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At 3:36 P.M. on October 13, 1960, Fred Green watched a ball hit by Bill Mazeroski sail over the left-field wall as Forbes Field erupted into bedlam. The improbable Pirates pulled off their stunning upset over the highly favored New York Yankees! Years later, Fred’s widow, Mona, shared her husband’s feeling on the experience: “Fred’s […]

In the only major league box score in which he’ll ever appear, Bill Schlesinger can’t even find his whole name. It was shortened to Schles’ger. The space taken by the apostrophe replaced the “n” — leaving his name actually shortened only by the width of the typset letter “i.” Tony Conigliaro got his full name […]

In January 1903 twenty-eight year old George Barclay “Win” Mercer had already played nine years in the major leagues, won 131 games, just been given his first managerial job, and was enormously popular with fans and players. He seemed to have the world in the palm of his hand. Yet, less than two weeks into […]

Jack Knight was a ballplayer who could recite any of Rudyard Kipling’s poems and also enjoyed watching surgeons perform operations. John Wesley Knight was his proper name and he was born in Philadelphia on October 6, 1885. One of his brothers was a doctor and he told at least one writer that if he could […]

Tim Laudner followed up on a record-setting season in the minor leagues in 1981 with a home run in each of his first two games in the majors. After creating a tough act to follow, Laudner didn’t reach the heights some expected of him. However, he played nine seasons for the Minnesota Twins, was the team’s starting […]

As the first president of the Boston Baseball Association in 1871, Ivers Adams was the father of professional baseball in Boston. The Association’s baseball team was a charter member of the National Association during its inaugural season in 1871, played five seasons in that league, and then became the Braves franchise in the National League. […]

On the back of his 1955 Bowman baseball card, Mel Clark urges youngsters to have a glove, bat and ball at hand so they can be ready to play when the opportunity presents itself. When that opportunity arose for the war veteran from the sandlots of West Virginia, he seized it with a vengeance. Melvin […]

When Rafael Palmeiro retired, he joined Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray as the only players to accumulate more than 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. A Hall of Fame-caliber career it was.1 But, with all Palmeiro accomplished, he is best known for wagging his finger at Congress as he denied ever having used […]

Thomas Jefferson Davis Bridges was born on December 28, 1906, in Gordonsville, Tennessee, 50 miles east of Nashville. Tommy’s father and grandfather were doctors, but after pursuing a bachelor’s degree at the University of Tennessee for two years, Tommy enrolled in the business school. In those days, major leaguers who attended college for a few […]

For more than 50 years, Mike Shannon has been a fixture in the Cardinals’ organization. He played for his hometown team and was a member of three pennant-winning teams and two World Series champions. He became a hometown hero with a game-tying home run at Busch Stadium that helped win the first game of the […]

Juan Bell’s big league career began under daunting circumstances. The younger brother of an MVP, he was traded for one future Hall of Famer and expected to dislodge another from his position. Bell battled those expectations — and more than one teammate — over seven seasons (1989-1995) with five teams in the majors, but the […]

It was meant to happen. At least, it seemed that way. Triggering a standing ovation from a Fenway Park crowd slightly exceeding 10,000, Theodore Samuel Williams, as he had done 519 times before, smacked a ball into the outfield seats (he also hit an inside-the-park home run in 1946.) It was the Red Sox slugger’s […]

After a world championship in 1920 and a tight pennant race with the 1921 Yankees, the Cleveland Indians found themselves out of the pennant race early in 1922. It was obvious that “Cleveland was in a state of disintegration and needed new blood.”1 Scouts were dispatched all over the country to find players to revitalize […]

During the war years (1942-1945), the fans of the Boston Braves didn’t have a whole lot to cheer about as the club averaged 87 losses per season. Only the dreadful Philadelphia Phillies lost more often. One exception was fan favorite, right-handed knuckleballer, Jim “Old Ironsides” Tobin who provided the Tribe faithful with some of the […]

“The Buccaneers turned impending defeat into a glorious victory snatched from the very jaws of disaster” gushed the Pittsburgh Press about the Pirates’ six-run ninth inning to beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-7, in the Windy City.1 The Pittsburgh Post called the Deadball Era offensive explosion a “sensational slugfest,”2 while sportswriter J.J. Alcock of Chicago Tribune […]

Residents of Wampum, Pennsylvania, and neighboring towns cheered hometown hero Dick Allen at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field during his 1964 National League Rookie of the Year season with the Philadelphia Phillies, even honoring him in on-field ceremonies before three games against the host Pittsburgh Pirates. But Allen scuffled in Pittsburgh in ’64, batting .182 in nine […]

The Texas Rangers won 89 games in 2004 – their first winning season since 1999 – but finished third, three games back of the Anaheim Angels, in the four-team American League West.1 They looked to continue the improvement the following season and perhaps capture the AL West crown, a feat the franchise had achieved three […]

Pitcher Blake Snell and his team, the San Diego Padres, both started off the 2023 season poorly. Both, however, were on upswings as Snell prepared to take the mound for a June 17 home game against his former team, the Tampa Bay Rays. The game was attracting a lot of buzz, thanks to the Rays’ […]

Whether because of a “gloomy day” in Detroit that stalled two attempts at opening day festivities1 or “weeping clouds” instead of sunshine in Baltimore2 or how the “rain makers put a damper on everything” in Philadelphia,3 the grandiose overtures set to ring in Ban Johnson’s upgraded American League had to wait in every city but […]

“It’s true, ladies, all true. THE game did last almost until dawn’s early light and your old man was not out on the town, even if he may have looked it.”—Morris Siegel1 Open any book about baseball or any page on the SABR website to reveal myriad ways to contemplate the game. Consider that baseball […]

Though Ken Harrelson of the Boston Red Sox got the game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the ninth and Bill Harrelson of the California Angels was the losing pitcher, there was no Harrelson vs. Harrelson last-minute drama at Fenway Park in August 1968. As the Red Sox and Angels resumed the suspended second game […]

The 1959 New York Yankees (79-75) posted the franchise’s lowest win total since 1925, finishing a distant third behind the first-place Chicago White Sox (94-60) and the second-place Cleveland Indians (89-65). It was a significant dip in the Yankees’ fortunes after 10 American League pennants and 8 World Series titles in the previous 12 seasons. […]

In 2005 the Boston Red Sox were defending World Series champions for the first time in 86 years when they beat the New York Yankees in their Fenway Park home opener. The Red Sox won the next year’s home opener, and the next. By 2012, their winning streak in home openers was eight years in […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the December 2021 issue of the SABR Black Sox Scandal Committee Newsletter. Peter J. Wilt, a lifelong White Sox fan and soccer executive, has solved a Black Sox mystery, discovering the unmarked grave of pitcher Lefty Williams at Melrose Abbey Memorial Park in Anaheim, California. The location […]