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The first pitch ever thrown by the team that since 1908 has been known as the Boston Red Sox was thrown by Winford Ansley Kellum.1 Left-hander Win Kellum of Waterford, Ontario, was the starting pitcher for the Boston Americans on April 26, 1901 – the first day in American League history that games were played.2 […]
Tommy Holmes, the longtime Brooklyn Daily Eagle baseball writer, once said that Forest “Tot” Pressnell “isn’t very quick.”1 Holmes was referring to Pressnell’s fastball, but he could have been describing his entire career. Tot Pressnell – the nickname was an endearment bestowed upon the youngest of eight children2 — wasn’t the type to make a […]
The Cleveland Indians had just swept the Chicago White Sox at home on the Fourth of July weekend. As the season neared the All-Star break, one could not blame Tribe fans if the hope of their first pennant since 1948 was being awakened. But on the morning of July 5, the jubilation of the Tribe’s […]
Twelve-year American League veteran Bobby Shantz made his National League debut in 1961, after a pair of transactions – an expansion-draft selection and a trade – brought him to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Opening the season in the bullpen, the 35-year-old left-hander soon was making spot starts to patch up the defending World Series’ champions’ rotation. […]
Except for World Series appearances in 1973 and 1979, John Milner’s career was relatively quiet. However, he seemed to have a propensity for hitting grand slams, collecting a total of 10 during his 12-year career (tied for 64th on the all-time list). One of those slams occurred on June 26, 1976, when he helped the […]
Lou Gehrig became the second New York Yankees player to hit for the cycle at least twice in his career, as the Yankees routed the St. Louis Browns, 14-5, on August 1, 1937.1 The Yankees hosted the Browns before a Sunday crowd of 18,924 at Yankee Stadium and came away with 17 hits. However, the […]
A season after leading the Chicago Cubs out of a 39-year postseason drought, Rick Sutcliffe was Chicago’s Opening Day starter in 1985. He continued his run of excellence on a chilly afternoon at Wrigley Field, pitching into the eighth inning before Lee Smith’s bullpen assist secured the Cubs’ 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Chicago […]
If you needed to check some baseball oddities off your lifetime list, this was your game. Inside-the-park home run? Intentional balk? “Little League”1 grand slam? A 41-year-old slugger scrambling around the bases—three times? All that, and more! The 26,512 fans at Fenway Park on Labor Day 2021 saw a five-hour2 slugfest—26 position players with 33 […]
Federal League Park, also known as Handlan’s Park, was first used for professional baseball in 1914, providing a home for the St. Louis Terriers of the newly formed Federal League.1 Like other professional ballparks of the day, it included no stadium lighting, a fact that required games to be conducted during daytime, sometimes held hostage […]
In 2020 the average nine-inning major-league baseball game lasted 3 hours and 7 minutes. In 1949 games were completed on average in 2 hours and 15 minutes.1 Yet on a mostly sunny September afternoon at Yankee Stadium in 1949, the New York Yankees batted for 50 minutes in the bottom of the third inning. The […]
In 1904, the South Atlantic League (aka the “Sally” League) was a new Class C minor league with six teams: three in Georgia (Macon, Augusta, and Savannah), two in South Carolina (Charleston and Columbia), and one in Florida (Jacksonville).1 Under the leadership of manager Billy Smith, the Macon Highlanders won the pennant. He returned to […]
Through mid-May of 1962, Sandy Koufax owned a modest 4-2 record, not having dented the win column since the previous month. But after an 18-win 1961 season while striking out 269 batters in 255 2/3 innings, Koufax sported “the best strikeout average of any pitcher who ever lived.”1 A 4-1 April with three complete games […]
When Montreal lost the Triple-A Royals after the 1960 season, the city had to wait nine years for the big-league Expos to bring professional baseball back to town. When Toronto lost the Triple-A Maple Leafs after the 1967 season, it waited 10 years for the major-league Blue Jays to arrive. Canada’s capital, Ottawa, had them […]
George Fox was the definition of a utility player. In the minors, he played every position – including pitcher. “Fox can play any position on the nine and do it well,” wrote his hometown paper, the Pottstown, (Pennsylvania) Ledger.1 When he made the major leagues, he played first base, third base and catcher. In addition, […]
Frank Skaff’s big-league playing career spanned a mere 38 games and 75 at-bats in 1935 and 1943. That was far fewer than observers projected when the talented athlete emerged on the stage. However, Skaff spent six decades in Organized Baseball as a player, coach, manager – including 79 games with the 1966 Detroit Tigers – […]
Baseball was already a fixture on the Cuban scene by the early 1870s and it had arrived burdened with its own home-grown Cuban apostles and its own full-blown and home-spun creation myths. It is well documented that a pair of Havana-bred brothers named Guilló (often misspelled as Guillot) had returned from Mobile, Alabama’s Springhill College […]
As a young and hopeful Art Kusnyer (pronounced KUSH-ner) started his professional baseball career in 1966, he made a contingency plan: “If I didn’t make it in baseball, I wanted to be a highway patrolman,” he told the author.1 He never got to work for the highway patrol. Instead, the solidly built 6-foot-2, 197-pound Kusnyer, […]
When young Jim Owens first came up with the Philadelphia Phillies in the mid-1950s, the predictions were that he would be Philadelphia’s “next Robin Roberts.”1 He had dominated hitters in the minor leagues, was voted the best pitcher in the International League for 1954, and possessed what Phillies general manager Roy Hamey called, “the best […]
William Barney McCosky, a Pennsylvania native who grew up in Detroit, was a talented and speedy all-around center fielder who broke into the major leagues with a bang in 1939, hitting .311 for the Detroit Tigers. Barney, who stood 6-feet-1 and weighed 185 pounds in his prime, threw right and batted left, and he did […]
It is largely forgotten that Larry Jansen was the winning pitcher when Bobby Thomson hit his “Shot Heard Round the World” to dramatically win the 1951 pennant in the Polo Grounds. Indeed, without Jansen, it is highly unlikely that the Giants would have even been in the playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers. With 23 victories […]
People from all walks of life play the great game of baseball. They play in Little League, Babe Ruth League, high school, American Legion baseball, and college, just to name a few. During those years they dream of one day playing in the major leagues and they are told that if they work hard and […]
Baseball traveled through rough waters beginning in the late 1960s, as it navigated increasing player unrest and the growing power of their union. Court cases, strikes, hearings, lawsuits—it was challenging to follow baseball in this period without a law degree. The off-field headliners—Curt Flood, Bowie Kuhn, Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith, Charlie Finley—are as famous as […]
Robinson Canó’s single with the Diablos Rojos in the Mexican League playoffs on September 13, 2025, made him one of 23 players known to have recorded 4,000 career hits at all professional levels. (Courtesy of Prensa Diablos / Enrique Gutiérrez) On Saturday, September 13, 2025, Robinson Canó stepped into the batter’s box at Estadio […]