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The opening game of the 1970 American League playoffs1 featured a pair of 24-game winners: Baltimore’s Mike Cuellar, who had tied with Denny McLain for the Cy Young Award the year before, and Minnesota’s Jim Perry, who would be the American League recipient in 1970.2 A 23-mile-per-hour wind blew out of the northwest at Minnesota’s Metropolitan […]

On April 22, 1980, the Chicago Cubs were 5-3, and one game out of first place in the National League East Division. They had swept the New York Mets in a three-game home series that drew healthy turnouts to Wrigley Field. Nonetheless, the “jury was still out” in regard to the amount of support new […]

One year after the debut of the “Bo Knows” Nike ad campaign,1 Bo Jackson, the first modern athlete to play both professional baseball and football in the same year, led his Kansas City Royals team with three home runs and seven RBIs in a 10-7 win over the New York Yankees. The Royals were playing […]

What one newspaper called the “greatest batting exhibition of the year”1 took place at Cleveland’s League Park on August 15, 1889, in a National League game between the Cleveland Spiders and Boston Beaneaters. The crowd of 1,500 saw Cleveland bash 27 hits, for a total of 48 bases, blasting Boston, 19-8.2 Further, the Spiders – […]

As the rebuilding Minnesota Twins limped through the dog days of summer in 1995, future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett, a 12-year veteran unknowingly in his final season,1 knew the young players on the roster would watch how he handled adversity. So even as the basement-dwelling Twins toiled more than 30 games out of first […]

As pennant races go, the 1949 races in both the American and National Leagues were among the closest in history. In the American League, the New York Yankees trailed the Boston Red Sox by one game with two to play (in Yankee Stadium) and won them both to win the AL title. In the National […]

The 1893 season for the Boston Beaneaters began in a mediocre manner, but after 20 games the team’s wins consistently outnumbered its losses. By the time of the summer solstice, the team was battling for the lead in the National League. A road trip begun in late June achieved only mixed results through most of […]

After four seasons of double-digit victories as a starter for the Dodgers (1946-1949), left-handed pitcher Joe Hatten started only twenty-eight games over the next three seasons. He then departed the Major Leagues for a long career in the minors.  When Hatten was asked what single thrill he remembered from his days as a major leaguer, […]

Erskine Mayer had a most interesting background, one that was very different from that of most players of the early 20th century. Mayer’s paternal grandparents were Jews who came from Germany. His great-grandfather (his grandmother’s father) had been a buyer for Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman who unified Germany. He disappeared one day, and […]

When New York Giants announcer Russ Hodges uttered the immortal words “The Giants win the pennant!” the legacy of Bobby Thomson was indelibly etched into baseball history. Despite modest career stats, Thomson’s October 3, 1951, home run off Ralph Branca was, in 1999, ranked number one on The Sporting News’ Greatest Baseball Moments.1 The “Shot […]

At six years of age, Russ Christopher was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. As a result, his heart became damaged. There was a small leak in one of his heart valves through which blood seeped, not allowing full circulation to his lungs. As a result, He was always out of breath. At times, when he overexerted […]

Mastering the art of the line drive but unable to master his own temper, Heinie Manush burst onto the major league scene with the Detroit Tigers and quickly became one of the fiercest and most feared hitters in the game. Born July 20, 1901, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Henry Emmett Manush was raised in the Deep […]

“Great catches are a lot like pretty girls. The last one you see is always the best one.” — Bob Sudyk of the Cleveland Press, after seeing a spectacular catch by Sandy Valdespino on June 18, 1967   In 1967 Sandy Valdespino was a bench player for the Minnesota Twins.  On June 18 the Twins […]

“No manager really wants a knuckleball pitcher … until he wins 15 in a row.” – Charlie Hough1   Charlie Hough pitched at the major-league level for a quarter of a century on the strength of his knuckleball – a pitch, coincidentally, that he learned in the minor leagues as an attempt to reinvigorate his […]

Although he became a star for the most famous team in baseball, for whom he helped win three pennants and a World Series, Jim Bouton’s most lasting contribution to the sport would come a few years later, after he lost his fastball and returned to the major leagues as a struggling knuckleballer for an expansion […]

When 20-year-old right-hander Lee Meadows took the mound on April 19, 1915, for the St. Louis Cardinals, he became the first big-league ballplayer to wear spectacles since pitcher Will White of the Cincinnati Red Stockings in the American Association retired in 1886. The thought of a professional baseball player with “cheaters” was preposterous to most […]

Despite three separate injuries that cut three years out of his professional baseball career, pitcher Stan Spencer persevered, making it to the majors for 23 games from 1998 through 2000. His best friend growing up, Tom Mattice, saw this quality at a young age, writing in his high school senior tribute, “Stan…proved to me that […]

Meat seems to have been the family business, and working with meat was apparently more in Dutch Lerchen’s skill set than baseball. Still, he tried his hand at playing ball, making the major leagues at least briefly as a shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. The year was 1910. He was born Bertram Roe Lerchen, in […]

In 1986, the New York Mets were the best team in baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates were the worst. Yet after the Pirates finished their season series against the Mets, losing 17 out of 18 games, their feisty manager, Jim Leyland, issued a challenge. “If they were that good, how did they lose that one game […]

In baseball history, few major leaguers have turned to sports writing as a full-time profession after their playing days. Sam Crane and Tim Murnane were nineteenth-century players who then wrote for, respectively, the Boston Globe and the New York Evening Journal. Charley Walters twirled in a half-dozen games for the 1969 Twins before becoming a […]

The Brattleboro, Vermont, newspaper read, “The death of Dr. O’Connor removes a capable physician…a man whose warm personality made friends of all his acquaintances, a husband who manifested a strong affection for his wife.”1 Dr. F. H. O’Connor had played briefly in the major leagues, making the comments reminiscent of Minnesota doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, […]

Bob Cerv survived kamikaze attacks in World War II and put all 10 of his children through college. In between, he was a three-time New York Yankee. The Yankees signed him, traded him, brought him back, let him go, and brought him back again. His claim to Yankee fame came in 1961, when he shared […]

Righty reliever Kenny Greer’s 10-year career in pro ball featured two stints in the majors, in 1993 and 1995. In his big-league debut, he pitched a perfect 17th inning and got the win as the New York Mets scored the game’s lone run in the bottom half. His only other big-league decisions were both losses, […]

Timing is everything. Walter Wilmot was a highly sought-after outfielder in his prime during the bidding war between the upstart Players League and the established National League. During a six-season run (1890-1895) with the Chicago Colts (the former nickname, White Stockings, was still sometimes used), Wilmot was reportedly paid an “astounding” $4,250 a season, the […]