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Engulfed in a 1965 National League pennant race with less than three games separating the top four teams, the second-place San Francisco Giants faced the St. Louis Cardinals on August 7 at Busch Stadium. The Saturday afternoon game was the Giants’ next-to-last of an 11-game midwestern road trip to Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. When […]

Gary Carter had been The Sporting News’ National League Rookie Player of the Year in 1975.1 He was the Montreal Expos’ sole representative at the 1975 All-Star Game and the recipient of the team’s Player-of-the-Year Award.2 But despite all of the accolades, Carter went into spring training in 1976 battling for playing time at catcher […]

Opening Day is often celebrated with significant pageantry and optimism for new beginnings. The first day of a new baseball season carries even more meaning for those overcoming substantial hurdles during the journey back to the diamond. When Herb Score walked to Cleveland Stadium’s mound on Opening Day in 1958, he returned to the same […]

“I didn’t even slide. I’m very proud of that.”1 This was Boog Powell’s description of his first-ever inside-the-park home run, nine seasons and nearly 200 homers into a career better known for clearing fences than dashing around basepaths. Yet it was his running that put an exclamation point on the Baltimore Orioles’ 15-run shellacking of […]

On an unseasonably chilly Tuesday night in early May, a small crowd gathered at Tiger Stadium to watch the Detroit Tigers take on the visiting Chicago White Sox. The 7,327 who braved the cold — there were chill warnings in effect for later that night — were in for a treat: arguably the greatest pitching […]

The Dodgers purchased 39-year-old Sal Maglie from the Cleveland Indians in mid-May 1956. The Barber bolstered a maligned staff, went 13-5, and was named Game One starter in the World Series. (Photo: SABR-Rucker Archive)   The 1956 World Series was the sixth between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers in 10 years.1 The American […]

With an eye toward returning to the top of the baseball world, the 1983 Philadelphia Phillies united three key players from the 1976 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds to boost their roster. Joe Morgan, 39 years old, was acquired from the San Francisco Giants to play second base and 40-year-old Tony Pérez, who had spent […]

When the California Angels captured the American League West championship in 1982 and bolted out to a commanding two-game lead in the best-of-five American League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Angels manager Gene Mauch could have been excused for feeling more than a twinge of satisfaction with his team on the brink of appearing […]

In 1987 Candido “Candy” Maldonado was in his second season with the Giants. After five years with the Dodgers, Maldonado had been traded to rival San Francisco after the 1985 season (for catcher Alex Trevino). Maldonado quickly became the everyday right fielder for the Giants. In 1987 he had arguably his best year in the […]

It wasn’t one of the storied Bill Veeck’s most creative promotions, but a “basketball-baseball doubleheader” featuring the Harlem Globetrotters put nearly 14,000 fans in the seats on Monday night, August 31, 1953, as Veeck’s moribund St. Louis Browns met the visiting Washington Senators.1 The eighth-place Browns were 46-85 and 41 games out of first, though […]

During the first six seasons of his stellar 17-year career with the St. Louis Cardinals, Bob Gibson won 71 games, achieved All-Star status, and pitched on a World Series winner. Early in Gibson’s seventh season, 1965, the 20-year-old Steve Carlton joined Gibson on the Cardinals’ pitching staff.1 The two were teammates for seven years, and […]

The Minnesota Twins were tied with the Kansas City Royals for third place in the American League West Division, one game under .500 with a 70-71 record, as they prepared for the Chicago White Sox, who were only a half-game behind the two teams. Minnesota had played sub-.500 baseball nearly all season; the team last […]

It seemed an optimistic but relatively inconsequential signing at the time. In January 1990, the Detroit Tigers, coming off an abysmal 59-103 last-place season and in search of a power upgrade, gave a little-known and heretofore mostly unproductive former major leaguer named Cecil Fielder a $1.25 million incentive-laden contract and installed him as their starting […]

It began with a clap of thunder and a sudden deluge of rain, and ended with Babe Ruth cradling a dying teenager in his arms. In between were 4⅔ innings of baseball rendered meaningless by what is still the worst tragedy in the history of Yankee Stadium. It was May 19, 1929. The Yankees, after […]

Outfielder Manny Mota played the last 13 years of his career as a Dodger and excelled as a pinch-hitter. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Going into the final weekend of the 1980 season, both National League division races were yet to be decided. In the East, Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies took care of business with […]

Struggling at third base during the first two months of the 1998 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates summoned their top-rated prospect, 19-year-old Aramis Ramírez, from Triple A. Ramírez, who had just 40 games of professional experience above Class A, went hitless in his first 24 big-league at-bats before breaking through with a game-clinching two-run double on […]

In the Who Gave It Up? category of baseball trivia, ballplayers are known for certain batting accomplishments, but the opposing pitchers who served up those opportunities are sometimes not remembered. Milwaukee Brewers fans can probably remember Robin Yount’s 3,000th career hit, but can they recall who gave up the hit? Many baseball trivia buffs know […]

Never possessed of an overpowering fastball or a devastating curve, Ed Lynch relied instead on his command, and his wits. The latter, it was said, were among the sharpest of their time, and led to a second act as a baseball executive. “I’m a competitive person and I have confidence in my abilities,” Lynch told […]

Fred Schulte played center field for the pennant-winning 1933 Washington Senators. His three-run homer in Game Five of the World Series against the Giants pulled the Senators even. But New York won on a 10th-inning homer by Mel Ott that tipped off Schulte’s glove. The victory gave the Giants the championship. In his 11-year big-league […]

In the one (and only) year that Bill Wakefield pitched in the major leagues, 1964, he set a Mets team record for game appearances that would stand up for 13 more years, and packed into a single season a full-length career’s worth of excitement and highlights, ending with a nail-biting season-ending game that decided the […]

Standing 6-foot-1 and weighing 185 pounds, Missouri native Johnny Sturm could accurately be described as tall, dark, and handsome, a ubiquitous term applicable to literally thousands of ballplayers. What’s rare about Sturm is his abbreviated major-league career, a single season as the regular first baseman on the 1941 New York Yankees. Although he legitimately contributed […]

Mike Smithson, a 6-foot-8, 215-pound righty, pitched in eight seasons as a big leaguer from 1982 through 1989. He won 15 games for the Minnesota Twins and led the AL in games started in both 1984 and 1985, and finished his career with the Boston Red Sox, who had originally selected him in the fifth […]

Boston Red Sox analyst and former major-league pitcher Lenny DiNardo speaks to the Southern New England SABR Chapter on November 27, 2021.   The Lajoie-Start Southern New England chapter’s first in-person meeting in two years drew a crowd of 40 members and guests to St. Philip’s Parish Center in Greenville, Rhode Island, on Saturday, November […]

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw celebrates after closing out Game Six of the 1980 World Series, clinching the first championship in franchise history. (Courtesy of the Philadelphia Phillies)   In the Beginning The first National League game in Philadelphia was played in 1876 with the Boston Red Stockings facing the Philadelphia Athletics, one of several […]