Search Results

“Before Sandy Koufax became Sandy Koufax, before Clayton Kershaw was invented, there was Karl Spooner.” — George Vecsey1   It was the last week of the 1954 regular season, a disappointing one for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The archrival New York Giants were in town, grabbing the opportunity to clinch the National League title in the […]

Entering a summer when the boxing world famously crowned a new heavyweight champion,1 baseball’s powerhouse teams met on May 14, 1919, at Comiskey Park in Chicago for an early-season clash between the game’s two most recent champions. The Boston Red Sox, led by their young hitting and pitching star Babe Ruth, came to town with […]

The Baltimore Orioles fell to fourth place in the six-team American League East Division on August 28, 1974, eight games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox. Loser of six of their last seven games, and 20 of their last 34, Baltimore had a record of 63-65. The Orioles had never been under .500 this late […]

In late July 1978, comedian Bill Murray traveled to Grays Harbor County in Washington State to film a segment for a Saturday Night Live television special.1 The location was a world apart from the hustle and bustle of New York, where SNL was normally produced. Despite being only moderately successful at that point in his […]

As June 1925 began, the race in the National League was close, but not that close. The four-time defending NL champion New York Giants held a 4½-game lead over the Brooklyn Robins. The Pittsburgh Pirates were in third place, and the Philadelphia Phillies were one spot back of the Pirates, tied with the Cincinnati Reds, […]

Before a Fenway Park crowd of 10,271, Carl Yastrzemski hit for the 12th cycle in Boston Red Sox history. He added a second home run and a walk to his hit parade, reaching base in every one of his six plate appearances. But his herculean efforts were not enough to propel the Red Sox to […]

 After posting a 91-71 record in the 1987 season (a 14-game improvement over 1986), Milwaukee Brewers manager Tom Trebelhorn was very optimistic about 1988. “I think we’re going to pitch better,” he said. “I think we’ll contain the opposition better. The maturity of our young pitchers from a year ago, plus our bullpen depth, gives […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates were slumping when they arrived in the Gateway City for a four-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals in June 1933. Skipper George Gibson’s Bucs (27-21) had lost eight of their last 11 games to fall from first to third place, three games behind the New York Giants. The Redbirds, however, were […]

Michigan and Trumbull was one of the more popular destinations in the major leagues in the mid-1940s. The Tigers led all of baseball in attendance in 1944. In 1945 they did even better as they attracted over 30 percent more home rooters than the next team while drawing a Detroit record 1,280,341 spectators. The 1946 […]

Vin Scully was hired at the age of 22 by Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber, and broadcast his first game at Shibe Park in Philadelphia on April 18, 1950. Scully became the team’s primary announcer when Barber joined the New York Yankees in 1954.1 Scully was on the call when the team won its first championship […]

The 1968 Chicago White Sox opened the season with 10 straight losses; they then followed up the disastrous start by winning 11 of their next 17 games. An astute fan might not have been surprised by either set of events.1 The previous season’s team had finished in fourth place, three games behind the league-leading Boston […]

A day after dropping the opening game of the 1925 World Series to the Washington Nationals, the Pittsburgh Pirates turned to right-hander Vic Aldridge, their hottest pitcher during their push for the National League pennant. Minimizing the fallout from two bases-loaded, no-out situations, Aldridge made Glenn Wright and Kiki Cuyler’s home runs stand up for […]

When the Minnesota Twins headed to Metropolitan Stadium to play the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday, May 12, 1965, they had reason to be excited. The previous night, in the first contest of a three-game set with the visitors from Southern California, the Twins won in exciting fashion. With one out in the bottom of […]

Jimmy Zinn spent 1921 as a swingman on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching staff, contributing occasional starts but more often working from the bullpen. One of his most valuable performances came on August 5 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. Tossing six innings of nearly spotless relief and adding two key hits, Zinn sparked the first-place Pirates to […]

Following their “Miracle” National League pennant and World Series championship in 1914,1 the Boston Braves had slipped to seventh place by 1920. Skipper George Stallings was still at the helm, but that changed in 1921. When Stallings resigned in November 1920 to purchase a part-interest in the Rochester Colts of the International League,2 the Braves […]

Dave “Boo” Ferriss, an ex-G. I. discharged from the Army Air Corps in February 1945, began his major league career with an astonishing eight consecutive wins in 1945. The start of his career was as unlikely as any player before him, since he had minimal time as a professional player prior to his debut.1 In […]

As the Boston Red Sox came to the plate in the top of ninth inning at League Park on June 8, 1937, first place was within sight for the Indians. Since the team’s World Series win in 1920, the Indians had been largely mediocre, but there was cause for optimism in 1937. The pitching staff […]

“He is another Vance, another Dazzy, I’m telling you. Hasn’t the best disposition in the world. You know some of those Carolina fellows get funny ideas sometimes, but he certainly can buzz that ball over. Best young pitcher I’ve seen since Rube Marquard. Only he is faster than Rube was. Say, maybe he is another […]

In his prime, Long Bob Ewing—the “Long” referring to his 6’1″, 170-pound frame—was the workhorse of the Cincinnati Reds’ staff, becoming their winningest pitcher of the Deadball Era and the most significant spitball pitcher in the history of the franchise. Toiling for six managers in eight years on a succession of teams that never finished […]

Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd starts his autobiography recalling back in 1964 when he was 5 years old, and his uncle Frank Boyd brought three civil-rights workers by the family home. Later that same year, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were discovered murdered. Dennis believes they were killed just after they left the Boyd […]

Who is the real Sammy Sosa? Is he the charismatic slugger whose home-run race with Mark McGwire brought baseball’s fandom back from the ruins of the 1994 strike? Is he the Dominican shoeshine boy from a poverty-stricken family who became a hero in his country and the United States? Is he a steroid cheater who […]

Sam Agnew is best remembered for being the catcher for both of Babe Ruth’s pitching victories in the 1918 World Series. Although Agnew did not get a hit in the four Series games in which he played that season, he caught Ruth’s complete game shutout in Game One and eight innings of Ruth’s pitching in […]

When considering Rhode Island natives who played major league baseball, you can’t get much closer to the heart of Rhode Island than with Ray Jarvis, who grew up playing baseball on the State House lawn. Ray was born in Providence on May 10, 1946 and grew up on Smith Hill. Most of the kids in the […]

“People don’t know how good the Pacific Coast League is,” a onetime miner named H.V. “Hardrock Bill” Lane said in 1935. “There’s Oakland, or San Francisco.”1 A year later he moved the then-Double-A Hollywood Stars to San Diego, renamed them Padres for a nearby mission, opened single-tier 9,100-seat Lane Field, and began to fill a […]