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Described as a “dazzling performance,” by sportswriter Joseph Durso, St. Louis Cardinals rookie John Stuper overcame two rain delays to toss a complete-game four-hitter, beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 13-1, and force Game Seven of the World Series.1 “For him to pitch nine innings was one of the most impressive performances I’ve ever see under the […]

Bill Gullickson arrived in the National League with a record-setting splash in 1980. On September 10, the 21-year-old Montreal Expo became the first rookie pitcher to strike out 18 hitters in a game when he beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2. On April 10, 1982, Gullickson – by then an established member of the Expos’ rotation […]

The turnstiles at Busch Stadium, the renamed Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, counted 15,444 customers for a game played on June 23, 1961, a Friday evening in early summer. The San Francisco Giants were in town, trying to halt a three-game losing streak against a hometown club not yet playing .500 ball. The Giants starter […]

At the dawn of the 1966 season, San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Juan Marichal was primed to improve his impressive résumé. A six-season veteran, Marichal had already won 105 games and was a five time All-Star. The day before he started the season opener against the Chicago Cubs, Marichal said, “I’m stronger physically, my arms […]

Before the era when “walk-off home run” became part of baseball’s lexicon and pitchers earned millions for producing six- and seven-inning starts, Milwaukee County Stadium played host to one of the latest walk-off homers in history and also one of its lengthiest and most impressive starting performances. Remarkably, each of those signature events occurred in […]

Right-hander Bob Welch pitched 10 years for the Dodgers and struck out Reggie Jackson to end Game Two of the 1978 World Series. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The path to the 1978 World Series was not an easy one for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and there was speculation that an August 20 clubhouse brawl might hurt […]

The Milwaukee Braves expected a lot from 21-year-old Wade Blasingame, a “fireballing southpaw” set to start his first full big-league season in 1965.1 Four years earlier, the club had showered the highly-touted prospect from Fresno, California, with an unimaginable bonus of $125,000.  Blasingame progressed through the Braves’ farm system, had a cup of coffee in 1963, and […]

At the end of the 1876 National League season the Philadelphia and New York teams failed to travel west for scheduled road trips. Both teams were expelled from the league and those cities would be without National League base ball for the next six seasons. On May 1, 1883, under hazy skies with a temperature […]

To say that the Montreal Expos faced some adversity on the road to their first-ever playoff appearance would be an understatement. In their first decade of existence (1969-1978), the Expos never finished higher than in fourth place in the National League East standings and their record was below .500 in each of those years. Although […]

When it opened in 1928, Montreal’s De Lorimier Stadium was considered the preeminent ballpark of the minor leagues. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis said it was even better than some big-league facilities.1 The luxurious ballpark was also heavily mortgaged, which was a relatively minor concern initially. Everything changed when the stock market crashed in October 1929. […]

The New York Yankees still had hopes for an American League wild-card slot when they hosted the Boston Red Sox in a four-game weekend series at Yankee Stadium in September 2013. As the series began, the first-place Red Sox were 7½ games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays and 10 games ahead of the Yankees […]

“I can’t say enough about it, or savor it enough,” said inspirational team leader Gary Carter after his New York Mets clinched the NL East crown by defeating the Chicago Cubs.1 While hard-throwing Dwight Gooden buoyed the team with a sparkling six-hitter, September call-up Dave Magadan, making his first big-league start, supplied the offensive fireworks […]

The first Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game of 1946 took place before 16,268 fans at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. This was the first time the East game would be played in the nation’s capital, inspiring sportswriter Sam Lacy to hope it also would be “the first time to put on an Eastern version of […]

Steve Woodard proved to be just what the doctor ordered for the Milwaukee Brewers when other doctors were ordering Milwaukee pitchers to the disabled list in late July of 1997. Woodard made a historic debut at Milwaukee County Stadium on July 28, outdueling his boyhood hero, Roger Clemens, in a 1-0 win over the Toronto […]

He was an eight-time All-Star, batted .300-plus seven times, and upon his retirement after the 1988 season, held the major-league record for hits (2,472) and doubles (483) by a catcher, to go along with 248 home runs and 1,389 RBIs. In December 2019, 25 years after receiving only 3.7% of the vote in his first […]

By the time Carl Scheib pitched his final major-league game in 1954, the big righthander from Gratz, Pennsylvania, had risen from the youngest player in American League history in 1943 to a solid performer who won 45 times and fashioned a lifetime 4.88 ERA. During his 11 major league seasons, he played all but two […]

It’s called the fall classic, and the 1975 World Series was indeed a “classic.” The Series waged between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox was one of the more memorable championship battles, as a single run decided five of the seven games. Cincinnati shortstop Dave Concepción entered the Series hoping that the old […]

Don Werner played 18 seasons of professional baseball and appeared in 118 major-league games, backing up one Hall of Famer and catching the only no-hitter pitched by another. Though he batted just .176 during limited opportunities in the major leagues, Werner grasped enough of the finer points of the art of catching to stay employed […]

Tall, powerful, and fleet-footed, Burnis “Wild Bill” Wright was one of the Negro Leagues’ brightest stars for nearly a decade before embarking on a lengthy and successful Hall of Fame career in the Mexican Leagues. A towering 6-foot-4, 220-pound switch-hitter who slashed for average and slugged with power, he bunted effectively, ran like the wind, […]

Called “too small for a pitcher” by his high-school coach, Billy Johnson switched to the outfield, and eventually to third base, where he played well enough to be given a “day” at Yankee Stadium. It took place before a crowd of 42,267 on July 25, 1948, between games of a doubleheader. The day was hot […]

Mild temperatures and the consistent sunshine of Southern California have helped young baseball players gain an advantage over prospects from other areas of the country. Yet, the accommodating weather comes with a cost as baseball competes with many other outdoor activities that attract young prospects. For 18-year-old Tom Thobe of Huntington Beach, surfing and skateboarding […]

New York’s Penn Station was all hustle and bustle on the sunny afternoon of June 12, 1941. The Brooklyn Dodgers were gathering to board a train bound for Pittsburgh. The trip would then continue west to St. Louis, where a crucial series with the Cardinals awaited the two early rivals in the National League pennant […]

In June 1970 Ted Williams, then managing the Washington Senators, reminisced for a reporter about the first time Williams had ever seen Dick Hall pitch. Hall, Williams recalled, “was taking his warmup throws, having come in to relieve somebody. I was kneeling in the on-deck circle and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, boy, he’ll be […]

Perhaps Gene Oliver was born too soon. With the advent of the designated hitter in 1973, he was already four years removed from his ten-year major-league career. He was a power hitter who drew favorable comparisons to sluggers Frank Howard and Joe Adcock. His glove work was often (and unfairly) derided – making him a […]