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The Pittsburgh Pirates came home from a six-game road trip to St. Louis and Cincinnati with excitement in the air on Tuesday, June 29, 1909. A new ballpark was about to be opened to much fanfare and the guests for the occasion were the 37-21 Chicago Cubs, led by manager Frank Chance. Over the past […]

The California Angels were trying to get out of the cellar. The team arrived in the Twin Cities and broke a four-game losing streak with a win on Friday, June 2, in the series opener. The Twins were trying to stay relevant in the American League pennant race. After Friday night’s loss, they were 21-23. […]

Mike Piazza had an affinity for Veterans Stadium long before he garnered more votes than any other National League player and was elected as the senior circuit’s starting catcher for the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. 1 Not only had the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar recorded a hit in 15 of his 16 career games […]

In 1939 both the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Newark Eagles were “resolved to improve on the results”1 of the previous season. The 1938 season had been the maiden campaign for Baltimore in the Negro National League II (NNL2), as the franchise had moved up the road from Washington.2 Under player-manager George Scales, the Elite […]

Barry Bonds’ home runs typically identified themselves at impact, soared dismissively over outfield fences, and culminated in ceremonially paced processions around the bases.1 But one Bonds homer, hit in his second big-league season of 1987, broke from the norm, bounding past the glove of a diving infielder, taxing the full capacity of his game-changing footspeed, […]

Matt Murray spent seven seasons working his way up through the minor leagues, finally making it to the majors in 1995 — when he pitched briefly for two first-place teams, the Atlanta Braves and the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox were swept in the Division Series by the Cleveland Indians, who went on to […]

After three uncharacteristic second-place finishes in 1933, ’34, and ’35, the New York Yankees responded in decisive fashion. Changes were in order, as reported by Dan Daniel in The Sporting News: “Joe McCarthy is making every effort to win this year.”1 Significant personnel moves prior to the start of the1936 season included the signing of […]

Patriarch of a three-generation big-league family, hard-hitting Negro Leaguer Sam Hairston played, coached, and scouted in pro baseball for over half a century. As a scout, Sam brought in at least five men who played for the Chicago White Sox, for whom he appeared briefly in 1951. Two of Sam’s three sons signed pro contracts […]

Eddie Yost was a slick-fielding, high-on-base-percentage third baseman, an athlete who continued to make his name at the hot corner after his playing days were over, as the third base coach for the Washington Senators, New York Mets, and Boston Red Sox. Known as “The Walking Man” for his propensity at getting bases on balls, […]

In 1973, Jason Miller’s angst-enabled play That Championship Season won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. The drama, set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, focused on the 25th-anniversary reunion of the players and the coach of a high-school basketball team that won the state championship. Full of booze, brooding, bigotry, bitterness, betrayal, and bruised feelings, […]

In a pitching career that lasted 10 years in professional baseball, and considerably longer in adult-league competition, all 22 of Dan Morogiello’s major league appearances came in 1983. The lefty was an unsung hero for the Baltimore Orioles team that won that season’s World Series. Daniel Joseph Morogiello was born on March 26, 1955, in […]

By the time the 1984 Detroit Tigers reached the postseason, rookie right-hander Carl Willis was getting to know his new club, the Cincinnati Reds. Although his time in Detroit was short, Willis stepped in for that championship club at crucial points of the season when the Tigers were thin on pitching. Seven years later, he […]

John Joseph Sevcik may have only 12 major-league games on his baseball résumé but those 12 games took place in 1965 when the Minnesota Twins won the American League pennant by winning a franchise-record 102 games and advanced to the World Series. The Twins lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, and Sevcik […]

In the time when Giants walked the earth and roamed the Polo Grounds, none was more honored than Christy Mathewson. Delivering all four of his pitches, including his famous “fadeaway” (now called a screwball), with impeccable control and an easy motion, the right-handed Mathewson was the greatest pitcher of the Deadball Era’s first decade, compiling […]

“The best defensive centerfielder I have seen here in a long time. I think one of the highest compliments you can pay him is that he’s as good as Garry Maddox.” — Richie Ashburn1   On the evening of July 20, 1969, families across the globe gathered in front of their television sets to watch […]

They say the best things come in small packages and this is quite true when analyzing Ted Giannoulas’s career as a 5-foot-4 costumed chicken for four decades and counting. Baseball fans in San Diego consider The Chicken as their own but as time passed The Famous Chicken took his act around the world, mesmerizing fans […]

He was the first amateur player selected by his expansion franchise and became its first home-run champion, alas, when the parent team was in a different city. In his major-league debut, he dropped the first ball hit to him for an error and got his first hit, a triple, in his second at-bat. Nine days […]

Fresco Thompson, the jester in Walter O’Malley’s court, ran baseball’s most productive scouting and player development factory during the 1950s and 1960s. With O’Malley providing the money, Thompson and his scouts providing the players, and vice president Buzzie Bavasi molding the roster, the Dodgers won eight pennants and four World Series between 1952 and 1966, […]

In 1964 columnist Dick Young cracked, “Battered plate umps will insist upon double Blue Cross coverage if Jesse Gonder continues to do all the catching for the Mets.”1 The humor in the reference to Gonder’s league leading 21 passed balls was lost on the African-American backstop. Until later in life, when he appeared to come […]

Ulysses “Tony” Lupien played just four full major league seasons, but he made a lasting impact on baseball through his pioneering player-rights efforts after World War II and his development of college players as baseball coach at Dartmouth College for more than twenty years. As a lefthanded-hitting first baseman in the 1940s, Lupien displayed remarkable […]

In September 1976 Hall of Fame inductees Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn were only the two most prominent names among a large field of managerial candidates available to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays. But the Jays startled the baseball world by selecting the hardly-household-name Roy Hartsfield as the franchise’s first skipper. But the surprise may […]

Just five lefty pitchers born and raised in Hawaii have made it to the majors.1 Carlos Diaz was the third. In December 1983, coming off his best season, the wiry reliever was part of a unique trade involving Hawaiian lefty #4, Sid Fernandez. That deal paid off for the New York Mets. Fernandez was a […]

General Crowder was a durable right-handed pitcher who won more games (124) than any big-league pitcher other than the immortal Lefty Grove in a six-year span from 1928 to 1933.  A three-time 20-game winner, Crowder led the American League in victories in 1932 and 1933 as a member of the Washington Senators. “If you’d let […]

Despite missing two of his prime seasons while serving his country during World War II, Marlin Carter played professional baseball for nearly a quarter-century in major and minor Negro Leagues. Nicknamed “Pee Wee,” the 5-foot-7, 160-pounder threw right-handed and batted lefty. Primarily a third baseman, he also saw action at second base and shortstop, and […]