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Four months into another season of mashing American League pitching, Jimmie Foxx led the Philadelphia Athletics against the Cleveland Indians at Cleveland Stadium. The two clubs were close together in the league standings, with Philadelphia (53-53) 16 games behind the league-leading Washington Senators, one game ahead of Cleveland (55-57). In this Monday afternoon contest on […]
On an overcast Sunday afternoon during the Labor Day weekend – September 2, 2012 – over 19,000 fans gathered at Cleveland’s Progressive Field to watch the home team Indians take on the Texas Rangers. The Rangers came in with an American League-best record of 78-54, leading the West Division by three games over the Oakland […]
The last Saturday in August of 1963 brought an afternoon match at the Met between the Minnesota Twins and the visiting Chicago White Sox. An announced crowd of 23,415 came out to the ballpark for this, the second of a three-game series. Minnesota, at 75-58, had won three in a row and six of its […]
“I was surprised (manager Herman Franks) called on me, but I would do it again, if needed. My best pitch was the home run ball.” – Cubs first baseman-outfielder Larry Biittner after yielding three homers in his major-league pitching debut.1 In the first game of a Fourth of July doubleheader at Wrigley Field that […]
In 1987 Candido “Candy” Maldonado was in his second season with the Giants. After five years with the Dodgers, Maldonado had been traded to rival San Francisco after the 1985 season (for catcher Alex Trevino). Maldonado quickly became the everyday right fielder for the Giants. In 1987 he had arguably his best year in the […]
The Saturday afternoon affair at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull seemed insignificant to most baseball fans. Despite being 24 games above .500 (89-65), the second-place Chicago White Sox had been mathematically eliminated and were 11½ games behind the runaway American League-leading New York Yankees. The homestanding Detroit Tigers were 75-79 and clinging to fifth […]
Two months into the 1928 season, the National League had a tight race for the top spot. While the Cincinnati Reds held first place (28-16),1 four other teams were within striking distance. The third-place New York Giants (21-15) traveled to Brooklyn to take on the fourth-place Robins (22-17) at Ebbets Field. A week earlier, the […]
When a franchise endures two consecutive decades of sub-.500 seasons there are bound to be some close calls to breaking the cycle over the ignominious years (1997 and 2012, when Pittsburgh finished 79-83), and then there are seasons that are outright catastrophes (like 2001 and 2009, when they finished 62-100 and 62-99). The Pirates’ 2009 […]
The late summer weather on Thursday evening, September 7, 1972, was ideal for baseball, with clear skies and the temperature in the mid-70s, as the Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Indians prepared to square off. However, other circumstances overshadowing the game offered little incentive for fans to attend, for this was a contest between the two […]
Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, opened in 1909, ushered in the modern era of ballpark construction with the first steel-and-concrete stadium in major-league baseball. It was fitting that the elegant ballpark with a French Renaissance-style façade would host the first night game in the American League, on May 16, 1939. The first night game in the majors […]
The streets of Baltimore were jam-packed with an estimated 350,000 baseball fans who warmly welcomed (at least in name) their Orioles home. “A wonderful, wonderful parade!” exclaimed one fan, Blanche McGraw.1 She was the widow of John McGraw, the longtime New York Giants manager whom old-timers would tell you was first a star on the […]
Before the season the consensus among sportswriters was that the Tigers, with a stern but fair manager in Bucky Harris, would finish fourth. After sweeping a doubleheader from Washington the day before, Detroit was in fifth place with a 49-52 record. “Shortstop has been our greatest weakness this season,” said Harris. “We thought (Heinie) Schuble […]
Babe Ruth was released by the New York Yankees at the end of the 1934 season. He still wanted to get hired as a manager and so he signed with the Boston Braves. His job titles were vice-president, assistant manager, and left fielder. Ruth hoped that he would be named manager if the Braves skipper […]
The Cleveland Indians were hot. They were on a 21-game win streak, the most in the American League. The 2002 Oakland A’s had the previous best mark at 20. The last time the Tribe lost was on August 23, a 6-1 defeat to the Boston Red Sox at Progressive Field. On that date, the Indians […]
Rich Hill had bounced around professional baseball for 10 years before he arrived in Los Angeles in 2016. He began his major-league career as a starter with the Chicago Cubs, debuting in 2005 and compiling an 18-17 record in four seasons there. Over the next six years, he struggled with several injuries, never pitching more […]
The major league baseball season is a marathon to be sure. A team’s journey is often fraught with periods of starts and stops, twists and turns, heartbreaking defeats and miraculous victories. Injuries, trades, and slumps test a manager’s mettle. For those fans who are fortunate enough to root for a team that is in the […]
Tom Hall’s physique, usually listed as 6-feet and 150 pounds but occasionally lighter, earned him the enduring nickname “The Blade.” Teammate Ted Uhlaender once quipped, “He wouldn’t sink two inches if he walked on quicksand.”1 But Hall was also an excellent pitcher for several years, rocketing through the minor leagues to become one of the […]
The expansion Washington Senators had little to cheer about at the end of their inaugural season in 1961. They had lost 100 games and finished in the cellar, tied with the Kansas City A’s. Their hitting was dead last in the league. If there were any bright spots to look forward to in 1962, they […]
When fans watched the Montreal Expos in the early 1980s, it was sometimes hard for them to determine if they were at a baseball game or a track meet. Players like Rodney Scott, Andre Dawson, and Jerry White ran roughshod over National League catchers. But no Expos player turned the tools of ignorance into tools […]
“I’m lucky to be alive. I’m happy to be alive. I’m doing everything I can to play again. It would be a plus. But there are more important things.” — Dickie Thon (1985)1 Some baseball careers are remembered for a single moment. It could be a hit to win the World Series, a strikeout […]
Life isn’t always a fastball down the middle. Sometimes it is unpredictable, with all the ups and downs and erratic sharp curves of a Wiffle Ball thrown into a still breeze. An original Seattle Mariner, Danny Meyer experienced the full gamut of life’s changes both on and off the field. Through it all, Meyer adjusted, […]
The Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse was filled with press and well-wishers the evening of June 3, 1968, all there to celebrate the fifth consecutive shutout of veteran right handed pitcher Don Drysdale. Amid the throng came longtime clubhouse man Nobe Kawano, holding a telegram for Drysdale that had just come in from Silver Spring, Md. […]
Bill “Wee Willie” Sherdel was a durable, rubber-armed starter and reliever who frustrated batters with a mesmerizing slowball during his 15-year big-league career from 1918 through 1932, most notably with the St. Louis Cardinals. Described by a contemporary as “one of the great left-handers” in baseball, Sherdel’s career is defined by a seven-year stretch (1922-1928) […]
Written in blue ink on his minor-league questionnaire was Wayne Granger’s ambition in baseball: “To be a steady starter in [the] major leagues.”1 In a major-league career that spanned nine seasons and seven teams, the right-hander never started a game. But his sinkerball and lanky, 6-foot-2 build helped Granger become the model of durability as […]