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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 […]

In his 1984 collection of essays on baseball, Why Time Begins on Opening Day, longtime Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell described the sport’s Opening Day as a “symbol of rebirth”: an opportunity for every team and its fans to start fresh with a 0-0 record, ready to embrace new possibilities and put the previous season […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

On April 5, 2019, the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies played the first of a three-game interleague series in Philadelphia. Both teams had experienced early success, winning four of their first five games. Minnesota shortstop Jorge Polanco collected five hits while hitting for the cycle, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Twins’ nine-walk, three-error […]

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 […]

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, […]

American popular culture has always had affection for the medical profession. Television images of Gunsmoke’s Doc Adams, Star Trek‘s testy “Bones” McCoy and the almost god-like Marcus Welby, have made these characters cultural icons. Media images often conflict with reality, doctors as miracle workers or good guys have an instinctive appeal. Fact often surpasses fiction […]

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 […]

After winning the American League pennant by 12 games in 1946, the Boston Red Sox had slipped to third in 1947, finishing 14 games behind the champion New York Yankees and two games back of the second-place Detroit Tigers. In an attempt to improve their hitting and pitching, the Red Sox pulled the trigger on […]

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 […]

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 […]

There was never an Alex Grammas question on Family Feud. However, if Richard Dawson, the late and long-time host of the popular game show, were to have asked a hundred of his contemporaries how they remembered Grammas, the survey would invariably point to three answers: flawless fielding, excellence as a third-base coach, and his Hellenic […]

Rare is the professional athlete who is privileged to play his entire career in his hometown. Barry Larkin is one of those rare athletes. Born on April 28, 1964 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Barry Louis Larkin played his entire 19-year major league baseball career with his hometown Reds. Robert and Shirley Larkin raised their daughter Robin […]

On November 25, 2017, thousands of Canadians turned to the streets of Windsor, Ontario, for the annual Winter Fest Holiday Parade, and many went on that chilly Saturday to see Santa Claus ring in the holiday season. Others, though, were there to see someone even more popular in their eyes: Ernie Whitt, who served as […]

Homer Simpson may live forever in baseball history as the man who pinch hit for Darryl Strawberry—who had already hit nine home runs (four-base hits often dubbed “homers”)—in the 1992 City Championship game between Springfield and Shelbyville. It was Simpson who knocked in the winning run, being knocked out in the process, and gave victory […]

Son of a great baseball man, scout and executive Mel Didier, Bob Didier has been in the game for more than five decades, almost as long as his father. He was a professional catcher from 1967 through 1976, including one full season and parts of five others in the majors. He has since served as […]

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,” […]

Lefty Grove may have been baseball’s greatest all-time pitcher. He was certainly its most dominant. No one matched his nine ERA titles, and his .680 winning percentage (300-141) is the highest among 300 game winners (eighth best overall). After winning 111 games in a minor-league career that delayed his major-league debut until he was 25, Grove led […]