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“I take a great deal of pride in my background and my heritage.”1 That was Ruben Amaro Jr. in 2011, on being a third-generation Latino baseball man. Yet he has often spoken the same way about his maternal side. Altogether, his background is unique in major-league history: Cuban-Mexican/Jewish-American. From this start, a unique career path […]

Jody Reed was a smallish (5-feet-9, 170 pounds)1 and fiery middle infielder with a rocket for a throwing arm and a knack for hitting doubles. He was with the Red Sox from 1987 to 1992. He went on to shorter stints with the Dodgers, Brewers, Padres, and Tigers during an 11-year major-league career. Reed gave […]

Rick Reed was one of the replacement players during the players strike of 1994-95. Although he was ostracized by fellow players after crossing the picket line, Reed was eventually accepted by teammates after joining the New York Mets, with whom he spent most of his big-league career. When he finally earned his chance to pitch […]

If one wished to find the spiritual reincarnation of prototypical renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci within the all-time register of major league baseball players, they would do well to consider one William Grover Slayback. Slayback, who walked with the gods of baseball during the summer of 1972 while pitching for the Detroit Tigers, would most […]

In the late 1930s, Monty Stratton of the Chicago White Sox was one of the best and most praised pitchers in major-league baseball and was about to enter the prime of his career. “Monty Stratton looks as if he is going to furnish many a page in baseball history before he gives up,” Philadelphia sportswriter […]

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 […]

Daniel Staub? Who the hell is Daniel Staub? Nobody has ever heard of a ballplayer named Daniel Staub. But everyone has heard of Rusty Staub, and for the French and English fans of a brand-new ball club in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he was known — and loved — as Le Grand Orange. Daniel Joseph “Rusty” […]

Stan Pawloski spent his entire career in the minor leagues save for two games with the Cleveland Indians in 1955. His journey to the majors wound through half-a-dozen minor-league towns. Along the way, he earned the distinction of being called a “can’t-miss” prospect and voted to three All-Star teams. That made him among the last […]

He arrived on the big-league scene like a bolt of lightning through the evening sky. Fred Lynn played in his first game on September 5, 1974, and proceeded to smash major-league pitching to the tune of a .419 batting average and a .698 slugging percentage over his first 15 games. He followed that up with […]

On September 30, 2011, after his team’s 86th victory of the season, Anaheim Angels general manager Tony Reagins resigned his position. Three days later, owner Arte Moreno announced that the team had declined to renew the contracts of assistant to the general manager Gary Sutherland and assistant general manager Ken Forsch. For the 65-year-old Forsch, […]

Jesse Jefferson’s nine-year career spent with five teams is best remembered for his being one of the original 1977 Blue Jays. Despite an overall 39-81 won-lost mark, the right-hander holds Toronto’s franchise record for hurling the most innings (12) in a complete game. When he defeated Oakland’s Mike Norris, 1-0, in 11 innings on May […]

“Always smiling, made you feel good to be around him.” Cleveland sportscaster Joe Tait on Tom Ragland.1     Tom Ragland wanted his mother to get him a baseball glove when he was 5 years old. There was no money for one, and it was a few years later when he found a discarded one […]

Despite 100-plus big-league victories, a half-dozen straight workhorse campaigns of 200-plus innings tossed, and a crucial role in a historic mid-’60s American League pennant drive, Pedro Ramos’s small degree of diamond immortality will likely always rest upon two individual pitches tossed in the midst of an erratic 15-season sojourn. Both fateful deliveries came while he […]

When Mel Harder guided 13 Indian arms through an astonishing 111-win season, there was no “How-To” book for pitching coaches. That’s because he was still writing it. During Harder’s two-decade stint as an active hurler, pitchers were often treated like zoo animals—objects of curiosity, the care and feeding of whom was left to whichever coach […]

On Friday, June 13, 1958, the Milwaukee Braves, holding a 1½-game lead atop the National League standings, opened a weekend series in St. Louis. The Braves’ starting pitcher was Joey Jay. Connecticut native Jay had not yet succeeded as a major-league pitcher, but he already held two distinctions: He was one of the original “bonus […]

Perhaps it is Brad Lidge’s fate to be best remembered for two sliders. The first, in 2005, hung over the plate and resulted in an Albert Pujols blast that decided an NLCS game. The second, in 2008, tailed away from Eric Hinske and clinched a world championship. Yet Lidge’s big-game résumé stretches well beyond these […]

After postponing his wedding when he was unexpectedly called up to the Boston Red Sox in June of 1967, Ken Poulsen collected one base hit in five at-bats during his brief two-week major-league career. That lone base hit by Poulsen was witnessed by the author, then 13 years old, who was at Fenway Park that […]

Frank E. Bradley, a fireballing right-handed pitcher who played in six seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs before suffering a career-ending wound in World War II, was born on February 3, 1918, in Benton, Bossier Parish, Louisiana. He was the son of June and Adline (Gates) Bradley. If Frank had any siblings, no mention of […]

Underappreciated in his late-19th-century heyday and largely forgotten for decades thereafter, Roger Connor was baseball’s first great slugger, the game’s career home-run leader prior to the arrival of Babe Ruth. A fastball-loving left-handed batter, Connor spent virtually every season between 1880 and 1894 among league leaders in a wide array of offensive categories. Over time […]

In spring 1912, the assets that accompanied 20-year-old middle infielder Bill Stumpf onto the roster of the New York Highlanders included defensive versatility, a strong and accurate throwing arm, and the promise exhibited the previous year during his professional debut campaign with a mid-tier minor league club. One spring later, a powerless bat, an erratic […]

“Atta-boy, Frank”1, the slick-fielding Fordham University shortstop shouted to the diminutive second baseman with every successful double play turned on the practice field at Rose Hill. The oft-repeated ritual helped propel the shortstop to a major league contract before college graduation. More than 50 years later, when the shortstop-turned-baseball-coach-turned-Fordham institution had to retire, the keystone […]

Dick Williams was regarded as one of baseball’s premier managers and turnaround artists. He was only the second skipper to win pennants for three different teams — Boston, Oakland, and San Diego.1 As a rookie manager in 1967, Williams led the Red Sox from ninth place the year before to the World Series. Both personally […]

“Cupcake,” a euphemism for a should-be-easy-to-beat opponent, entered the sports lexicon in the 1970s.1 Forty-some years earlier, the New York Yankees would’ve agreed it applied to their September 23, 1932, opponent: the cellar-dwelling, 63 games back2 Boston Red Sox. The hapless 1899 Cleveland Spiders were the last major-league team to face an opponent 60 or […]