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It was Sunday, October 4, the last day of the 1891 season, when Charlie Comiskey, the St. Louis Browns’ first baseman and manager, let Theodore Breitenstein pitch the first game of a doubleheader against the Louisville Colonels in St. Louis. Breitenstein was a 22-year-old rookie, a little redhead from St. Louis. He stood 5-feet-9 and […]
On the Saturday before graduating from high school in June 1961, 18-year-old Lew Krausse Jr. watched from a box seat at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC, as hurler Norm Bass tossed the Kansas City A’s first shutout of the season.1 Sitting with Krausse was his father, former major-league pitcher Lew Krausse Sr., and their host, […]
Forty-two years after the first major-league baseball All-Star Game was played in Dodger Stadium, the third oldest major-league ballpark still in use (after legendary Fenway Park and Wrigley Field), hosted the 92nd midsummer classic in 2022. Two hometown pitchers, Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin, played integral roles in the game, although their National League team […]
The 25,882 fans who ventured to Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on the evening of August 24, 1983, saw an exciting, extra-inning win by the home team in the midst of a tight pennant race. As a bonus, they also witnessed baseball’s version of The Twilight Zone. The Orioles came into that Wednesday night game against […]
Ohio Governor and Republican candidate for vice president John W. Bricker posed for photographers before the game with two fellow Buckeyes, Cardinals manager Billy Southworth and Browns skipper Luke Sewell. Pressed by a reporter for a series prediction, Bricker simply grinned and said, “I hope St. Louis wins.”1 The first intracity World Series outside of […]
The 35,893 fans filling Nationals Park on a breezy Friday evening of the 2015 Memorial Day weekend might have been expecting a memorable pitching performance from Max Scherzer (4-3, 1.75 ERA). They were not disappointed.1 What they were probably not expecting was that Max’s success at the plate and on the base paths, not just […]
It all came down to this one game. The Dodgers and the Mets had battled through the first six games of the 1988 National League Championship Series. A crowd of 55,693 packed Dodger Stadium to see who would go to the World Series and face the Oakland A’s, who had swept the Boston Red Sox […]
In his first season managing the Minneapolis Millers, Gene Mauch led the team to the pinnacle of minor-league baseball. The Millers marched through the postseason in 1958, beating Wichita in six games, sweeping Denver for the American Association championship, and then sweeping Montreal in the Junior World Series. The encore would not be so easy. […]
“I haven’t been swinging the bat real good,” admitted former home-run champ Ben Oglivie after breaking out of a 1-for-17 slump and just one homer in his last 41 at-bats by whacking three round-trippers. “I’ve been getting a lot of changeups. I give a lot of credit to my teammates for helping me make some […]
Going into Game Three of the 1981 American League Division Series, the Milwaukee Brewers faced a challenge: Make history, or go home. The Brewers – founded as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 – earned their first postseason berth in the strike-altered 1981 season. But the New York Yankees beat the Brewers in Milwaukee in the […]
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 […]
Robert B. Ward didn’t get involved with professional baseball to make money. Ward, a successful businessman who owned the largest baking company in the United States, got involved with the Federal League after listening to a sales pitch from James Gilmore, the president of the league. “I never expected to make any fortune in baseball,” […]
Righty Elías Sosa was a useful reliever for eight different big-league teams. He appeared in 601 games at the top level from 1972 through 1983. He posted 83 saves, with a high of 18 in both 1973 and 1979. Though Sosa was never a big strikeout pitcher, “he’s got a good fastball and excellent slider,” […]
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 […]
Right-handed pitcher Charley Schanz worked 13 years in the minor leagues and four full seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1940s, followed a couple of years later by 14 games with the Boston Red Sox in 1950. His major-league record was 28-43 with a 4.34 earned run average. His best big-league season was his […]
A ballplayer turned Hollywood actor and a car dealer who once sold a Corvette to Elvis Presley. Lou Stringer was all three. Louis Bernard Stringer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on May 18, 1917. When Lou was three years old, his father moved the family to East Los Angeles. Robert Stringer had been a […]
Every red-blooded American boy growing up during the Great Depression dreamed of playing in the World Series, preferably in Yankee Stadium. Philip Donald Haugstad came close twice, missing by one day in 1947 and by one pitch to Bobby Thomson in 1951. Phil entered the world on February 23, 1924, in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. […]
Over the course of three decades in the early 20th century, Robert Joseph Connery was a major-league scout and minor-league player, manager, and owner. He was the closest friend of Hall of Fame manager Miller Huggins, and was Huggins’s scout with both the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. Best known as the […]
Among all the ballplayers who served in World War II, Earl Johnson was the real military hero. Unlike some, he had his better years after the long layoff for the war, peaking in 1947, but began to lose his edge just as the Red Sox entered two seasons (1948 and 1949) when one more win […]
On April 4, 1919, Boston’s Babe Ruth stepped to the plate to lead off the second inning of an exhibition game against the New York Giants at Plant Field in Tampa, Florida. Journeyman right-hander George Smith was on the mound for the Giants, hoping to stick for his third stint with the club after finishing […]
In nine years of major-league baseball, left-hander Dick Littlefield pitched for nine different major-league clubs – though it wasn’t as neat as each season being with another team. One could even argue that he played for 10 clubs, in that he was with the St. Louis Browns in 1952 and 1953 and then with the […]
Richard Alan Trlicek’s professional baseball career began with the 1987 amateur draft when the Philadelphia Phillies, having spotted him at La Grange (Texas) High School. selected him in fourth round of the draft. The 6-foot-3, 18-year-old right-handed pitcher signed his first contract days later and started the climb from low-A ball to the major leagues […]
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, César Tovar was a fixture at the top of the Minnesota Twins lineup. The speedy, enthusiastic little Venezuelan (5-feet-9 and 150 pounds) came up as a second baseman, but he could handle just about any spot – he is perhaps best remembered today as one of the four […]
Twenty-two people attended the March 19, 2013, roundtable of the Bob Broeg SABR Chapter, held at the usual location, the Original Crusoe’s in South St. Louis. Special guest speaker was Fred Worth, a mathematics professor at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and a member of the Robinson-Kell SABR Chapter. His presentation was “A Necrological […]