Search Results

The word “grinder” is used to define a player who may not have great natural ability but succeeds through hard work and perseverance. “He grinded out a career” or “he was a real grinder.” Jeff Torborg was that type of player. Noted as a defensive catcher who could handle a pitching staff, Torborg’s offensive capability […]

The flake – “an odd or eccentric player; a kidder or comic”1 – is an all-but-vanished species in major-league baseball these days. In 2003, writer Dave Joseph lamented, “Sadly, there are fewer creative thinkers these days in baseball. There are fewer flakes, if you will, who break up the monotony of an endless season played, […]

Selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the second round of the 1983 MLB amateur draft, Bob Milacki garnered little attention with a pedestrian record of 16-21, 3.79 in his first 290 innings in the minor leagues. “I’d been in the organization [three] years and never impressed anybody,” the right-hander later acknowledged.1 In 1988, as the […]

For those who saw Tim McCarver break in with the St. Louis Cardinals, it was probably a surprise that he became better known for his broadcasting career than for his days as a catcher. Not that he wasn’t always articulate and glib, and that his finding a home in the broadcast booth was a shock; […]

From 1984 to 1989, Walt Terrell was one of Major League Baseball’s most durable starting pitchers, averaging more than 32 starts and 210 innings per season. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound right-hander did not possess an overpowering fastball, but his credible sinker and change-up usually allowed him to keep his teams in games. During his 11-year career […]

Los Angeles native Archie Wilson was a 1942 graduate of the city’s Franklin High School (where he also starred in football and was a first-team halfback in the city’s All-Northern League) and spent three years at the University of Southern California. In 1951 and 1952, he played outfield for three different teams in the major […]

When looking back at the career of Rick “The Rooster” Burleson, the fiery, intense shortstop of the Boston Red Sox, California Angels and Baltimore Orioles from 1974 to 1987, a quotation from former teammate Bill Lee perhaps sums it up best: “Some guys didn’t like to lose, but Rick got angry if the score was […]

If reviewing the list of examples of baseball stars who fell victim to the fabled sophomore jinx, you are sure to find the name of Joe Charboneau near the top. Charboneau captured the imagination of Indians fans during the summer of 1980 like no other player since Rocky Colavito. However, the man called “Super Joe” […]

Dee Gordon slipped as he accelerated out of the batter’s box. The speedy Miami Marlins’ second baseman had just laid down a bunt in an effort to spark a late-game rally. His team trailed the Atlanta Braves, 2-1, in the eighth inning on Opening Day of the 2015 major-league season. Gordon, slowed by the slip, […]

The Saturday night game of the 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) Pool D in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, started at 8:40 on March 11, a little under two hours after the end of the 10-inning Venezuela-Italy game.1 Crews had to hustle to let the stadium empty out and then refill, and […]

Federal League Park, also known as Handlan’s Park, was first used for professional baseball in 1914, providing a home for the St. Louis Terriers of the newly formed Federal League.1 Like other professional ballparks of the day, it included no stadium lighting, a fact that required games to be conducted during daytime, sometimes held hostage […]

Terry Francona raised the art of self-deprecation to a new level. Decades after his playing career ended, the man who had become one of the most successful managers in big-league history loved to downplay his talents as a ballplayer. He claimed that the last thing he wanted was his players to hit like he did. […]

Bill Mazeroski’s Baseball yearbook gave a blunt assessment of the Montreal Expos’ chances for the 1987 season: “If they think they can win with these imposters, they’ve got another think coming.”1 Sports Illustrated had more tact in its season preview, although it predicted that the Expos would lose 98 games and finish dead last in […]

Willie Stargell, left, hugs his Pittsburgh Pirates teammate Al Oliver, center, as Roberto Clemente looks on during the 1971 season. On September 1, 1971, the Pirates fielded an all-Black lineup of African-American and Latino players, a first in the history of Major League Baseball. (MLB.COM)   The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were a special team in […]

“If you pitch long enough with good enough stuff,” said Tom Seaver, “you are bound to pitch a no-hitter sooner or later.”1 But even Tom Terrific probably did not think it would take 396 starts and 211 victories into his Hall of Fame career to toss his first and only no-hitter. Seaver’s masterpiece was “more […]

The New York Mets were playing out the 1971 season. They had stayed in contention through the first half but fell out of the National League East race after going 21-37 in July and August.1 When the Pittsburgh Pirates showed up at Shea Stadium in late September for the next-to-last series of the season, the […]

In the second of a two-game series at Griffith Stadium, Bob Meusel and the Yankees “brought about the downfall of the Nationals”1 with the use of the long ball. Former President Woodrow Wilson “drove out to the game and witnessed the contest from the shelter of his automobile, which was parked near the right field […]

“You kept looking in right field, and he wasn’t there,” said Pittsburgh Pirates manager Bill Virdon on Opening Day in 1973. “I kept looking out there.”1 It was the dawn of a new era for the Pirates. Immensely popular Roberto Clemente had died about three months earlier, on New Year’s Eve, when his plane crashed off the coast of […]

Game Three of the 1975 World Series featured six home runs and plenty of late-inning heroics, but the outcome turned on a bunt by a reserve outfielder with a .185 batting average. With five future Hall of Famers on the field (Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Joe Morgan, Tony Pérez, Carl Yastrzemski) plus the all-time hit […]

Though the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox ranked one-two atop the American League standings in August 1947, there wnas a considerable distance between them. The visiting Red Sox were 13½ games behind New York before their Sunday afternoon game at Yankee Stadium on August 17. The Red Sox had been shut out on […]

After bolstering their pennant-winning roster with high-profile free agents Reggie Jackson and Don Gullett, the New York Yankees skidded into last place in the American League East two weeks into the 1977 season. Manager Billy Martin responded with a revamped batting order, purportedly drawn from a hat, on April 20 against the Toronto Blue Jays […]

The 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t win the World Series, the National League pennant, or the NL West Division. Truth is, they were a .500 ballclub. But after a season-ending 12-1 blitzkrieg of the rival San Francisco Giants leveled their record at 81-81, the Dodgers couldn’t help but celebrate as though they had achieved something […]

Opened to baseball on April 19, 1984, Pfitzner Stadium is plopped in the heart of the McCourt Government Center in Woodbridge, Virginia, seating 6,000.1 The “Pfitz” has been the home of several incarnations of a Class-A franchise, the Potomac Nationals, under the ownership of Art Silber. The field has never drained well. On the evening […]

The 105th World Series featured a rematch 59 years in the making between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1950 the Whiz Kids from Philadelphia reversed 32 years of mediocrity and stunned the National League, winning just their second pennant in franchise history.1 Unfortunately, they ran into Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees, […]