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Charles Leander ” Bumpus” Jones began his major league career on Saturday, October 15, 1892, when he twirled a no-hitter for Cincinnati against the visiting Pittsburgs. Seemingly emerging from nowhere, Jones caused quite a stir in baseball circles. He was never able to duplicate his success in the majors. Whether it was the change in […]
If somebody claimed that a person could simultaneously throw three baseballs with one hand accurately to three different catchers, or, with one hand could throw two balls, one a curve and one a fastball, accurately to two catchers, it would sound too weird to be believed. How about a claim that a person, suspended upside […]
George Pfister spent 56 years in Organized Baseball. However, he played just once in the majors, with the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers. It came on September 27, in the second to last game of the NL pennant-winners’ season. Pfister, then 23 years old, came in for the last five innings – but there was just one […]
On August 15, 1940, the York Bees defeated the Trenton Senators 3-2 in a Class B Interstate League game. What made this contest noteworthy was that the winning pitcher for York was a 54-year-old former major leaguer by the name of Lefty George. After the game George told the Associated Press, “I’m feeling fine. I’m […]
Escaping the Pennsylvania coal mines, which claimed the life of his brother Calvin, Jacob Ellsworth Daubert went on to a fifteen-year major league career with the Brooklyn and Cincinnati ball clubs. Frequently compared to the legendary Hal Chase, Daubert was arguably the premier National League first baseman of the Deadball Era. A slashing chop hitter […]
A onetime budding prospect in the Milwaukee Braves’ organization, Al Spangler drew favorable comparisons to Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn for his speed and pesky hitting throughout much of his early career. Seemingly in spite of the table-setting success of an Ashburn-like talent, Spangler often found himself on teams in search of a power-hitting slugger, […]
George Earnshaw was the right-handed pitching ace of Connie Mack’s last dynasty, but his major-league career started late and ended early. George Livingston Earnshaw was born on February 15, 1900, in New York City, the first of four children of John J. and Maude Earnshaw. One writer described him as “a social register Johnnie” who […]
Playing on a squad that featured such top-rank stars as Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez made it challenging for other players to gain notoriety in their own right. During the 1970s it was easy to overlook the contributions of “other” Reds who made up the roster of the Cincinnati’s Big Red […]
His prep school coach almost kicked the youngster off the team, saying he was too hardheaded to ever make it as a ballplayer. The coach was wrong. Dutch Ruether had a long and successful career in professional baseball. He had a number of things in common with his future roommate, Babe Ruth, and outperformed the […]
“Times of adversity make you stronger. And sometimes those times make you so tired that when your son says to you, ‘Dad, I want to be there at the last game you pitch,’ you tell him, ‘Kid, you might have been there already.’”1 — Bret Saberhagen on August 8, 2001, one day after his last […]
Literally a son of Fate, Bert Edgar Chapman changed his name to Ed Chaplin because he got caught cheating in 1919, the same year that the Chicago “Black Sox” consorted with gamblers during the World Series. He was player-manager for the Sanford Celery Feds in the Florida State League. (Sanford was known at the time […]
Signed to a Triple-A contract at the age of 19, Illinois-born Glen Hobbie quickly discovered that he was overmatched at that level. He fared little better in Class C, then was sidelined by a muscle spasm in his back, which he cured by swimming in the Mississippi River. Two seasons later, he was in the […]
When Wally Moon came to bat for the first time in the majors, some of the home fans in St. Louis booed. Others yelled, “We want Eno.” Two days earlier Enos Slaughter, a Cardinal favorite for 16 years—the hustling, hard-nosed, red-necked Country Slaughter, who left the dugout running and kept running until he hit the […]
From calling baserunners safe to keeping schoolchildren safe, Luther Derr Sahm had a long and eventful life – much of it spent under a professional alias. He called himself Doll Derr,1 and it is under that distinctive name that he appears in major-league records as an umpire in the National League for 28 games in […]
Catcher Hal Wagner spent 12 years on major-league teams, but five of his stints were for five games or less. He did play in over 1,000 games, 672 of them at the big-league level, and amassed a .248 career batting average in the majors. A two-time All-Star, Wagner was something of a sure-handed catcher with […]
Major leaguers have been blessed (or cursed) with colorful nicknames, such as “Pudge,” “Prince Hal,” “Pops,” “Pie,” “Pee Wee,” “Putt Putt,” and those are just some of the ones starting with the letter “P.” To that list, add Tomás “Planchardón” Quiñones, a Puerto Rican right-handed pitcher whose four games in 1947 with the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns […]
If you had mentioned the name Tony Mullane to his teammates and opponents during his baseball-playing days, many differing opinions of his actions might come to mind. For example, Mullane, who came to the United States with his family from Ireland in 1864, was handsome and is said to be one of the reasons that […]
“From the depths of 17 consecutive second-division finishes,” the Chicago Cubs overpowered the Pittsburgh Pirates in their season opener at Forbes Field.1 In the extra-inning slugfest, Cubs right-hander Larry Jackson, who earned the win with Chicago’s four-run 10th, was kept afloat by his “brash, under-rated” offense.2 While the Pirates’ bats displayed their own power, the […]
The Oakland A’s ruled the American League from 1988 to 1990, winning 306 regular-season games on their way to three consecutive World Series appearances and the title in 1989. During the first two years of this run, Oakland’s AL West rival Kansas City had two pitchers who had proved to be a thorn in the […]
Nap Rucker spent his entire major-league career pitching for Brooklyn in the National League from 1907 to 1916. He compiled 134 wins and 134 losses, but do not assume from Rucker’s .500 record that he was an average pitcher. To the contrary, Rucker is better described as a good pitcher who labored for bad teams. […]
South Bend Blue Sox manager Karl Winsch was having none of it. After his team had lost Game One of the 1952 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) championship series in Rockford, Winsch went out and measured the distance of the recently-shortened right-field fence at Beyer Stadium.1 Sure enough, it was 21½ feet short of […]
On September 4, 1935, Chicago Tribune sportswriter Irving Vaughan wrote an article analyzing the National League pennant race. He specifically reviewed how the Cubs were faring in a three-way race involving themselves, the New York Giants, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He observed that if the front-running Cardinals played just .500 ball the rest of […]
The Pittsburgh Pirates bombed the St. Louis Cardinals before a meager gathering of 11,089 spectators at Busch Stadium. Three Pirates batters connected for long home runs and on top of that, Willie Stargell hit for the cycle, en route to a 13-2 Pittsburgh victory. At the 1964 All Star break, the fourth-place Pirates were 40-35, […]
This article was originally published in SABR’s The National Pastime, Vol. 19, in 1999. The whole history leading up to Jackie Robinson has usually been that an electric light went on in the head of the noble Branch Rickey one morning and he ended baseball discrimination.” As the lean, white-haired Lester Rodney speaks in […]