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Edgardo Alfonzo did what few achieve in New York – be great while going relatively unnoticed. Alfonzo didn’t receive much attention, nor did he seek it out. On a team with power-hitting catcher Mike Piazza and outspoken manager Bobby Valentine, even Alfonzo’s breakout season of 1999 – which culminated an eight-year climb to his personal […]

Another eighth-place finish was almost a certainty for the homestanding Philadelphia Athletics (48-93) as they hosted the seventh-place Chicago White Sox (58-87) in a doubleheader at Shibe Park on September 23, 1921. Philadelphia had finished last in the American League each year from 1915 to 1920, and even though the White Sox arrived in town […]

Boys often grow up playing catch with their fathers. It’s one of the most cherished memories a father and son can have. Nolan Ryan and his son Reid took that scenario to an unprecedented level. And they didn’t just play catch. Nolan Ryan, the 44-year-old Texas Rangers superstar pitcher, and his 19-year-old son, a pitcher […]

The morning of Sunday, June 2, 1957, was a great day to be a Cincinnati Redlegs fan. This wasn’t something that could be said often since World War II. In fact, the Redlegs’ third-place finish in 1944 was not to be attained again for 12 years, when the inspired 1956 team won 91 games and […]

You wind him up in the spring and he goes all summer. He hits .330 or .340 or whatever, and then you shut him off in the fall. – Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Lefty Gomez1   Charlie Gehringer was a model of consistency throughout his major-league career with the Detroit Tigers. This Hall of […]

A weak-armed washout from two other American League teams, catcher Ira Thomas was purchased by Connie Mack prior to the 1909 season. Thomas immediately prospered with Philadelphia’s “inside” game, and was the Athletics’ primary backstop as they captured World Series victories in 1910 and 1911. He then transitioned to coaching and team captaincy as his […]

“It was like taking a kid and throwing him into brain surgery without going to medical school.” — David Clyde1   After being chosen as the top overall pick in the 1973 June amateur draft, left-handed pitcher David Clyde made the rare leap from high school to the big leagues with the Texas Rangers.2 The […]

There were a couple of big families in Doc Farrell’s life. He was the eighth of 10 children, and had seven of his own. He enjoyed nine years in the big leagues, and seems to have had an affinity for two-team cities, playing for both New York teams, both Boston teams, and one each of […]

War was raging in Europe as the 1941 baseball season came to a close. News of the fighting kept fans justifiably preoccupied, while the pennant races served as a badly needed diversion. The New York Yankees captured the American League flag, and then defeated the National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. A […]

On August 8, 1962, Minnesota Twins left-hander Jack Kralick was nursing a two-hit, 2-1 lead over the Kansas City Athletics in the seventh inning when Kansas City right fielder George Alusik hoisted a two-run homer. The smash led to a 4-3 Twins loss. Protecting a similarly narrow ninth-inning 1-0 lead 18 days later, Kralick had […]

A genuine pre-modern national star, one of the major league game’s pioneers, and one of the sport’s most enduring and intriguing figures, Louis Rogers “Pete” Browning was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 17, 1861, at 13th and Jefferson on the city’s west side. A lifelong resident of Louisville, Pete Browning was the youngest of […]

Considering how dreadful his first full professional season was, it’s a wonder Mike Cvengros made it to the major leagues at all. Yet make it he eventually did, and he went on to win 25 major-league games over parts of six seasons, plus 177 in the minors. Over the course of his career, two themes […]

Kid Elberfeld, called “the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most rantankerous [sic], most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes” for his vicious arguments on the diamond, patterned his combative style after that of his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles of the mid-1890s. He believed, like those Oriole players, that an umpire should be kept […]

Right-handed pitcher Merlin Nippert pitched six innings of major-league baseball for the Boston Red Sox in September 1962. He appeared in four games between September 12 and September 22. It was but a brief stint, yet he had made the grade and acquitted himself reasonably well as a big leaguer. Merlin Lee Nippert was born […]

The Toronto Blue Jays’ “former shortstop of the future,” Eddie Zosky, a first-round draft choice, selected 19th overall in 1989, played in 44 major-league games for four teams over five seasons and hit .160.1 His baseball “future” came up very short. Is his story a tragedy in which a collegiate star, named All-American by The […]

In 1883 the Worcester Ruby Legs became the Philadelphia Quakers and shortly the Phillies. From then until 1980, there were no World Series titles for the Phillies. They won just two National League pennants, in 1915 and in 1950, when a quiet, scholarly but rugged man named Eddie Sawyer led the club called the Whiz […]

Ignatz Baranowski and Frances Tazebski married and produced a major-league ballplayer who played under the name Frank Fuller. Frank Edward Fuller, to be precise. He was born in Detroit on the first day of January in 1894. Probably.1 Fuller was a right-handed second baseman, a switch-hitter, who played in 40 games in the majors and […]

In the spring of 1960 few high-school athletes in the country were more highly sought after than Pete Cimino. As a 17-year-old senior pitcher at Bristol (Pennsylvania) High School, he followed up a 14-strikeout perfect game on May 16 with a no-hitter four days later. His exploits on the diamond were overshadowed only by the […]

John Mahlon “Jack” Ogden played in the major leagues for fewer than five unremarkable seasons but he left his mark on baseball in other capacities: as the pitcher with the most victories in International League history and as an executive and scout for four decades. In an era when unaffiliated minor-league teams paid their star […]

Infielder Larry Wolfe spent two full seasons in the major leagues, 1978 with the Minnesota Twins and 1979 with the Boston Red Sox, and a partial season for each team, too. He attracted enough interest in high school and college that he had been drafted by both the Dodgers (in 1971) and the Yankees (in […]

Infielder Ted Schreiber was #10 in the long list of New York Mets third basemen. He played just 39 games as a utilityman for Casey Stengel in 1963. Of his 55 plate appearances, the most significant was his next to last — the final regular-season out made in the Polo Grounds. Second base was his best […]

Montana’s Moonlight Graham, Wyman Andrus appeared in a single game at third base for the 1885 Providence Grays. His post-playing days, however, were spent as a distinguished leader of medicine and politics in an old west cattle town. William Wyman Andrus was born October 14, 1858, in the village of Orono, Ontario, Canada. He was […]

From 1926 through 1976, a wooden stadium stood at the corner of King and Isenberg Streets in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was small, with capacity of only about 25,000.1 It lacked infrastructure. It was called “The Termite Palace” for its infestation. Yet, like so many ballparks of past eras, it had a simple charm. “The first […]

In 1939, Yankee Stadium hosted the seventh All-Star Game between the American and National Leagues. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The New York Yankees did not have an auspicious beginning as a franchise. Starting as the New York Highlanders, they played their home games at Hilltop Park in upper Manhattan from 1903 to 1912. In 1913 the […]