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Twilight-night doubleheaders, and even the traditional Sunday double-dip, are rarities in modern baseball. It used to be a rather inexpensive marketing tool for clubs, two games for the price of one. But eventually doubleheaders just faded away. More money could be made charging separate entrance fees for every game, so why not schedule games that […]

Cleveland’s Bob Feller had been baseball’s best pitcher in the years leading up to World War II. When war came, he was among the first to enlist, causing him to miss the 1942, 1943, and 1944 seasons, and most of the 1945 season. He made a dramatic return on August 24, 1945, against Detroit’s Hal […]

Going into the August 7, 2010, game between the Greenville Drive and the Rome Braves, six teams were locked in a battle to claim the second-half crown in the Southern Division of the South Atlantic League and earn the rights to a postseason playoff spot. Greenville (an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox) was tied […]

Desperately needing a win, the Orioles entered Memorial Stadium in downtown Baltimore for Game Two of the 1983 World Series. They had lost Game One the previous day and were aware that no team had recovered to win the Series after losing the first two games at home. The Orioles’ Mike Boddicker had fashioned a […]

The old, the young, and the immortal converged at County Stadium on May 1, 1975, as Henry Aaron broke another of Babe Ruth’s records and marveled at the emergence of another player –Robin Yount – who was younger than Aaron’s career was old.1 Aaron was in his first year with the Brewers after an offseason […]

“The Giants became tired of losing games one at a time.”1 So started the story in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, describing the events of a Boston Braves-New York Giants doubleheader. The article continued, “They did it twice as good yesterday [May 16]. They lost two to the Boston Braves.”2 The New York Times echoed the […]

Even in the nineteenth century, Opening Day was a much-anticipated event. When the Boston Beaneaters and New York Giants were rained out in their 1893 season opener, the New York Sun wrote: “The postponement of yesterday’s game as a consequence of bad weather was undoubtedly one of the severest disappointments ever suffered by New York […]

Modern sports fans take for granted that a champion will be crowned at the end of each season. But in baseball in the 1860s, the nominal championship changed hands in the same way in which modern boxing crowns are transferred: when a challenger unseated the titleholder in direct competition. The one difference back then was […]

Terry Francona raised the art of self-deprecation to a new level. Decades after his playing career ended, the man who had become one of the most successful managers in big-league history loved to downplay his talents as a ballplayer. He claimed that the last thing he wanted was his players to hit like he did. […]

As the Tip-Tops and Peppers traveled from Brooklyn to Harrison, New Jersey, for the second game of their two states/same-day twin bill, they may have been delayed by the estimated 15,000 fans also on their way to the Newark team’s ballpark.1 Even if inflated, the number suggested that Federal League baseball was far more popular […]

Montreal Expos manager Jim Fanning returned to the dugout on September 22, 1982, after missing five games with severe migraines. But it was Expos shortstop Chris Speier who gave the visiting Philadelphia Phillies headaches that night, driving in eight runs in an 11-4 Expos win. Expectations for the Expos ran high at the beginning of […]

The San Diego Padres had not had a good beginning to 1974. They had just been outscored 25-2 by the Dodgers in a season-opening three-game sweep in Los Angeles. Still, the opening night crowd of 39,083 at San Diego Stadium was primed and ready to cheer on their Padres, as they faced the visiting Houston […]

The first years of the 1970s were turbulent ones on American college campuses. In some places the upheaval even invaded that seeming bastion of order and tradition, the baseball diamond. The University of Vermont was a case in point. In mid-May 1971, Edward C. Andrews Jr., president of the financially troubled flagship state university, announced […]

On May 10, 1939, the small city of Bradford, Pennsylvania, reentered professional baseball for the first time in 23 years when its Bees took the field in a brand-new league—the Class D1 Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League, or PONY League. As if that weren’t exciting enough, a big-league team came to town just a month and a […]

Jason Bay is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, having worn his country’s colors in both the Little League World Series and the World Baseball Classic. Along with Lou Piniella, he is one of only two players in major-league baseball history to have been traded three times before winning the Rookie of […]

Right-hander Tom Sturdivant pitched 10 years in the major leagues, for seven different teams over both leagues (wearing seven different uniform numbers). His first team was the New York Yankees, the team that first signed him, and he won Game Four of the 1956 World Series for them, evening the series against the Dodgers at […]

Oscar Jones was a man of many talents. In 1903, the Brooklyn Eagle listed them: “all around ball player, champion bicycle rider, sprinter, boxer, tumbler, gymnast, wrestler, cartoonist and cigarmaker.”1 To this list can be added showman, draftsman, farmer, and tire repairman. As a pitcher, Jones won close to 300 games in a 15-year professional […]

“In a way, Kenny Lofton is the real instrument of terror for the Indians,” Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray wrote during the 1995 World Series. “He is kind of like the scout for the cavalry. He forages ahead of the main force, scans the terrain, probes for weak spots, sets the tone for […]

If not for the existence of a similar game involving Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon, one would’ve had to be invented marking the numerous degrees between Denis Menke and Cooperstown. For although he got not a single vote in his only year of Hall of Fame eligibility, the Hall shadowed Menke throughout his four decades of […]

Throwing sinkerballs with his right-handed, three-quarters delivery, John Flinn pitched a dozen seasons of professional baseball, but only 42 games in the majors. As a big-leaguer, Flinn won five, lost two, posted a respectable 4.17 ERA and held Hall of Fame members to only two hits in 23 at-bats (Carlton Fisk notched both). But it […]

Jake Stenzel compiled a lofty .339 lifetime batting average in nine major league seasons, and hit over .350 for five consecutive years, but has received little recognition for his accomplishments. His entire major league career was confined to the 1890s when there were so many outstanding hitters that even in his peak seasons he could […]

A big man with a famous scowl and a name that felt ripped from a James Bond film, Mo Vaughn was a hulking 6-foot-1, 225-pound lefty hitter whose frame dangled over home plate. Baseballs seemed to disintegrate on impact when he exploded out of his crouched stance, extending one arm to the sky on his […]

Tom Brokaw dubbed Americans who lived through the Depression and served in World War II “The Greatest Generation.” As a member of this group, Charley Stanceu (pronounced STAN- chew) found himself witnessing  some of the iconic events of that period. A rookie pitcher for the New York Yankees in 1941, he was in the dugout […]

In the New York State League, he came to be known as “Bill Ging with the Wonderful Wing.” William Joseph “Bill” Ging was born in Elmira, New York, on November 7, 1872, the second son of Lawrence and Mary Ging. Lawrence was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States in 1860 before marrying […]