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Recalled from the minor leagues near midseason by the Cincinnati Reds in both 1974 and 1975, Tom Carroll was a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher who began his career by winning his first four decisions as a starter in 1974. With the Big Red Machine cruising in 1975, Carroll’s four wins helped stabilize the staff when their […]

When Orlando Cepeda stood on the podium in Cooperstown, New York, on July 25, 1999, it is likely that no man had followed a more difficult path to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or that any man was any happier to attain the honor. Cepeda had escaped the slums of Puerto Rico to attain stardom […]

Godsends always arrive on schedule. But God sends great baseball hitters far less frequently than are promised by even the most clairvoyant of baseball prophets. SABR-sophist Bill James once proclaimed the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Pedro Guerrero “the best hitter God had made in a long time.”1 It was the mid-1980s, and Guerrero was in the […]

While growing up in Chicago’s affluent North Shore suburb of Glencoe, Ross Baumgarten hardly looked like a kid who would live the American boy’s dream of playing major-league baseball one day. “I was small for my age,” recalled Baumgarten. “I was only 5 feet tall and weighed 90 pounds when I was a freshman in […]

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 […]

An average major-leaguer and a professorial manager who tried to treat his ballplayers like grown men, Steve Boros was a baseball lifer whose career spanned over two dozen teams across six decades. Broadcaster Ernie Harwell called him “one of the most cerebral baseball men I’ve ever known.”1 Born September 3, 1936, in Flint, Michigan, Stephen […]

When radio came along in the 1920s, it brought sports, including baseball, directly into people’s homes. Radio also created a new type of sports reporting: now, fans could not only read about the game in their favorite print publications but also listen to play-by-play announcers telling the story of the game in real time. In […]

A big man with a famous scowl and a name that felt ripped from a James Bond film, Mo Vaughn was a hulking 6-foot-1, 225-pound lefty hitter whose frame dangled over home plate. Baseballs seemed to disintegrate on impact when he exploded out of his crouched stance, extending one arm to the sky on his […]

Imagine being able to say you’d seen the big-league debuts of Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Bill Mazeroski1 – not to mention an All-Star Game, a no-hitter, a four-homer game, and a batter hitting for the cycle. Some baseball lovers spend a lifetime hoping to see those kinds of milestones. Bill […]

“I was born in 1912 [sic] in Giddings, Texas, a little town between Austin and Houston. Rube Foster came from about twenty-five miles from my house, a little town right above me.” — Hilton Smith 1   Something must have been in the air as the state of Texas produced eight Negro League Hall of […]

“It’s going to be a tough act for the kid to follow,” said Cleveland pitcher Bob Feller.1 Indeed, it would be. Feller had just thrown the 12th one-hitter of his fabulous career, blanking Boston, 2-0, in the first game of a doubleheader at Cleveland on May 1, 1955. Boston catcher Sammy White singled to center field in the seventh inning for […]

“Charleston not only has the speed of a Carey, the arm of a Meusel, the brains of a McGraw and the hitting ability of a Hornsby, but he is a singer of rare ability, a writer of parts, a billiard player of more than ordinary skill and a happily married man. Charleston is a rare […]

Adam Hyzdu was a multisport superstar at a high school known for superstar athletes including Buddy Bell, Barry Larkin, and Ken Griffey Jr. After being selected in the first round of the 1990 amateur draft, Hyzdu went on to have an interesting 18-year career in professional baseball. The slugging right-handed outfielder knocked out 273 minor-league […]

The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates had their fair share of heroes and players who had career years, but when all is said and done, without Vernon Law they might well have been just another team that came close to glory. Heading into 1960, Law had just turned 30 and was an eight-year veteran of the Pirates, […]

Pitcher Brian Kingman compiled an 8-20 record with the 1980 Oakland Athletics. Prior to 1980, instances of pitchers losing 20 games in a season occurred with great regularity. After Kingman’s 20-loss season, however, his place in baseball lore was cemented for 23 long years until it finally happened again. The stinging effects of Kingman’s 20-loss […]

Bob Zupcic hit .217 in Double A one year, then .213 the next – and found himself in the major leagues the year after that. The former first-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1987 was a large right-handed outfielder (6-foot-4 and 220 pounds as a ballplayer) prized for his defensive talents. He played […]

Tried and convicted of murder in a court of law, Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb hurled his best pitches from behind prison walls. The tall, lanky right-hander with a nasty temper and a taste for booze won just a single game as a major leaguer. He won 131 games while playing for teams based at the San […]

Horacio “Rabbit” Martínez (1912-1992) was the prototype for the long line of shortstops from the Dominican Republic: slick-fielding, quick, and a threat on the basepaths. He had an outstanding career in the Negro Leagues with the New York Cubans (1935-36, 1939-47). Though professional ball was largely absent in his homeland while Martínez was active, he […]

In baseball history, few major leaguers have turned to sports writing as a full-time profession after their playing days. Sam Crane and Tim Murnane were nineteenth-century players who then wrote for, respectively, the Boston Globe and the New York Evening Journal. Charley Walters twirled in a half-dozen games for the 1969 Twins before becoming a […]

Once a coveted young left-handed pitching prospect, Eddie Eayrs was nearly 30 when he finally received some regular major league playing time with the 1920 Boston Braves. Always a good contact hitter, Eayrs promptly capitalized on outfield assignments accorded him by manager George Stallings, and by season’s end he led Braves batsmen in batting average […]

Born in what is now Oklahoma shortly before it became a state, Bill Breckinridge was a right-handed pitcher who appeared in three games for the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. A Dartmouth College standout, Breckinridge was one of many ballplayers that manager Connie Mack brought directly to the big leagues from an institute of higher learning. Breckinridge […]

Dave Baldwin didn’t talk to the baseball or scream at the hitters. Offering no self-styled Mark Fidrych or Al Hrabosky theatrics on the mound, the relief pitcher was a quiet guy to the point of being shy, almost unnoticeable. Yet in 176 games over six seasons with the Washington Senators, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White […]

Baseball lifer Gaylen Pitts knows all about perseverance, patience, hard work, and fulfilling a dream. He toiled as a versatile infielder for ten years in the minor leagues and missed almost two full seasons serving his country during the Vietnam War before he got a chance on the big stage as a midseason temporary call-up […]

Mel Nelson entered professional baseball as a right-handed-hitting outfielder, spent parts of six seasons in the major leagues as a left-handed pitcher, and when his playing days were over served as a scout for several teams. He spent more than half a century in professional baseball, including 17 years as a player. Although he didn’t […]