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The San Diego Padres (21-24) were paying a visit to the Pittsburgh Pirates (17-27). The teams were holding down last place in their respective divisions: San Diego 5½ games back of Colorado in the NL West, and Pittsburgh 11½ games back of Cincinnati in the NL Central. The 15,737 fans attending the game may not […]

On the night of July 22, 1978, a future Hall of Famer’s career ended in sudden and disputed fashion – and at the time, nearly no one noticed. Of course, not being noticed was part of this Hall of Famer’s agenda from the beginning. Nestor Chylak, an American League umpire since 1954, embodied the classic […]

Chick Gandil and Tris Speaker were cut from the same cloth. They were both intense, loud, hard-nosed players who weren’t interested in making friends on the baseball field. They also weren’t shy about expressing their opinions and, when challenged, neither backed down from a fight. So it seemed almost inevitable that the two veterans would […]

On September 13, 1995, in front of 8,818 fans, the Ottawa Lynx, the Triple-A farm team of the Montreal Expos, hosted the Norfolk Tides, the New York Mets’ affiliate, in Game Four of the Governors’ Cup Finals. Ottawa had reached the finals by defeating the Rochester Red Wings three games to two in the East […]

bottle bat 1. A baseball bat with an especially thick barrel, an abrupt taper, and very thin handle, which gives it a milk bottle-like appearance. — The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Third Edition.1   When the diminutive Heinie Groh, all 5-feet-8 and 158 pounds, came to the plate, he brought a bat of unusual proportions and […]

If the last word on the 1986 World Series was “unforgettable,” the first word was “freezing.” The heaters were on full blast in both dugouts at Shea Stadium, pitchers were allowed to blow on their hands, and bats were wrapped in towels. The fall classic felt like winter, but both teams would rather be in […]

One of the most exciting and dramatic pennant races in big-league history was nearly finished. Following a September when any one of four teams — the Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, and Detroit Tigers — could have taken control of the race with a few key wins, it had finally come down […]

The New York Mets and Kansas City Royals squared off for the fourth game of the 2015 World Series on October 31. Noah Syndergaard had fired up the Mets with his solid performance in Game Three. It was now Steve Matz’s turn to take the mound. This was a dream come true for the left-hander. […]

Midway through the 1927 baseball campaign, it appeared as if fans read only about the American League in the newspapers. Specifically, did the Yankees win yesterday? Did Ruth or Gehrig hit another home run? New York’s Murderers’ Row was a lock to grab the pennant. The Bronx Bombers had a winning percentage of .702 by […]

After a tragic spring training that saw the deaths of Steve Olin and Tim Crews in a boating accident, the Indians opened the 1993 baseball season at home with the Yankees. The opener on April 5 attracted 73,290 fans who witnessed a Yankee victory. Cleveland earned the win on April 7 to set up the […]

Good hitters have high batting averages; good sluggers have high slugging percentages. Early in his career, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman John Mabry was characterized as a good hitter for average, but not much of a power hitter. In his 1995 rookie season, he batted .307 but slugged only .405. That equates to an average […]

Walter Johnson, “The Big Train,” one of the most storied and talented pitchers ever to grace a major-league pitcher’s mound, threw only a single no-hitter in his 21-year career. If one argues that such a game defines a pitcher’s “best game,” then certainly the sparkling one-hitter Johnson threw at the Chicago White Sox on May […]

An American League umpire for seven years in the 1960s, Al Salerno’s abrupt 1968 dismissal set off a legal firestorm and led to decades of personal struggles. In fact, Salerno never got over what happened to him, and to the very end of his life he remained angry and bitter over the game he had […]

Mike Flanagan was the ace of a Baltimore Orioles staff for over a decade. The 1979 Cy Young Award winner helped the Orioles to two World Series appearances and was part of a combined no-hitter in 1991. He relied on a repertoire of pitches, including a fastball, heavy sinker, slow curve, and changeup. Michael Kendall […]

Many baseball fans know about the 1894 Philadelphia Phillies team that featured four outfielders who each batted over .400. In fact, if you look at the Phillies’ lineup on Baseball-Reference, all of the starting eight batted over .300 and the team led the league, hitting .350. The lowest average for a position player with over 100 at […]

Dick Pole was a 6-foot-3, 200-pound right-handed pitcher who broke in with the Red Sox in 1973.  Born on October 13, 1950, in Trout Creek in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, one of the few Yoopers who worked a major-league mound. Richard Henry Pole was signed as a free agent by the Boston Red Sox in 1969.  […]

Because he was born on an Indian reservation, Roy Johnson was considered a ward of the government. He and his younger brother Bob Johnson, who joined the Red Sox in 1944, were both born in Pryor, Oklahoma (some 35 miles east of Tulsa) – before Oklahoma became a state. Roy was the eldest of the […]

It was a long slog to the major leagues for Jack Merson. He broke into Organized Baseball in 1940, signed as a teenager by the Washington Senators and assigned to play second base for the Newport (Tennessee) Canners in the Class D Appalachian League. He made the majors near the end of the 1951 season, […]

At 6-feet-1 and weighing 165 pounds, Julio Lugo was built for the infield. He was tall, slender, and fast. He played for seven major-league teams: the Houston Astros, Tampa Devil Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, and Atlanta Braves.  Julio Cesar Lugo was born on November 16, 1975, in […]

In a city fueled by flash, Wes Parker was anything but. A child of southern California privilege, Parker grew up in Brentwood with a private school education, material needs met, and natural athletic ability in several sports besides baseball. Money, though it bestowed abundant opportunity, did not generate airs, snobbery, or a feeling of entitlement […]

“I like to think of the world’s greatest athlete coming up to bat against me – Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, I don’t care who it is – and I’m looking at him thinking, ‘You have no chance.’ “1 There was a moment in the third game of the 1996 World Series that felt eerily familiar […]

Bullet Jack Thoney was once called “the unluckiest player in the history of baseball.”i Boston Red Sox owner John I. Taylor had paid what was thought to be the most money ever paid for a player at the time, but it seemed as though every time Thoney made a major-league team, he broke a limb. […]

Southpaw submariner Ike Van Zandt was a rarity at the turn of the twentieth century. The motion was deceptive to batters simply because it was uncommon. Van Zandt, variously known as Isaac, Ike or Izzy, played in organized baseball for a decade beginning in 1898. Despite his unique pitching motion, he mainly played in the […]

Tom Wright, a left-handed hitting outfielder who played major league baseball over nine seasons, still lived in 2007 in the town where he was born: Shelby, North Carolina. Wright was born on September 22, 1923, one of 10 children (five boys and five girls) raised on the family farm run by his father, J.B. Wright. […]