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In his time, Enzo Hernández was a special player for fans of Venezuelan baseball. Both Hernández and David Concepción were thought of as successors to Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel and Luis Aparicio, and Venezuela began to be seen as the cradle of the shortstop. Enzo Octavio Hernández Martínez was born on February 12, 1949, in the […]

Generations ago it would have been difficult to determine which was the more unlikely — a fringe major-league ballplayer ascending to the governorship of his home state and later becoming one of its United States senators, or a Democrat being elected to such lofty posts in then rock-solid Republican New Hampshire. Whichever the case, Fred […]

A speedy outfielder, Ollie Pickering had three separate stints in the major leagues (1896-1897, 1901-1904, and 1907-1908) during which he fashioned a .272 batting average over nearly 900 games. A baseball “lifer,” Pickering was managing, and still sometimes playing, in the minor leagues well into his fifties. Ollie developed a reputation for somewhat eccentric behavior. […]

Bob Zupcic hit .217 in Double A one year, then .213 the next – and found himself in the major leagues the year after that. The former first-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1987 was a large right-handed outfielder (6-foot-4 and 220 pounds as a ballplayer) prized for his defensive talents. He played […]

Arthur Soden was like many nineteenth century capitalists: He had a near single-mindedness when it came to the bottom line. He saw baseball as a business, pure and simple, though he did admit later in life that he had a fondness for the game. Controlling costs and expanding revenues were his priorities. The well-being and […]

These were heady days for the Houston Astros. In 1979 the franchise had mastered just two winning campaigns in its 17-year existence yet found itself in first place through a majority of the season. Manager Bill Virdon accurately predicted this success in a preseason interview with columnist Harry Shattuck. Emphasizing a needed reliance on its […]

Hard-throwing right-hander Dave Boswell debuted with the Minnesota Twins in 1964 at the age of 19, and was a valuable contributor to the Twins’ pennant-winning team the following season. Despite chronic blisters on his pitching hand, and arm, shoulder, and back miseries, Boswell averaged 14 wins and 210 innings over a four-year stretch with the […]

Jim Johnson may have second thoughts if he grew up in today’s era of millionaire ball players. However, the southpaw who pitched for one season with the 1970 San Francisco Giants, valued family and a desire to become an educator as more important values than remaining in the big leagues. Just as he did by […]

The advent of free agency for players in the 1970s provided hot stove league fodder for baseball fans with news of players, their agents, team owners, and lawyers negotiating multi-million-dollar contracts and perks such as tax-deferred annuities and all sorts of other inducements. Nearly 100 years earlier, all that one particular 19th-century free agent wanted […]

When Bob Melvin was a 27-year-old big-leaguer, journalist Bill Glauber described him as “the strong, silent type, with gnarled hands and a no-nonsense manner that commands respect. He is part psychologist, and part intimidator. A good cop. And a bad cop. He is, of course, a catcher.”1 Following a playing career that spanned 10 seasons […]

There have been two big leaguers named Joe Morgan — and it’s not hard to tell them apart. Joseph Michael Morgan played fractions of four seasons in “The Show,” finishing with three games for the 1964 Cardinals. He is white. Joe Leonard Morgan’s Hall of Fame career ran from 1963 to 1984. He is black. […]

The mere mention of Edgar “Blue” Washington evokes thought and a curious smile, as he is undoubtedly one of the rarest of all Negro League treasures. During the early part of the twentieth century, Edgar flaunted his athleticism as a gallant young prizefighter in open-air boxing arenas in Southern California and on weekend afternoons could […]

Frank Castillo was a right-handed pitcher who played 13 solid seasons in the major leagues, mostly as a starting pitcher, while recording over 1,100 strikeouts and 82 wins. In love with the game and his family, Frank had his best years with the Chicago Cubs in the early 1990s, close to making Cubs history in […]

“What do [you] think of Tommy Henrich?”“I don’t know, he’s dependable, I guess.” This bit of repartee, from Philip Roth’s novella Goodbye Columbus, just about sums up Henrich’s career with the New York Yankees during the late 1930s and 1940s. If Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Bill Dickey, Phil Rizzuto, and Yogi Berra were […]

Brooklyn–born Gennaro Joseph Casale, better known as Jerry, played 11 seasons in professional baseball beginning in 1952 and concluding in 1963. During a five-year stretch, from 1958-1962, he pitched for three major-league teams, a hard-throwing right-hander and recorded his best season in 1959 as a 13-8 rookie with the Boston Red Sox. Casale was a […]

When Jess Barnes was at the top of his game, the right-handed pitcher from Circleville, Kansas, held his own with the elite of his day. Named to Baseball Magazine’s All-American team following the 1919 season, Barnes shared the honor with such luminaries as Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, George Sisler, and Joe […]

When Scott Williamson joined the Cincinnati Reds at spring training in 1999, he was a non-roster invitee with long odds of making the team. Before the year was over, however, the hard-throwing right-hander was an All-Star and the National League Rookie of the Year. Although injuries prevented Williamson from replicating the success of his rookie […]

The New York Giants played their first game on May 1, 1883, and their last game on September 29, 1957. On August 19, 1957, Horace Stoneham, the Giants owner since 1936, announced that the team would move to San Francisco for the 1958 season. Why leave New York after 75 seasons? “Lack of attendance,” he […]

“Although Father Time has tried to mock the dean of pitchers in either major leagues,” opined a sportswriter poetically about 36-year-old Walter Johnson in 1924, “the old man with the scythe could not have the cunning and strength from that great arm today.”1 The Washington Senators hurler continued his season-long resurgence by holding the St. […]

As the major-league schedule headed to the midpoint point in 2012, all six divisions had multiple teams still eyeing the postseason as a possible destination. A playoff format of three division winners and one wild-card team had been created in 1994 to give more teams a shot at the postseason and, it was expected, amp […]

“The greatest thrill in the world is to end the game with a home run and watch everybody else walk off the field while you’re running the bases on air” Al Rosen1   Known as walk-offs since the late 1980s,2 game-ending home runs are unforgettable for those ballplayers fortunate enough to have hit one. To […]

The Boston Braves played 2,811 regular-season home games at Braves Field between 1915 and 1952, winning 1,378 of them. The very last of those wins, recorded in the first game of a Sunday doubleheader in September 1952, appears in retrospect to rank among the tightest and most exciting wins ever seen by Boston’s National League […]

April 16, 1978, was not an ideal day for baseball in St. Louis. As a sparse crowd sauntered into Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch II) that afternoon, the temperature was under 45 degrees.1 The Cardinals had been losing crowd appeal throughout the 1970s. Their home opener, six days earlier, had drawn only 19,241. Only 11,495 showed […]

The year after a last-place finish in 2012, the Boston Red Sox in 2013 were in position to win the World Series at Fenway Park in Game Six, having taken both Games Four and Five in St. Louis to seize a three-games-to-two lead. They had won it all in 2004 and 2007, but both clinchers […]