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The New York Mets won the National League crown in 2000, the second consecutive year they had made the postseason under manager Bobby Valentine’s leadership. After losing to the New York Yankees in the first “Subway Series” since the 1950s, the 2001 Mets aimed to end the Atlanta Braves’ six-season hold on the NL East […]
On July 29, 2003, a pair of knuckleballers faced off in the 97–degree heat of Texas. The Boston Red Sox sent Tim Wakefield to the mound against the Rangers’ R.A. Dickey. The hero of the day was the Red Sox eighth-spot hitter, third-baseman Bill Mueller. Before a crowd of 24,632, Mueller hit three home runs, […]
On July 9, 1930, the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Athletics by a 12-6 score at Yankee Stadium. The loss dropped the reigning World Series champions into second place in the American League. Connie Mack’s club trailed the Washington Senators by a scant half-game. The Mackmen won their next eight games, from July 10 […]
After they swept the Cincinnati Reds in a two-game, mid-July series in Los Angeles, the first-place and eventual 1965 world champion Dodgers’ season turned to the Dog Days of August in hot and humid Cincinnati versus the third-place Reds. The Ohio Rhinelanders were reeling, having begun the month losing five of seven home games including […]
The 1998 Houston Astros strode into the postseason with the confidence that came with being the franchise’s best team ever. They won 102 games in the regular season, the only time the Astros have produced more than 100 wins in a season. Most prognosticators and pundits favored them to make the World Series and play […]
Even before the Baltimore Orioles selected Ben McDonald with the first overall pick of the June 1989 amateur draft, many fans, sportswriters, and baseball executives were already penciling him in as the team’s 1990 Opening Day starter.1 The year that followed his inevitable selection featured injuries, a work stoppage, a record-shattering rookie contract, and threats […]
Entering the 1915 season, one of baseball’s biggest questions involved the Boston Braves. George Stallings’ team, in last place on the Fourth of July in 1914, had mounted an improbable charge to claim the National League pennant and sweep the favored Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series. Could Boston’s NL entry duplicate this performance, or […]
On June 15, 1940, Mother Nature must have been a New York fan. The Giants got in a full set of batting practice prior to a game against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates. A rain shower then “washed out the Pirate chance to get in a few swings”1 but ended in time for the game to […]
Versatile players can help give a manager a bit more flexibility. When a team is losing a not-that-important game 10-1 heading into the ninth inning, a position player who takes a stint on the mound can help spare a beleaguered bullpen. When Boston Red Sox shortstop Tzu-Wei Lin pitched the ninth inning on September 24 […]
The only pitching staff capable of beating the 1996 Seattle Mariners was the 1996 Seattle Mariners. “Too many games where you give up five, six runs early, this team battles back – and the pitching has given up two, three, four more runs,” Seattle manager Lou Piniella said. “I keep telling these kids, hold it […]
Things weren’t looking that good for the Red Sox heading into the bottom of the ninth. It was the home opener of the 1952 season at Boston’s Fenway Park. Jimmy Dykes and his Philadelphia Athletics held a 4-1 lead. Right-hander Bob Hooper was dealing. He’d allowed seven scattered hits and walked three, but the Red […]
If there were a Hall of Fame for baseball comedians, it would surely include legendary funnymen like Arlie Latham, Germany Schaefer, and Nick Altrock – and perhaps also Carl Sawyer. This fun-loving comic with his own brand of tomfoolery entertained major-league audiences as a member of the Washington Senators in 1915 and 1916. He later […]
Kim Allen, a solid contact hitter with a God-given knack for getting on base, spent parts of two seasons (1980-1981) with the Seattle Mariners. Although he was primarily an outfielder during his nine-year professional baseball career, he saw most of his big-league defensive action at second base, and half of his 42 appearances for Seattle […]
The 1914 home run leader in professional baseball wasn’t Gavvy Cravath or even Frank “Home Run” Baker, but an unassuming 21-year-old Georgia lumber farmer named Everett Bankston, who banged out 31 homers with Cordele in the Class D Georgia State League in his very first professional season. He never came close to matching that production […]
In Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, two men lead such intertwined lives in London and revolution-torn Paris that it can simultaneously be the best and the worst of times. Bill Sweeney’s major league career was bookended by dramatic moves between two cities, but it was his unhappy fate to discover that, like Dickens’ […]
In the long and successful history of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club, few people have been more important than Sam Breadon, who owned the team for 27 years and presided over nine league pennants and six World Series titles. Much of the club’s success has been attributed to Branch Rickey, the team’s genius general […]
Jim Bagby Jr. was a second-generation major leaguer, his career neatly echoing that of his father, James “Sarge” Bagby, Sr. Both were right-handed pitchers; both at various times led the American League in innings pitched; and both spent the bulk of their careers with Cleveland. Both compiled some memorable seasons. Twice Jim’s pitching merited his […]
In 1962 the Los Angeles Times veteran sportswriter Braven Dyer offered in three short sentences an apt analysis of the brief career of Ron Moeller: “Moeller is something of a problem pitcher. At times, he seems to have everything. The next time out, he seems devoid of confidence.”1 Emerging on the major league stage in […]
A quintessential sportsman and promoter, Michael J. Finn was a newspaper writer, trainer of champion foot racers, dog racing promoter, boxing manager, and circus man before he ever got into professional baseball in 1897. Then, over the next 25 years, he served as a minor league manager, owner and scout, sending dozens of players to […]
Reliever John Wyatt may have been considered a journeyman reliever in his day, but his journeys led him to two fortuitous stops. One was in Boston, where he anchored the bullpen of the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox, who came within one game of winning their first World Series in nearly a half-century. The next year […]
The second of three Boyle family members to catch in the majors,1 Eddie Boyle followed his older brother Jack Boyle as a catcher into the National League after a promising minor-league career. Touted as potentially superior behind the plate to his well-respected older brother, Boyle suffered a serious ankle injury during the offseason before his […]
An intelligent player whom both teammates and opponents respected, 29-year-old first baseman Dick Hoblitzell opened the 1918 season as the Red Sox’ captain and cleanup hitter, but an early-season slump and his June induction into the Army Dental Corps marked an inglorious end to an otherwise distinguished 11-year career in the major leagues. Though he […]
Who was Curt Walker? With a career .304 batting average, he might be the best hitter you have never heard of. A consistent, productive outfielder throughout the 1920s, he might be one of the most overlooked players of his generation. And playing at a time when Babe Ruth dominated the baseball world, Walker also had […]
Ed Ashenbach was known as the “King of the Minors.” Who else could claim discovery of Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Alexander? From 1890 to 1911, Ashenbach toured the minors as an outfielder and manager. During this period, minor leagues were formed and disbanded at a dizzying pace. “Ash” navigated these waters, […]