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Upon their debut in 2008, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs quickly became one of the highest-drawing teams in the Triple-A International League.1 The Philadelphia Phillies’ top farm team, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has established itself as a supportive community presence, hosted future stars on the way up, and played the merchandising and promotion game as well […]
In their ongoing struggle to outdraw the Red Sox, their team’s longtime rivals for the affections of New England baseball fans, owners of the Boston Braves usually finished on the losing end. Cavernous Braves Field, situated just off an unexciting stretch of automobile dealerships on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue, was no match for cozy Fenway Park […]
The turnstiles at Busch Stadium, the renamed Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, counted 15,444 customers for a game played on June 23, 1961, a Friday evening in early summer. The San Francisco Giants were in town, trying to halt a three-game losing streak against a hometown club not yet playing .500 ball. The Giants starter […]
Boston Red Sox rookie Ted Williams was 20 years old when he first played in a game at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. It quickly became his favorite ballpark in which to hit. Williams — “The Kid” — had won the Triple Crown in the American Association in 1938, with 43 home runs among his contributions to […]
The game took only 1 hour and 48 minutes. Before a crowd of 10,941 on the last day of summer, Baltimore’s Hoyt Wilhelm joined the record books by pitching a no-hitter against the New York Yankees. He started against Don Larsen, who had pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series.1 Besides the few […]
The name George B. Dovey is unfamiliar to most modern-day baseball fans, but in the early 1900s Dovey was well known in both the world of baseball and in the coalfields of western Kentucky. Born in Pennsylvania on April 18, 1862, he moved to Kentucky during his youth and spent several years working for the […]
Some fans go to a lifetime of baseball games and never see a no-hitter. Others are lucky enough to experience the drama and tension of a single no-no. And then there were the 1,250 fans who went to McDonough Park in Geneva, New York, on July 25, 1983 — the night when two young pitchers […]
The Chicago Cubs swept all seven games against the New York Mets during the 2015 season but were swept by the Mets, four wins to none, in the National League Championship series. A season later, on June 30, 2016, the Cubs and Mets began their first series of the season, a four-game set at Citi […]
“Oh, no, not Larry Jaster.” Many Dodgers players probably mumbled that and more when they found out that the 23-year-old left-hander for the St. Louis Cardinals would be starting against Los Angeles on April 24, 1967. Jaster faced the Dodgers five times in 1966 and racked up five shutouts. He had already seen them once […]
One could argue that Austin Hays had the greatest one-game turnaround of his emerging career on June 22, 2022. The night before, batting cleanup for the Baltimore Orioles, he struck out four times in four at-bats as the Washington Nationals blanked the Orioles 3-0 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Moved into the leadoff spot […]
“Baseball is really two sports — the summer game and the autumn game. One is the leisurely pastime of our national mythology. The other is not so gentle.” — Thomas Boswell1 When the late Roy Halladay2 was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019, it was announced that his plaque would not contain a […]
A World Series berth was 161 games and an NL playoff away. Coming off a third-place finish in 1972 with an 83-73 record – 13½ games out of first place – the Mets began ’73 with a 3-0 shutout against the Phillies and a declaration of power from a beloved member of the blue-and-orange squad. […]
August of 1921 had been a good month for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and by August 22, it appeared that the Pirate ship had fully righted itself again. Having led the league most of the season, the Bucs had fallen into a tie with the New York Giants on July 30. Now, as part of their […]
On his 1960s radio show, White Sox owner Bill Veeck once declared, “A ballclub is no better than its scouts.”1 One former White Sox player who found his true calling not on the field, but as a scout for one of the best teams in baseball, is pitcher Jon Adkins. Born on August 30, 1977, […]
His nickname was “Smoke” – a good nickname for a pitcher. And the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Joe Kiefer had a good long minor-league career with 169 wins to his credit. His career earned-run average was an unimpressive 4.05 and he did lose 146 games, pitching for 15 different teams, but he was good enough to work […]
He was accused of gambling on baseball early in his playing career. He was acknowledged to have a serious alcohol problem, one that may have contributed to his death at age 50. His professional pitching record, for six major-league seasons and four at the minor-league and independent levels, was 109-161. On first blush, and in […]
“He is the natural pitcher who, whether he wants to or not, ‘puts something on every ball.’ His fast ball flashes upward and in; his curve breaks like an air-blown ball. He achieves his speed seemingly without an effort, his long arm and fingers giving the ball strange twists, and the speed with which he […]
Right-hander Jack Meyer seemed destined to become a fan favorite when he debuted for the Phillies in 1955. Solidly built, blond, and handsome, the 23-year-old Philadelphia native possessed considerable pitching talent. Teammate Robin Roberts recalled years later that Meyer had “Nolan Ryan-type stuff with a sharp curveball to go with a blazing fastball.”1 Meyer enjoyed […]
June 15, 1977 is a black day in the history of the New York Mets. On that date, in what came to be known as The Midnight Massacre, M. Donald Grant, the team’s chairman of the board, traded away Tom Seaver, a/k/a “The Franchise,” to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Dan Norman, […]
Dana Fillingim used the wet pitch to his advantage from 1912 to 1928, as one of the last legal spitballers in the majors. His 47-73 overall record in the majors was as deceptive to the passing eye as the spitball was to an opposing batter. The right-hander won 20 games twice in the minors and once […]
As a rookie in 1898, Vic Willis won 25 games as a key member of the pennant-winning Boston Beaneaters, one of the top teams of the nineteenth century. Eleven years later in his penultimate season, Willis again won over 20 games as a member of the world champion Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the top teams […]
On November 25, 1920, during a barnstorming matchup in San Jose, California, legend Ty Cobb, upset that the opposing pitcher was using a doctored emery ball against him, quit mid-game and vacated the premises. Faced with no subs, the remaining squad re-inserted their starting pitcher, a tall 21-year-old Bay Area lad named Herb McQuaid, to […]
This article was published in the SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee’s June 2020 newsletter. Chick Gandil (top row, 3rd from left) was a fan favorite early in his baseball career, including here in 1907 in Mexico, where he was known as “Chick Arnold.” He played for a team sponsored by the Cananea Consolidated Copper […]
31 SABR members arrived at the Inn at the Ballpark on April 16, 2012, for a festive and informative monthly session with the Houston/Larry Dierker Chapter. Leading off was David Barron of the Houston Chronicle who had recently toured the Astrodome and reported on the significant deterioration if the facility and future prospects for the […]