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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 […]
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” […]
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 […]
The routine remains one of the enduring spectacles in modern baseball history: In a heavy downpour, with the infield covered by a tarpaulin and the fans huddled beneath umbrellas or hunched over in ponchos in an attempt to ward off the rain, the second coming of Babe Ruth approaches home plate with the same small, […]
Infielder Bill Ripken attacked the game of baseball with reckless abandon and paid the price, sustaining an inordinate number of injuries during his career. He never changed his all-out, hustling style of play, earning the reputation of a player who left it all on the field. The Ripkens were a baseball family. Bill’s father, Cal Ripken […]
In major-league baseball when a team dominates its opponents for several years, it’s usually because it has a solid nucleus of players. For instance, in the early 1970s in the American League the Oakland Athletics captured three successive World Series. In the National League the Cincinnati Reds were a powerhouse. Both clubs had a strong […]
After the landmark Messersmith-McNally decision was handed down by arbitrator Peter Seitz in December 1975, the California Angels quickly engaged in what some pundits referred to as “checkbook baseball,” a process in which financially well-off teams like the Angels and the New York Yankees sought to bolster their rosters by bidding for the best free […]
In June 1950 Jimmy Bloodworth, one of the oldest players on the Philadelphia Phillies youthful roster, quipped, “It took me 34 years to become a Whiz Kid.”1 In truth, Jimmy was soon to turn only 33 but that didn’t prevent him from another of the many wisecracks that endeared him to fans and teammates alike. […]
As the third-base coach on the 2004 Red Sox, Dale Sveum earned the first of two World Series rings that were the high points of a lengthy and multifaceted career in professional baseball. Through his efforts as a player, coach, and manager, the former high-school football star earned a reputation as a savvy, classy baseball man, […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
One of just two Philadelphia Athletics to make the 1934 American League All-Star roster, third baseman Mike “Pinky” Higgins was the subject of gossip that offseason that he might be sold to the New York Yankees for as much as $50,000. Owner-manager Connie Mack was peppered with questions about the proposed deal in January 1935 […]
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 […]
On a blustery afternoon at Three Rivers Stadium, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Montreal Expos launched the 1979 season toward its down-to-the-wire destiny. Foreshadowing the tightly contested division race ahead – if not its ultimate outcome – Montreal’s Steve Rogers frustrated Pirates batters and baserunners and dueled Bert Blyleven to a draw, and the Expos spun […]
“Once a Designated Hitter assumes a defensive position this move shall terminate the Designated Hitter role for the remainder of the game.” — 1973 American League regulations, Section 2.71 On September 25, 1973, New York Yankees manager Ralph Houk managed himself out of a designated hitter. In so doing, he might have managed himself […]
Since 1881, 30 major-league players have hit an ultimate grand slam.1 This rare feat happens when a player hits a bases-loaded walk-off home run with his team down by three runs in its final at-bat. In essence, it gives the home team a one-run margin of victory. The list of ultimate grand slam hitters includes […]
The 1999 American League Division Series shifted back to a sold-out Jacobs Field1 for a Monday night winner-take-all Game Five between the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox had retreated to Fenway Park down two games to none after losing Game Two on October 7, unsure if their ace Pedro Martinez would […]
This article is the third and last in a series about the most famous sign in any baseball stadium and the man behind it. From 1931 until 1957, the Dodgers’ last season in Brooklyn, clothier Abe Stark’s sign, which offered a free suit to a batter who hit in on a fly, adorned the right […]