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Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers were slumping as they prepared to wrap up the season series with the sixth-place Cincinnati Reds (64-79) in Flatbush. Skipper Chuck Dressen’s squad still possessed the best record (89-53) in the big leagues and held a comfortable three-game lead over the New York Giants in the pennant race, but […]

During the 1910 season, the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics relied on two natives of the City of Brotherly Love at first base: 15-year veteran Harry Davis, whose best days were behind him, and 26-year-old rookie Ben Houser. In addition to sharing a position and a hometown, Davis and Houser also had a common alma […]

Boston Braves outfielder Paul Waner collected his 3,000th career hit on June 19, 1942, a fifth-inning single off Pittsburgh Pirates starter and ex-teammate Rip Sewell. Playing against the team for whom he had labored for 15 seasons, Waner became just the seventh player to reach the 3,000-hit milestone — the first National Leaguer since Honus […]

On September 13, 1951, Sportsman’s Park hosted an extremely rare event: a three-team doubleheader. In the first game, the third-place Cardinals defeated the second-place New York Giants, 6-4. In the second game, the Boston Braves’ Warren Spahn pitched a masterful one-hitter as the Braves blanked the Cardinals, 2-0. This was the first time since June […]

The Pirates and Orioles finally got their second travel break in World Series action on Monday, October 15, as both teams made the trip back to Baltimore for Game Six. As the media analyzed the Series, even the opinions of Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, the hero of the previous two World Series, were solicited. Jackson […]

The Boston Red Sox hit nine grand slams during the 2013 regular season, five in the month of September alone.1 On September 25, the final Wednesday of the regular-season schedule, third baseman Will Middlebrooks hit the team’s fifth September grand slam. He also hit a three-run homer earlier in the game, doing enough damage all […]

“There are worse places to open a baseball season than the Astrodome, but no team is based in Death Valley or on Alcatraz. … [Atlanta Braves manager Bobby] Cox counts himself among the game’s traditionalists and thinks the Dome should be torn down and a shopping mall erected in its place. He hates it for […]

After 2,826 games, 11,564 plate appearances, and nearly 22 years in the major leagues, Al Kaline was heading to his hometown of Baltimore near the end of the 1974 season just one hit shy of a milestone which, at that point, had only been achieved by 11 major leaguers before him. Kaline and his Tigers […]

A Thursday afternoon Philadelphia crowd of 3,500 fans got their money’s worth by watching the longest game of the 1918 season, a 19-inning affair between the Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals that ended in a tie. The 18-25 Phillies were in sixth place in the National League. The Cardinals were a half-game behind them […]

Fully bought into rallying cries like “Humm Baby” and “Don’t get your dauber down,” the 1987 San Francisco Giants picked up right where they left off the previous season, coming from behind to beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3, in 12 innings on Opening Day at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In 1986 — their […]

A scorecard from the 1967 season of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team’s last of 72 successive years in the International League and its predecessor. (Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)   Monday September 4, 1967, the annual Labor Day holiday in Toronto, was a day of many endings. For schoolchildren it was the […]

Baseball fans in Houston had never had it so good in the short history of the Astros. After completing a sweep of the Dodgers on August 21, the Astros climbed into seventh place, one-thousandth of a percentage point ahead of Philadelphia. As John Wilson wrote in the Houston Chronicle, “When you’ve been where the Astros have […]

After the Cubs had split the first two games of the 2016 World Series in Cleveland, they returned home to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field for what would be the first fall classic game at the venerable stadium since October 10, 1945. On that date, Chicago’s North Siders had lost the seventh game of […]

Rare is the player in major-league history who, after being part of a World Series winner, joins an equally great team in another profession in his post-baseball life. Pitcher Byron Houck provides such an example. He was part of the Philadelphia Athletics’ championship staff in 1913, but his major-league career soon faded away. A decade […]

The major league baseball record book entry for pitcher Ernie Hickman consists of a two-month tour of duty with a lousy ballclub in the short-lived Union Association. Yet Hickman’s life and career are not without interest. In June 1884, he posted the first victory ever recorded for a big-league team that called Kansas City home; […]

Alfred L. Shaw’s parents James and Annie (Beech) Shaw emigrated to America around 1880. This was almost 40 years after the famous Pottery Riots of 1842, emerging from a general strike that year in the Stoke-on-Trent area of England. Coal-mine owners were trying to impose wage cuts on their workers. The resultant organization of workers […]

The 1906 World Series was never supposed to become a classic. The interleague championship series was still congealing into the form in which we know it today, so there were few prospects for surprise when the two Chicago teams squared off that October. At the outset it appeared to feature a David, played by the […]

Bill Shettsline must have been delighted. Peering through a knothole in a fence around a baseball park, the Philadelphia Phillies business manager was getting a chance to scout a left-handed pitcher who was making headlines in the semipro leagues around Philadelphia. And he was doing it without leaving the confines of the city. The only […]

The first superstar in American League history, Napoleon Lajoie combined graceful, effortless fielding with powerful, fearsome hitting to become one of the greatest all-around players of the Deadball Era, and one of the best second basemen of all time. At 6’1″ and 200 pounds, Lajoie possessed an unusually large physique for his time, yet when […]

To date, there has only been one woman who played baseball with a team of major leaguers in a big-league ballpark. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Murphy and on August 14, 1922, she played for a team of “all-stars” in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Lizzie Murphy’s team beat […]

“Turkey Stearnes — that cat could play and hit. He could’ve made it.” — Thomas “Monk” Favors1 Over the years, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s research department routinely requested retired baseball players to submit a form whose details painted a picture of the player’s birth, family, and early years, and a sketch of his playing […]

Jim Gosger was a hustling, hard-working ballplayer for 13 professional seasons, years that took him all over the baseball map, and to the majors for parts of 10 seasons with five different teams. He played a good center field but never really established himself as a good enough hitter to stay in a lineup long. […]

Esteban Bellán was a pioneer. In 1871, the half-Irish Cuban became the first Latin-born player in a top professional league. Bellán, a pro since 1868, played for the Troy Haymakers in the National Association, which predated the familiar National League. He continued with Troy and the New York Mutuals through 1873. After that season, he […]

In the 21st century, it’s become rare for whole teams to post 10 complete games in a single season – let alone a single pitcher. Only two men since the year 2000 have done so: C.C. Sabathia (2008) and James Shields (2011). Seasons with double-digit shutouts are an even more compelling feat. Over the half […]