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Stories about Art Quirk’s golden arm and Ivy League degree accompanied the left-handed pitcher on his rise to the major leagues. There were double-digit strikeout games and a no-hitter. Most newspaper profiles mentioned the rarified source of his college diploma. But the excitement of his 1962 debut was short-lived when he was bumped from the […]

Cleveland Indians General Manager and Hall of Fame outfielder Hank Greenberg once said of Bobby Avila, “He has that something extra that makes a great hitter. Call it competitive instinct. … He’s always fighting the pitcher, never choking up and never giving an inch. … In a tough spot, I’m always glad to see Bobby […]

Seems to Move in Perpetual Sunshine.1 “Baseball is a lot about attitude — not getting too up or down, enjoy each game, then forget it and go on. Review the game, learn from your mistakes, but don’t let it burden you. A lot of things matter more than talent: work, education, never being satisfied. These […]

In his April 27, 2014, major-league debut, righty Scott Carroll tied the Chicago White Sox record for the longest initial outing by one of its pitchers: 7⅓ innings, last established by Gerry Janeski in 1970. After a dubious start to his major-league career – four hits and a hit-by-pitch to his first six batters – […]

For Jim Kern, the 1979 season was unlike any other he had experienced in the major leagues. Not only had he established himself as one of the top relief pitchers in baseball, but he was finally on a contending team. After years in Cleveland, where the organization’s perennial mantra was “wait until next year,” Kern […]

Often overshadowed by those of two older brothers, Kerry Don McDaniel’s brief career in baseball is remembered by a nickname – Butch – appended to him by a neighbor’s father but never used professionally by the athlete. Instead he laughingly remembered being known solely as the younger brother of Lindy or, a few years later, […]

It was a dreary, overcast day in Brooklyn on April 15, 1954. The visiting Pirates were at Ebbets Field to face the Dodgers. The home team had jumped out to a 7-1 lead courtesy of home runs by Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam and Jackie Robinson. Tex Ricard, the Dodger PA announcer announced a pitching change […]

Dick Bosman finished his 11-year major-league career three games under .500. He threw a no-hitter at the age of 30, but by the age of 33 his career was over. He was born Richard Allen Bosman on February 17, 1944, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the only son and oldest of four children born to George and […]

Fiddler Bill McGee is far better known as a musician in the Mississippi Mudcat Band organized by Pepper Martin than as a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants from 1935 to 1942. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound righthander was a handsome guy with grey eyes, light brown hair, a ruddy face, and, according […]

Dick Midkiff had the uncommon experience of pitching for the Boston Red Sox two years before he made the major leagues. His Red Sox “debut” took place on June 1, 1936, in an exhibition game in Providence, Rhode Island, and he earned a prominent headline in a Boston newspaper: “University of Texas Pitcher Effective in […]

When baseball fans reflect on the great Oakland Athletics teams from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, there is a lot to recall. Three straight pennants (1988-1990) and one world championship (1989) is a good start. Teams do not put together those types of seasons without a solid core of players. A starting rotation […]

The baseball fortunes of hard-throwing right-hander Frank Pfeffer turned on a single event: an offseason trade in the winter of 1905. The transaction dispatched Pfeffer from a Chicago Cubs club poised on the brink of National League domination to the sad-sack Boston Beaneaters, arguably the worst NL team of the Deadball Era. Worse yet for […]

Spittin’ Bill Doak still ranks second in career shutouts for the St. Louis Cardinals, behind only Bob Gibson. In 1914, his first full season in the majors, Doak came out of nowhere to lead the National League in ERA as the Cardinals achieved third place, their best NL finish ever. He followed with solid but […]

The Philadelphia Phillies are the oldest continuous one-name, one-city franchise in North American sports, with a heritage that dates back to 1883. In their history, the Phillies have played nearly 20,000 games and approximately 180,000 innings. This is the story of a man who participated in only one of those innings. The big-league career of […]

Hal Trosky played first base for the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox in the 1930s and 1940s. His career reached its apex in 1936, when he led the American League in runs batted in with 162, yet he has largely been consigned to historical obscurity. This anonymity is not only due to the […]

Jack Sanford got his start in baseball with a push from his big sister. Sanford was named National League Rookie of the Year, won sixteen straight games one season, and started three times in the World Series, but he never got over being labeled “no prospect” when he was a teenager. John Stanley Sanford was […]

Right-handed knuckleballer Charlie Zink put in his time, rising through the Boston Red Sox organization. He pitched for seven-plus years in the minors before finally getting the call to the big leagues. He was with the Boston team for only one day and got into just one game, but he did accomplish something that tens […]

Between games of the doubleheader at Buffalo’s Federal League Park, those in the grandstands enjoyed “old songs from the days of ’61 and modern ragtime jingles”1 played by the 74th Regiment Band. Hopefully the music soothed some spirits. After they watched the battered Buf-Feds lose 8-0 in the first game, it only got worse. Buffalo […]

For Game Five of the 1981 mini-series playoff between the Montreal Expos and the Philadelphia Phillies, Expos manager Jim Fanning unleashed his best pitching weapon, Steve Rogers. He also unleashed his secret offensive weapon — Steve Rogers? The 1981 major-league season was interrupted by a 50-day midseason players’ strike that divided the campaign into two […]

The Montreal Expos’ 1976 season was a soap opera. Clubhouse dissension, along with the second-worst record in franchise history (55-107), made for a long, frustrating year, so it only seemed appropriate that fans had to “tune in tomorrow” to find out if Tim Foli became the first Expo to ever hit for the cycle (spoiler […]

The Detroit Tigers began 1911 about as well as any team has ever started a season. By May 9, after shellacking the New York Highlanders 10-0, they sported a nine-game winning streak, a 21-2 record, and an eight-game lead over second-place Boston in the American League.1 Their fortunes began to change the next day, when […]

Negro League historian James A. Riley wrote about Satchel Paige, “A mixture of fact and embellishment, Satchel’s stories are legion and form a rich array of often-repeated folklore.”1 There is truth in the assertion that a lot of myth-making has been involved in constructing Paige’s life story: however, as Riley also noted, “The stories are […]

Two surprising first-place teams clashed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on May 5, 1978, when the Detroit Tigers played the Oakland Athletics. Detroit, American League East Division champion as recently as 1972, had endured four straight losing seasons, but with many promising young players on the team, there was hope for the future. Five Tigers […]

The Detroit Tigers played in Bennett Field in 1911. Immediately after the last game of the 1911 season, the small wooden structure was demolished and replaced with a $300,000 steel and concrete ballpark named Navin Field after the club’s owner, Frank Navin. Navin Field officially opened its doors to Tigers fans on April 20, 1912.1 […]