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At the start of play on April 22, 1914, eight days into the season, the Boston Red Sox won-lost record stood at 2-4-1. Connie Mack’s reigning World Series champion Philadelphia Athletics were 2-3-1. Bill Carrigan had become Red Sox manager a little more than halfway through the 1913 season, adding the duties to his role […]

It was still early in the 2004 season, but the teams playing this Saturday afternoon game at Fenway Park were off to very different starts. The visiting Kansas City Royals were 8-19 under manager Tony Peña and in last place in the American League Central Division. The host Boston Red Sox were 18-11 under Terry […]

The final score of the game between Brooklyn and Cincinnati on June 12, 1949, looked like that of a football game. Gil Hodges and Billy Cox were the offensive stars for the red-hot Dodgers. Except that they weren’t scoring or passing for touchdowns; they were hitting home runs and driving in runs in bunches that […]

History may assign this mid-September match-up between the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates to the scrapheap of thousands of supposedly meaningless late-season games between clubs whose postseason and title aspirations had long disappeared. But such a judgment overlooks the players, who competed not just for their next one-year contract, but also for their teammates and […]

After the Chicago White Sox lost the first two games of the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, the Series shifted to Chicago’s Comiskey Park for the next three tilts. Though Reds manager Pat Moran admitted his team was lucky to have beaten Lefty Williams in Game Two, he also insisted the […]

“Boston went baseball crazy again yesterday,” exclaimed the Boston Globe in a front-page story on Monday, August 20, 1934.1 A record crowd of 46,995 watched the Boston Red Sox take on the league-leading Detroit Tigers. This amazing figure “set a new American League attendance record for … young Tom Yawkey’s attractive ball park,”2 eclipsing by […]

Fans often remember the ends of seasons more readily than the beginnings. What is often associated with the beginnings of the 1975 season for the Cincinnati Reds is that on Saturday, May 17, 1975, the Reds stood at 19-19 and in second place 5½ games behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers and just a half-game […]

On Memorial Day 1960, the Pittsburgh Pirates had squeezed past the San Francisco Giants by a half-game to take over first place in the National League. And by mid-July the Giants had faded; the Pirates, forging on and 18 games over .500, held a three-game lead over the Milwaukee Braves. Pirate fans were ecstatic. Their […]

The 1927 New York Yankees are considered among the best teams ever. Two of their pitchers – Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt – are members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.1 Another star pitcher on that legendary team who is not in the Hall of Fame is Urban Shocker. Shocker, who started 27 games […]

There was symmetry to the first weeks of Stan Musial’s career in September 1941 and the last weeks 22 autumns later: Both saw the St. Louis Cardinals chasing the Dodgers for the pennant. Both saw them fall short but in each case, despite having the nucleus in place that would help them win the World […]

Over the course of his career, Ted Williams homered six times off Dizzy Trout. The last one of them won a ballgame.1 It was his first – and last – home run of 1952. It came on “Ted Williams Day.” Williams was given a “day” where fans in Boston could say goodbye as he left […]

Paul Kardow was a freshman at Harlandale (Texas) High School in 1931. At 6-feet-3-inches tall and 190 pounds, he led the freshmen intramural basketball team to the school championship. On March 4, he had just completed three weeks of spring football practice that left his coach drooling over the prospects for future seasons.1Three weeks later […]

The Boston Red Sox have had two Kelletts play for them, ten years apart. Al Kellett had more success as a professional basketball player, turning to that sport after his brief baseball career was done. Red Kellett had an extremely brief baseball career as well, later making more of a mark in football. Though the […]

In May 1951, a brief Associated Press dispatch noted the death of old-time left-handed pitcher Ezra Lincoln. Curiously left unmentioned was anything about the deceased’s playing days. Rather, the dispatch focused on his mid-season release by the 1890 Cleveland Spiders, which opened up the roster spot that the club then allotted to a baseball immortal […]

The Black Sox Scandal shocked the sporting public and led to fundamental changes in the governance of professional baseball. Central to this astonishing fix were eight Chicago White Sox ballplayers, including star center-fielder Oscar “Happy” Felsch. An unpretentious Milwaukee native, the “Pride of Teutonia Avenue” only left his hometown to play ball. Felsch, one of […]

By the time Mike Schmidt retired early in the 1989 season, he was regarded as perhaps the greatest all-around third baseman in baseball history. No major-leaguer hit more homers during the 1980s, but he was not a one-dimensional threat: he curbed his tendency to strike out and stole bases when needed. In the field, he […]

As of the 2012 season, 26 former Princeton University Tigers had played major-league baseball. Dan Bickham was the first pitcher and arguably the most ardent Tiger supporter among the group. He seldom missed an alumni gathering, especially in the early years when games were played between the alums and the current squad. He was described […]

Gary Bell was a wisecracking righthander who came up as a phenom in the Cleveland system, was traded to the Red Sox in early 1967, eventually winding down his major league career with stints as a Seattle Pilot and a Chicago White Sox. His parents, Doris and Bill Bell, settled in San Antonio, Texas, in […]

Although he hurled but a single game in the major leagues, Lefty Clarke achieved a measure of fame for his many successful years in the Blue Ridge League, both before and after World War I, and later for his career as a horse breeder and trainer in his native Maryland. Clarke was born Allen Thomas […]

Paul Blair is considered one of the premier defensive center fielders of his era. He made his major league debut on September 9, 1964, and played in 1947 games over a seventeen-year major league career, with his final game coming on June 20, 1980. He batted and threw right-handed but tried switch-hitting for a brief […]

In the histories of the Black Sox Scandal, perhaps the most shadowy of the major characters is Sport Sullivan. A Boston-based gambler, Sullivan pitches the World Series fix to the players, is later indicted, then seems to disappear. Little is known about his life before or after 1919. In fact, Sullivan’s life can be fleshed […]

Eugene Joseph Bremer Sr., sometimes known as Gene, was born in New Orleans on July 18, 1916. He grew up in the city with his parents, three sisters, and grandmother. His father, Joseph, worked as a driver and his mother, Amanda, as a washerwoman. As a youngster he loved all sports and that led to […]

Ken Griffey Jr. slides in with the winning run for the Seattle Mariners on Edgar Martinez’s 11th-inning double to beat the New York Yankees 6-5 in Game Five of the American League Division Series on October 8, 1995. The excitement of the Mariners’ first playoff appearance helped fuel a political effort to build a new […]

Last Saturday, November 8, was a great meeting for the East Tennessee Chapter of SABR. Lots of good baseball talk, a bit of business, two authors talking about their books (Gerald C. Wood on Smoky Joe Wood and Bryan Steverson on Baseball: A Special Gift from God). It was our highest attended chapter meeting, including […]