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Burly, 6-foot-7 reliever Tim Stoddard remains (as of 2023) the only man to win an NCAA Division I basketball title and a World Series ring. Before he grew his big walrus mustache and began to lose his hair, he was the starting power forward for the 1973-74 North Carolina State Wolfpack. Although baseball’s January 1975 […]
Late in the evening of May 15, 1973, Amos Otis lifted a Nolan Ryan fastball to Royals Stadium’s spacious right-center-field gap. Angels right fielder Ken Berry “pulled it down,” Otis told the Kansas City Star. “Right there on the warning track. If Bob Oliver (whom Berry had replaced for defensive purposes) had been out there, […]
When San Francisco Giants skipper Wes Westrum signaled for Johnnie LeMaster to get into the game, the 21-year-old rookie couldn’t find his glove. He had joined the team only a few hours before the afternoon contest on September 2, 1975, in Candlestick Park against the Dodgers. “A couple of veteran players hid my glove on […]
When Garrett Atkins made his major-league debut with the Colorado Rockies on August 3, 2003, the sky appeared to be the limit. The young corner infielder had progressed through the Rockies’ minor-league system in three years and appeared to be Colorado’s heir-apparent to third baseman and fan favorite Vinny Castilla. The unassuming Atkins rose to […]
The Los Angeles Dodgers moved to the West Coast in 1958, but the franchise was established in Brooklyn, New York, in 1884. Although the team has produced some of the most renowned pitchers in baseball history, the franchise has also had its share of power hitters. Matt Kemp and Adrián Beltré both led the National […]
One of the best pitchers of the 1970s, Dock Ellis feared success nearly as much as he feared failure. He both angered and amused. His antics cut across racial and cultural lines, as he challenged old prejudices and “normal” ways of doing things. Ellis pitched a no-hitter in 1970 and the next year led the […]
Randy Smith had to figure out a way to compete against the likes of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in the coming 1996 season. The 32-year-old, newly hired general manager of the Detroit Tigers knew he couldn’t go after the same type of players that the big-market Yankees and Red Sox […]
During the time when so many strong ballplayers were making their way from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, catcher Al DeVormer was one of those sent to Boston in exchange. Most of the deals had already been done. Babe Ruth was sold in January 1920. Others on the 1922 Yankees who […]
For Johnny Mitchell, it was a long slog making it through the minor leagues and up to the bigs – but he made it and broke in with the New York Yankees in 1921. He’d paid his dues along the way and seemed to have a penchant for playing on pennant-winning teams, despite never being […]
Two weeks after being shelled in his debut, Steve Ellsworth was credited with his first big-league win. The 27-year-old right-hander was on the mound for the Boston Red Sox, and the team he bested was the same one that had sent him to the showers after just two-plus innings. Going seven strong at Tiger Stadium, […]
Dante Bichette is one of the most important figures in Rockies history. Though his major-league career began with the Angels, and included stints with the Brewers, Reds, and Red Sox, it was in Colorado that Bichette made a name for himself as one of the game’s great sluggers in the mid-1990s. Bichette holds a unique […]
Known for his fielding prowess and head-first slides, Terry “Cotton Top” Turner is Cleveland’s all-time leader in games played with 1,619. The quintessential utility player, the 5’8″, 149-pound Turner was, in the words of sportswriter Gordon Cobbledick, “a little rabbit of a man with the guts of a commando.” He was also one of the […]
Long-limbed southpaw Graeme Lloyd became the first Australian to win a World Series ring. The 6’8”1 reliever joined the New York Yankees bullpen late in the 1996 season and remained with the club for the 1998 championship too. Through the 2011 season, this distinction remained unique among Aussies. Just one other of Lloyd’s countrymen, Grant […]
In many situations, an injury or a trade can end up being a setback to a player’s career. Hal McRae turned both of them into an opportunity. After being traded to the Kansas City Royals when an injury reduced his defensive skills, he became one of the best designated hitters of all time. Harold Abraham […]
“This game is tough to play,” said 11-year major-league infielder Doug Flynn in an interview with the author.1 Progressing through the Cincinnati Reds’ system in the early 1970s, Flynn was a utilityman on the Reds championship teams in 1975 and 1976 before being traded to the New York Mets in 1977. A Gold Glove winner […]
He could be considered one of the most reluctant, or perhaps contradictory, players to have ever walked on to a ball field. In July 1942 Buddy Rosar wore out his welcome with the New York Yankees after bolting the team to sit for a police department entrance exam (anticipating postcareer employment) and to visit his […]
Outfielder Leon Culberson played for parts of six seasons in the major leagues, starting in the World War II years, but though he only got into 371 games (and five World Series games), he had two standout moments. The first was hitting for the cycle on July 3, 1943. The second was fielding Harry “The […]
Reflecting on the life and career of Pud Galvin, a writer commented that a proper accounting of Galvin’s achievements “would be a task of time and would … require a volume in size almost equal to the dictionary.”1 Galvin pitched for 16 years during a career that spanned three decades, four major leagues, and countless […]
Before Pedro Martinez arrived, scout Danny Doyle could laugh that he had signed every Red Sox Cy Young winner: Jim Lonborg and Roger Clemens. In 1988, Danny Doyle was named Midwest Scout of the Year by the Scout of the Year Foundation. Danny Doyle was a catcher, called up to the major leagues right at […]
Thursday, October 12, 1972, brought to Detroit overcast conditions that seemed perfectly suited to the grim circumstances of do-or-die baseball. The fifth and final game of the American League Championship Series saw Oakland right-hander John “Blue Moon” Odom and Detroit southpaw Woodie Fryman meet in a rematch of Game Two, won by Odom 5-0. The victory […]
“Buck Newsom pitched a no-hit gameBut gets no credit for the same,As in the tenth he lost it.For in that inning Lady LuckHauled off and took a poke at Puck,And off the records crossed it.”1 Louis Newsom, nicknamed “Buck” when he arrived in the majors before adopting “Bobo” during his post-Browns tenure with the Washington […]
Lou Criger batted .211 for the Boston Americans in 1904 — which was nearly a 20-point improvement over the prior year. He managed an OPS+ greater than 100 only once in his 16-year career and never made more than 377 plate appearances. No, Criger was not in the big leagues because of his bat, but […]
Sportsman’s Park was home of the St. Louis Browns from 1902 to 1953. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.) Introduction Achieving on-field success has often proved elusive to owners of the Baltimore Orioles and its predecessor teams, the St. Louis Browns and Milwaukee Brewers. The franchise, dating back to the inception of the American […]
The Southern Tier Expressway does not lend itself to reflection or nostalgia. The six-lane divided highway breaks off from Interstate 81 in Binghamton, New York, and heads west, offering drivers — when construction allows — the fastest possible route to Elmira, Corning, the Finger Lakes, and other destinations in the Empire State’s southern and western […]