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Art Doll had a strong arm which allowed him to play professional baseball as both a catcher and a pitcher. His talents, however, resulted in only seven major-league games for the Boston Braves/Bees of 1935, 1936 and 1938, where he pitched in four games and caught three others. “Moose,” as he was known for his […]
Like his Hall of Fame teammate, Ernie Banks, right-handed pitcher Bob Rush was just happy to be in the big leagues. “I never really regretted signing with the Cubs,” Rush said. In his 10 campaigns with the North Siders (1948-1957), the “Lovable Losers” finished in the second division every season and never had a winning […]
Standing a tad under 5’8″ and weighing just 145 lbs., Bobby Byrne was a scrappy, pint-sized third baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates towards the end of their reign as one of the National League’s top teams. “Byrne is always a dangerous man for the reason that at all times he is cool, nervy and smart,” […]
Chuck LaMar once commented, “I’m a baseball guy and my heart lies with the people out in the field. … I was one of those and I started out in professional baseball as an area scout and I drove 50,000 miles a year away from the wife and those kiddos as much as anybody so […]
No less a figure than Connie Mack saw Elmer Myers as a true phenom, someone he thought could become “one of the greatest pitchers of a decade.” Suffering a German poison-gas attack in the First World War may have cost Myers his chance for greatness. Elmer Glenn Myers was born about 15 miles north of […]
It took right-hander Johnny Welch more than five years to get his first major-league win for the Chicago Cubs. After 172 big-league games, he was 35-41 with a career 4.66 earned run average, all but two of the wins being for Boston Red Sox teams in the early to middle 1930s. He was born as […]
Most baseball fans are aware of “The Shot Heard ’Round the World,” Bobby Thomson’s dramatic ninth-inning home run off Ralph Branca that won the 1951 pennant for the New York Giants. Fewer may be cognizant of Whitey Lockman’s role in setting the stage for that climatic event. Had Lockman not made a crucial hit before […]
“I never wanted to be a superstar, or the highest paid player,” Don Sutton said. “[A]ll I wanted was to be appreciated for the fact that I was consistent, dependable, and you could count on me.”1 By that measure, Sutton achieved his goal and more, as few pitchers in baseball history were as reliable, and […]
Billy Gardner played 10 seasons in the big leagues from 1954 to 1963. A feisty leadoff hitter and scrappy infielder, Gardner threw and batted right-handed, standing an even 6 feet tall and weighing 170 pounds. Gardner had stints on the New York Giants, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Senators, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox in […]
It was a damp night at Shea Stadium in early August 1977. The last-place Mets, toiling through extra innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, looked done for after the would-be National League champions took a 7-6 lead in the top of the 11th. But they managed to put runners at first and second with one […]
Over the decades, residents of Washington, D.C., have turned to television station WTTG to watch Washington Redskins/Commanders football, Georgetown University Hoyas college basketball, and San Diego Padres baseball.1 This last item calls for some explanation. In May 1973 Washington supermarket tycoon Joseph Danzansky submitted a $12 million offer to buy the failing Padres.2 The baseball […]
The bottom two teams in the American League met on a cold Friday in October for the second of a four-game series. The Sun of New York described the game as “one part baseball and one part freeze out.”1 The New York Times forecast a “northeast gale”2 to blow through the city. A small crowd […]
The Brooklyn Dodgers had finished a tough late-season stretch to stay on the fringe of the 1945 pennant race. The stretch included a tough four-game series in Pittsburgh where the Dodgers were happy to emerge with a split, featuring two extra-inning games and a 17-5 blowout loss. In spite of the tough series, the Dodgers […]
For two days in September 1921, four pitchers on two teams had no idea how to get Cleveland’s Elmer Smith out. Over the span of three games, beginning on Sunday September 4, the 28-year-old outfielder from Milan, Ohio,1 rapped out a record seven consecutive extra-base hits — four home runs and three doubles — while […]
After playing 10 innings the night before, the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A’s squared off again at the Tokyo Dome on March 26. The game drew just a few more than the March 25 game, some 44,735. The first pitch was at 7:09 P.M. Tokyo time. For these first two regular-season games of 2008, […]
June 1940 ended with the reigning National League champion Cincinnati Reds in first place, 1½ games ahead of the second-place Brooklyn Dodgers. The Reds fell from the top spot by losing their first two games in July, but recaptured first place with a seven-game winning streak, and led the NL the rest of the way. […]
The Red Sox had one win in the books, with their extra-inning Game Four win over the Yankees. They weren’t going to be swept in four games. They had fresh energy and a new lease on life, if only for one more day. And they had Pedro Martínez ready to start. And many of them […]
Though the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox ranked one-two atop the American League standings in August 1947, there wnas a considerable distance between them. The visiting Red Sox were 13½ games behind New York before their Sunday afternoon game at Yankee Stadium on August 17. The Red Sox had been shut out on […]
Pittsburgh’s Chief Wilson set the major league single-season triple records by stroking his 36th three-bagger during the Pirates’ final game of the season, an away contest in Cincinnati. On the same day but in St. Louis, Cleveland’s Shoeless Joe Jackson raced around the diamond for his 26th triple of the season, establishing the American League […]
On Sunday, October 9, 1921, the sporting world was obsessed with one question: Would Babe Ruth play in Game Four of the World Series? Three days earlier, the Yankees slugger seriously injured his left forearm, gashing it below the elbow while sliding into third base in the eighth inning of his team’s second consecutive 3-0 […]
The seventh-place Chicago White Sox generated some welcome excitement for 25,000 fans at Comiskey Park on July 9, 1921. The White Sox weren’t doing much against the American League in general, but they had a handle on the New York Yankees, with six wins in nine head-to-head games so far in 1921. Eventually they were […]
The Boston Red Sox, defending American League champions, got off to a slow start in the spring of 1947. The team had a losing record, 21-22, through June 8 but came alive with a seven-game winning streak, June 9-17. The streak put the Red Sox in second place, one game behind the New York Yankees. […]
In major-league history, 10 teams have lost their first 11 regular-season games.1 Of these slow starters, the National Association’s 1872 Eckfords of Brooklyn were the most severely outclassed during their season-opening skid. They bore the largest negative run differential (-185), suffered more double-digit losses (10) and absorbed as many losses by 20 runs or more […]
“The sun is right bang in your eyes all the time,” said right fielder Dusty Miller of the Cincinnati Reds. “It takes a lot of figuring to get under them [fly balls] properly.”1 Playing in right field, the “sun field,” at Cincinnati’s League Park was difficult even “if you are protected … by smoked glasses,” […]