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1912 Hilldale Club. Back row: Bill Anderson, Alice Robinson, Lloyd Thompson, Marian Caulk, Devere Thompson, Mark Studevan, Clara Ivory, Ed Bolden, Helen Barrett, Charles Gaskins, Mary Ricketts, Hubert Jackson, Grace Ricketts, Sam Anderson and Leon Brice. Front row: Hulett Strothers, Raymond Garner, Billy Hill, Frank “Chink” Wilson, George Kemp, Hugh “Scrappy” Mason and Clarence Porter. […]

An integral role player on the Big Red Machine’s World Series-winning teams in 1975 and 1976, Dan Driessen developed into a dependable, consistent, clutch-hitting first baseman over his 15-year major-league career. One of the best fielding first-sackers of his era, Driessen was the first designated hitter in the history of the National League when he […]

A collegiate star at the University of New Orleans, outfielder Ted Wood also stood out for Team USA in international competition in the late 1980s. The first-round draft pick never got an extended trial in the majors, as he appeared in just 47 games from 1991 to 1993. He continued to chase the dream longer […]

Andy Seminick was a rock-solid catcher who had a career year in 1950 and had a lot to do with the Phillies winning their first pennant in 35 years. He was the antithesis of bonus babies like Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, and Stan Lopata because he was anything but highly sought after. He […]

As the title of his 2013 autobiography showed, George Altman’s baseball journey took him from the Negro Leagues (1955) to the majors (1959-67) and beyond (Japan, 1968-75). The slugging 6-foot-4 outfielder, who also played first base from time to time, hit 101 home runs in the majors. He was a National League All-Star in 1961 […]

Patsy Tebeau was a pugnacious competitor from the mean streets of St. Louis who sought any advantage he thought he could gain. His tactics delivered a brand of baseball that clearly was much dirtier than you see in the modern game. Bill James has written about 19th century baseball: “The tactics of the eighties were […]

Unfortunately, Tim Wakefield just ran out of time. The knuckleballer spent 17 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, recording 186 of his 200 career victories with the franchise – just six short of the team record held by Cy Young and Roger Clemens. He was also a member of two World Series champions, including the […]

Herb “Baldy” Souell, 5-feet-9 and 150 pounds, carved out an 11-year career as an undersized third baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs from 1940 to 1950. He threw right-handed but was a switch-hitter whose valuable bat kept him in the top third of the Monarchs’ lineup for most of his career. Once Souell’s time with […]

Twenty-five years after his playing days ended, Pastor Tom Johnson was again coming in as a reliever; this time, though, he was headed half-a-world away from the scene of his success as a home-grown Minnesota Twins pitcher. Speaking humbly, but still exhibiting the confidence he took to the mound, Johnson explained his move to the […]

So slender he often swam in his uniform, Lino Donoso was a popular southpaw with a durability that belied his appearance. He pitched year-round for much of a two-decade career that began on the island of his birth, Cuba, included one season in the Negro National League and parts of two with the Pittsburgh Pirates. […]

For nearly eighty years, Hub Kittle loved and studied pitching. He first realized that this was his calling when he was eight years old. He could outthrow all the neighborhood kids. “Something clicked there, that I had something the good Lord must have gave me. I don’t know why, I couldn’t outfight ’em and I […]

How many people can claim Benjamin Franklin, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Washington Irving as their brothers? Lil Stoner could! The 9th edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia lists him as Lil Stoner, but he was born Ulysses Simpson Grant Stoner. Lil pitched for parts of nine seasons in the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers, […]

Aloysius “Wish” Egan was one of the top scouts in the Detroit Tigers system. Among the players he signed in his 40 years of scouting were Jim Bunning, Hal Newhouser, and Dizzy Trout. Egan even scouted the Lakeland, Florida, site the Tigers have used for spring training since 1934. All scouts have regrets; one of […]

Harry Coyle taught us how to watch baseball on television. As the director of 36 World Series telecasts, beginning with the first one in 1947, he invented many of the images that shape our view of the game. One of his innovations, the center field shot showing the pitcher, batter, catcher, and umpire, became the […]

The man who broadcast Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers recalled that, as a boy in Sanford, Florida, “I saw black men tarred and feathered by the Ku Klux Klan and forced to walk the streets. I had grown up in a completely segregated world.” Red Barber confessed that when he learned the Dodgers […]

Jim Mutrie managed in the major leagues for nine seasons, two seasons in the American Association (1883-1884, New York Metropolitans) and seven seasons in the National League (1885-1891, New York Giants). As a big-league manager Mutrie achieved a .611 winning percentage, the second highest career percentage among major-league managers, trailing only Hall of Fame inductee […]

Few players have been as coveted by professional clubs as Paul Pettit was in the spring of 1949. During that high school season, the hard-throwing left-handed pitcher drew crowds to the small southern California town of Lomita. They echoed the influx to the region after oil was discovered there in the early 1920s. Pettit’s powerful […]

Some baseball players have the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Many others never do. A few, however, momentarily have this kind of good fortune in their grasp, then see it taken away. Shortstop Rey Quiñones was a May call-up for the 1986 Boston Red Sox, a team destined to […]

His big brother in college was Martin Luther King Jr. Somehow, it’s appropriate to begin with that fact when discussing Donn Clendenon. During his college years at Morehouse College, one of the most pivotal players in Mets history was mentored by the greatest and most pivotal African American of the 20th century. The big brother […]

Stories about Art Quirk’s golden arm and Ivy League degree accompanied the left-handed pitcher on his rise to the major leagues. There were double-digit strikeout games and a no-hitter. Most newspaper profiles mentioned the rarified source of his college diploma. But the excitement of his 1962 debut was short-lived when he was bumped from the […]

Known for his big wad of chewing tobacco, Red Munger was a hard-throwing Texan with a mean fastball and a knee-buckling curveball. After paying his dues for six years in the St. Cardinals’ deep farm system, Red debuted in 1943 for the world champions. Before entering the US Army in mid-1944, he was arguably the […]

A significant event in Nashville’s Black community took place on Tuesday, February 19, 1907: a meeting held at the residence of J.W. White to organize the Standard Giants Base Ball club as reported in the February 22, 1907, edition of the Nashville Globe: “Manager White called the house to order, and Mr. C.B. Reaves was […]

Baseball brought Jim Neidlinger across the country from Napa, California, where he was named to the high school All-County team in two consecutive years, to Burlington, Vermont, where, as of 2024, he was the head baseball coach at Saint Michael’s College. In between, he pitched professionally for 11 seasons from 1984 to 1994. In August […]