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“Gus Weyhing is one of the swiftest pitchers in the business. He is, comparatively speaking, a small man and his appearance gives no indication of the muscular power necessary to manipulate the ball at the speed with which he delivers it.”1 The 145-pound Weyhing was a true rabble rouser, often as mischievous off the field […]

A baseball lifer, Al Widmar spent almost six decades playing, managing, coaching, and developing players in the major and minor leagues. Widmar, who was the pitching coach for the 1964 Phillies, pitched for the Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Browns, and Chicago White Sox with a 13-30 career record and 5.21 ERA in parts of […]

Charlie Hautz was a man of modest baseball talent but much baseball enthusiasm. He parlayed his limited abilities into a long career as a first baseman and outfielder during the pioneering years of nineteenth-century baseball in St. Louis and other Western locales. While he spent only parts of two seasons with major-league clubs, he always […]

John Milner idolized Hank Aaron, lockered next to Willie Mays, and on his best days could hit home runs with as much authority as either man. While injuries and inconsistency prevented Milner from becoming an elite slugger, he carved out a 12-year career for the Mets, Pirates, and Expos, helping each of those clubs reach […]

He batted .400 for his major-league career, never committed an error, but was 0-1 as a pitcher. He appeared in four games — one in 1950 and three in 1952. His name was James Curtis Atkins, a big 6-foot-3, 205-pouind Alabaman who batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He pitched for 13 years in the minor […]

Romer “Reddy” Grey made his major-league debut on May 28, 1903 at Boston, wearing the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 5’-11’, 175-pounder played left field for a club that included future Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Fred Clarke. Veteran Beaneater southpaw Wiley Piatt faced the Pirates that day, and Pittsburgh was victorious, 7-6. A left-hand batter […]

Tommie Agee was one of the key components to the 1969 Miracle Mets, solidifying the defense and serving as the club’s chief power source, albeit from the leadoff spot. His on-field heroics during the ’69 season—including socking the only home run to ever reach Shea Stadium’s upper deck—helped propel the Mets to their first postseason […]

One of the most energetic players of his era, Jimmy Austin was a sparkplug for the New York Highlanders and St. Louis Browns over an 18-year career spent entirely in the American League. A speedy switch-hitting third baseman, Austin stole at least twenty bases in each of his first six major league seasons, and he […]

Immersed in a pennant race that would go down to the wire, the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers took the field at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on September 28, 1966, in hopes of putting distance between themselves and their two closest competitors. The St. Louis Cardinals had no intention of making this endeavor any easier […]

Tall right-handed pitcher Ralph Brickner had an enviable first year in major-league baseball, with a .750 winning percentage and a career 2.18 earned run average. Unfortunately, his time in the minor leagues was not as productive and his career was a relatively short one. A Cincinnatian – born, raised, and buried there, Ralph Harold Brickner […]

St. Louis Browns owner Phil Ball, second from left, meets with American League owners Frank Navin (Detroit Tigers, far left), Clark Griffith (Washington Senators, middle), Ben Shibe (Philadelphia A’s, second from right), and American League president Ban Johnson, far right, in Chicago, circa 1920. (Chicago History Museum, Chicago Daily News collection, SDN-062283)   Phil Ball […]

Although not a star, Joe Beggs distinguished himself from ballplayers of the 1930s and 1940s in several ways. In an era when baseball players were not known for their educational accomplishments, Beggs not only possessed a college degree, but was learned enough to be tagged as “erudite” by one profiler. Although a star athlete in college, […]

A few more feet was all Clint Conatser needed. His hard shot to center with the bases loaded and the Braves trailing 4-1 in the eighth inning of Game Six of the 1948 World Series was caught by Cleveland’s Thurman Tucker against the outfield fence; had the ball hit or cleared the wall just above […]

The son of an All-Star, a two-time All-American at Harvard University, and a first-round draft pick, Mike Stenhouse seemed destined to thrive in the majors. But in a five-year career with three teams that never saw him play in more than half the schedule, Stenhouse never hit. While he did not make the postseason roster […]

Like Three-Fingered Brown after him, Hugh “One-Arm” Daily was saddled with a sobriquet more fanciful than factual. For, as sure as Mordecai Peter Brown had digits enough to count to four on his right hand, so Hugh Ignatius Daily was possessed of a full complement of brachial appendages: the left one, owing to an accident […]

Although Greg Vaughn hit 17 home runs in 1990, his first full season, the 25-year-old outfielder batted only .220 and then played poorly in training camp the following spring. When the Brewers signed veteran free agent Candy Maldonado and swapped Dave Parker to the California Angels for promising young slugger Dante Bichette, Vaughn appeared to […]

Considered one of the best defensive shortstops of his era, Hall of Famer and 10-time All-Star Pee Wee Reese was the quiet yet forceful captain of the postwar Dodgers. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field was hosting the All-Star Game for the first time, the last of the major league locations in existence in […]

During the peak years of his 14 major-league seasons, before two knee injuries slowed him, Randy Hundley was regarded as a super-durable defensive player whose glove and leadership made him nearly indispensible to the Chicago Cubs. In 1970, when he suffered his first knee injury, manager Leo Durocher lamented, “If there’s one player I hate […]

It was a chilly spring evening at Coors Field. The Pirates were hoping to rebound from their 6-1 loss on the previous evening when their team leader, Andrew McCutchen, returned to the lineup. McCutchen had struggled on the Pirates’ Western road trip, getting only three hits in 23 at-bats before the team’s arrival in Denver. […]

The citizens of St. Louis had seen a lot of baseball played in the ballpark that stood at the intersection of Dodier Street and Grand Avenue. They had never seen it like this, though. After a single season in the upstart American League, the Milwaukee Brewers franchise was relocated to the “Gateway to the West” […]

On an unseasonably chilly Tuesday night in early May, a small crowd gathered at Tiger Stadium to watch the Detroit Tigers take on the visiting Chicago White Sox. The 7,327 who braved the cold — there were chill warnings in effect for later that night — were in for a treat: arguably the greatest pitching […]

The summer of 1969 was a loud summer, but the loudest blast was from the rocket that sent three men to the moon and back. With so much to write about during that eventful summer, author Roy Hoopes focused on his hometown team and wrote a picture book about Ted Williams and the 1969 Washington […]

“There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.”1 The quote from Japanese writer Haruki Murakami had nothing to do with the August 13, 1960, baseball game between the eventual World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals. However, in retrospect, the game proved to be important for both the Pirates and […]

A contest pitting age versus youth produced a “scintillating pitching duel,” gushed Motor City sportswriter Brian Bragg.1 The Milwaukee Brewers’ 37-year-old, 254-game winner, Don Sutton, recently acquired as a postseason insurance policy, and 23-year-old Detroit Tigers emerging star Dan Petry, with 40 career wins to his credit, tossed zeros for seven innings until Harvey’s Wallbangers […]