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Montreal Expos fans were bursting with excitement in the summer of 1979. Although they had enthusiastically supported more than their share of cult heroesin the franchise’s early years, they certainly didn’t have much on-field success to cheer about. In the team’s first decade (1969-1978), Montreal averaged a woeful 91 losses per year, failing to finish […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies were meeting for the second consecutive year in the 1978 National League Championship Series. LA took the series in 1977, ousting the Phillies in four games. “Three is my lucky number,” said Philadelphia manager Danny Ozark. “I wear number 3 and this is our third time here. […]

A marquee matchup was scheduled on June 10, 1981, with the Houston Astros in town to face the Eastern Division-leading Philadelphia Phillies. The two teams, which met in the NL Championship Series in 1980, were playing at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on that Wednesday night. Several headlines dominated the festivities. First, barring a last-minute settlement, […]

The Sporting News cover for March 5, 1977, featured a picture that was worth a thousand words: Joe Rudi, Don Baylor, and Bobby Grich, all clad in their new California Angels uniforms, were posed reaching into a pair of leather saddlebags, a metaphor for team owner Gene Autry’s wallet. With the 1975 Messersmith decision having […]

The Western Massachusetts city of Holyoke went 64 years between professional baseball teams. As pro baseball returned to Seattle and Toronto in the form of the major-league Mariners and Blue Jays in 1977, the minors also re-emerged in Holyoke in the form of the Holyoke Millers of the Double-A Eastern League. Going into the 1977 […]

There are many long-standing myths about Washington, one of which asserts that the city was originally built on a swamp. The myth perhaps explains the misery inflicted on its residents through unbearable heat and humidity on many midsummer days. In the summer of 1932, there was much to be miserable about and not just the […]

Heading into the game that came to define his career, 21-year-old rookie left-hander Rick Ankiel wasn’t nervous. “I was not hurt. I was not afraid. I was not sick or distracted or particularly anxious,” he wrote 17 years later. “In game one of the National League Division Series, on a warm and sunny afternoon with […]

On June 19, 1977, theatrical rock singer Alice Cooper played his first live concert in almost two years, headlining a five-performer bill at California’s Anaheim Stadium before 40,000 fans. Cooper focused on songs from his recently released Lace and Whiskey album, on which he portrayed a hard-drinking private detective named Maurice Escargot.1 It was Cooper’s […]

George Brett entered the 1992 season as an accomplished veteran leading a rebuilding team. The 1991 Royals finished with an 82-80 record, 13 games behind the AL-West-leading Minnesota Twins and only one game removed from the basement. Kansas City hadn’t reached the postseason since winning the 1985 World Series, although the Royals won 92 games […]

The Mets had terrific momentum in May 1972. They conquered their competition with a 10-game winning streak, and looked to keep it going when ace hurler Tom Seaver took the mound on May 21 at Veterans Stadium for the last game of a four-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies. With two all-time greats leading the […]

When an injury (or a sullen attitude) forced Robin Yount out of the lineup for the start of the 1978 season, the Brewers felt so strongly about the potential of Paul Molitor that they handed the second-year pro, who had never been out of Class A baseball, the role of starting big-league shortstop.1 To Molitor, […]

Paid-admission Sunday baseball came with relative ease to the District of Columbia. On May 14, 1918, “the District Commissioners, after careful consideration of the needs of the Capital, lifted the [Sunday] ban on professional sports.”1 Without the extensive legal, referendum, and legislative maneuvering that was ultimately necessary to bring Sunday baseball to New York, Massachusetts […]

Heading into the 1982 season, fans of the Atlanta Braves had reason to believe the team might have turned a corner. They had endured losing seasons in six of the past seven years, and had just finished with a 50-56 record in the strike-shortened 1981 season. But the team had a young core built around […]

The Braves had last hosted a World Series game in 1948, and that game was played in Boston. In 1957 the Braves, in their fifth season in Milwaukee, won the National League pennant. The first two games of the World Series were played in New York. The Yankees, behind Whitey Ford, had won the opener, […]

Ralph Kiner’s 301 home runs, the product of an unparalleled slugging spree in the late 1940s and early 1950s, ranked first in Pittsburgh Pirates franchise history when Willie Stargell made his big-league debut in 1962. Blossoming into a prodigious, consistent power threat over the next decade, Stargell overtook Kiner in 1973 with his 302nd career […]

As the 1980 MLB season was winding down, the Houston Astros paid a visit to Dodger Stadium in hopes of accomplishing the one feat that eluded the franchise since its inception in 1962: clinching a playoff berth. By winning six of their last seven games, the Astros extended their lead in the NL West by […]

The Dodgers last played in Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957, when they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in front of 6,702 fans. Gil Hodges was the final batter for Brooklyn, striking out in the eighth inning. Within weeks of that game, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco, leaving the […]

Hartford, Connecticut, is among the baseball markets that has found new life in the flashy, merchandise- and promotion-driven minor-league climate of the twenty-first century. Since 2016 the city has hosted the Hartford Yard Goats, a Colorado Rockies affiliate in the Double-A Eastern League.1 The Yard Goats touch all the bases of modern minor-league ball — […]

“It’s a shame … he would have been a helluva player if he hadn’t gotten hurt. Ron Jones was a hitting machine.” — Lee Thomas, general manager, Philadelphia Phillies (1988-1997) 1   Ron Jones was a stocky outfielder from Seguin, Texas. Shortly after he reached the majors, in September 1988, the Philadelphia Daily News wrote, “Jones, […]

In late July 1958 newspapers nationwide published a brief Associated Press dispatch announcing the death of Deadball Era pitcher Jack Rowan.1 Follow-up articles supplied poignant detail. The elderly gent, believed to be about 85 and without family, had spent his final years living alone in a small Detroit hotel room, surviving on a small monthly […]

John Milner idolized Hank Aaron, lockered next to Willie Mays, and on his best days could hit home runs with as much authority as either man. While injuries and inconsistency prevented Milner from becoming an elite slugger, he carved out a 12-year career for the Mets, Pirates, and Expos, helping each of those clubs reach […]

In Detroit’s Briggs Stadium on April 17, 1951, Opening Day, 43,470 fans braved 39-degree weather to watch the Detroit Tigers host the Cleveland Indians. For the Tigers, veteran third baseman George Kell was out with an injury. Indians first baseman Luke Easter, also was injured but started and played five innings (two singles) before being […]

On April 7, 1977, on a bitterly cold afternoon in Ontario, Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays made baseball history playing host to the Chicago White Sox in their inaugural game. Promptly yielding two first inning runs things looked little better after the Jays’ first two batters struck out. Doug Ault, the Jays’ third hitter heard […]

It was one of the most famous trades in baseball history. On December 11, 1959, the Kansas City Athletics sent Joe DeMaestri, Kent Hadley, and Roger Maris to the New York Yankees for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern, and Marv Throneberry. For Hadley, the trade effectively ended his major-league career. Kent William Hadley was […]