 1971. This organization has had a large effect on how baseball is quantified and discussed, and its existence is a logical extension of […]

The Washington Senators played in Griffith Stadium for 50 years (1911-1960). But only once, on August 8, 1931, did a Senators pitcher toss a no-hitter in the nation’s capital. The author of that gem was southpaw Bobby Burke, who fashioned a 38-46 record in parts of 10 seasons as a spot starter and reliever (1927-1935, […]

Which New York Yankees player had the highest batting average in 1964? Mickey Mantle hit .303 and Elston Howard .313 – but nobody topped Elvio Jiménez’s .333 mark. “Look it up,” he said.1 Despite batting .309 over 13 seasons in the minors, however, Jiménez appeared in just one major-league game, going 2-for-6. Following a 17-year […]

Nolan Ryan has more strikeouts and no-hitters than any other pitcher in history. Despite never winning a Cy Young Award, he started more games than anyone except Cy Young. Though he played mostly for mediocre teams, his 324 wins are as many as contemporary Don Sutton, who pitched for four pennant winners and just missed […]

One of the few ballplayers with a palindromic last name, Johnny Reder is also one of just four natives of Poland (as of 2015) to play in the major leagues. To first reach the majors and play for the Boston Red Sox was a real comedown in athletic competition. He was used to playing before […]

Leniel Charlie Hooker was a right-handed pitcher from 1940 to 1948 with the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. A 6-footer who weighed about 169 pounds, Hooker had a decent fastball and also threw a knuckleball. He was also considered a fair hitter and an excellent fielder. Hooker was born on June 28 in […]

On September 27, 1920, suspicions about the integrity of the previous year’s World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds were given substance by a self-admitted fix insider named Billy Maharg. In an interview first published in the Philadelphia North American and syndicated nationwide immediately thereafter, Maharg maintained that a number of Chicago […]

How is it that someone who weighed 160 pounds and stood five feet, 8 1/2 inches tall attracted the nickname “Moose”? It’s not as though he came from northern Wisconsin or near the northwest Maine/Canadian border. Elmer Albert Eggert was born and died in Rochester, New York – born on January 29, 1902 to parents […]

A strong, quiet, and athletic 205-pounder who stood 6-feet-2, wore glasses, batted from the left side, and threw right-handed, Norm Siebern split time between first base and the outfield for six major-league teams. Originally a Yankee, he played in two World Series for New York, and was part of the package the Yankees sent to […]

Rodney Lea Nichols was born on December 29, 1964, in Burlington, Iowa. His family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico when Rod was about three years old, but he has always remained an Iowan at heart. Nichols early on adopted Iowa as one of his favorite college teams. “Back in the day, if you got the […]

Good size/Above-average stuff/Poor attitude. This familiar micro-profile would have neatly summarized Frank Schneiberg, a right-handed pitching prospect in the early 1900s. Innate talent afforded Schneiberg a fair degree of success in the minor leagues, particularly while he was hurling for clubs situated in his native Wisconsin. But a lack of self-discipline and other temperament problems […]