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“Getting the American league franchise formerly held by Philadelphia was a glorious triumph for the Kansas City spirit. … [H]undreds of thousands of supporters are atingle for the opening of the big league era the A’s now bring.” — Kansas City Star, April 11, 19551   Philadelphia had been home to Connie Mack’s Athletics since […]

On a day when a sparse crowd was hoping to see its home team sweep its first series of the season, Atlanta Braves fans left the game with a shocking surprise. With a 5-0 lead in the ninth inning, a Braves victory seemed a sure thing. Even after their reliable closer gave up two singles […]

For 20-year-old Jerry Walker, only two years removed from high school in Ada, Oklahoma, it was a fairytale ending to his third season with the Baltimore Orioles. Starting against the league-leading Chicago White Sox on September 11, 1959, Walker threw 16 shutout innings in the second game of a doubleheader at Memorial Stadium. in Baltimore. […]

Rusty Staub’s 23-season career was dotted with distinctions that established him as a consistently productive hitter, though not quite a Hall of Famer. Staub retired in 1985 as the first man to have collected at least 500 hits with each of four different teams.1 And he trailed only the legendary Ty Cobb as the second […]

Ted Williams hit the first of his 521 major-league home runs on Sunday afternoon, April 23, 1939, at Fenway Park against the visiting Philadelphia Athletics. It was the Red Sox’ fourth game of the season. Twelve thousand fans had come out to see the game despite it being a rather cold and rainy day. The […]

Despite a roster featuring Hall of Fame-bound Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and Joe Torre, the Atlanta Braves entered their September 3, 1966, doubleheader with the Houston Astros at Atlanta Stadium in the middle of the National League pack. The Astros were looking up at the Braves from several spots below. In fact, the Braves, in […]

Baseball is different. Among the worldwide variety of stick and ball games, baseball (along with its cousins cricket and rounders) is different in that it is the player, and not the ball, who does the scoring – and the ball is often far away when the scoring is done. In field hockey, hurling, lacrosse, shinty, […]

Slugger Fred McGriff had been an Atlanta fan favorite since he joined the Braves on July 20, 1993, and hit 19 homers and drove in 55 runs in 68 games to help the Braves rally from nine games behind the San Francisco Giants to win the NL West title in 1993. But he was struggling […]

Heading into the 1961 season, the National League pennant race looked to be a five-team battle. Only three teams, the Cubs, Phillies and Reds, appeared to have no chance to challenge for first place.1 However, Cincinnati manager Fred Hutchinson was optimistic about the team’s prospects. “I don’t care about anyone’s pick,” he said on the […]

Pedro Cepeda, better known as Perucho, was the first player considered a superstar in Puerto Rican professional baseball. He began playing baseball when there was no formal professional baseball league on the island. About 5-feet-11-inches tall, he could play in various positions, both in the infield and the outfield, and was a consistent hitter who […]

Gary Gaetti did it all over 20 seasons (1981-2000) for five major-league teams. He spent the first decade of his career with the Minnesota Twins, where he was a two-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner at third base. In 1987, when the Twins won the first championship in franchise history, he was the MVP […]

Over the years, the Red Sox have had players on their roster who were perhaps better known for the uniqueness of their name than for anything they did on the playing field. You may recall Jennings Poindexter, Carmen Fanzone, Creighton Gubanich, Gar Finnvold, Izzy Alcantara, Win Remmerswaal, Osee Schrecongost, Hipolito Pichardo, and Arquimedez Pozo, to […]

Ken Holcombe was a Jehovah’s Witness who first caught the attention of big-league scouts at a tryout camp. A right-handed pitcher of modest stature, he was 5-foot-11 and listed at 169 pounds. Kenneth Edward Holcombe was born in Burnsville, North Carolina, on August 23, 1918, to Lee Polk Holcombe and Eula Pansy (Wilson) Holcombe. Lee […]

“How does it feel to be the smallest player in the majors,” a Houston reporter asked Fred Patek in 1968. “A heck of a lot better than being the tallest player in the minors,” countered the rookie shortstop.1 Patek’s quip matched his quickness on the field and the basepaths for 14 years in the major […]

In the first years of Tommy Lasorda’s Hall of Fame career as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he kept several large photographs on the walls of his office at the team’s spring-training complex in Vero Beach, Florida. There was one of himself and Walter Alston, his legendary predecessor, and another with Hall of Fame […]

When baseball fans reflect on the great Oakland Athletics teams from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, there is a lot to recall. Three straight pennants (1988-1990) and one world championship (1989) is a good start. Teams do not put together those types of seasons without a solid core of players. A starting rotation […]

Luke Stuart was a long-time minor league infielder who, in the course of a brief three-game major league sojourn in 1921 with the St. Louis Browns, established an American League feat that went unrecognized for more than seven decades. Through the efforts of SABR’s Records Committee in the mid-1990s, Stuart ascended from total obscurity to […]

He made his big-league debut on a day when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed thousands of civil rights marchers on the Boston Common, and flourished as a pitcher during the Summer of Love. As he struggled with injuries, Americans grappled with the strain of assassinations, racial riots, and the escalating Vietnam War. Jim Lonborg’s […]

When the New York Mets obtained minor leaguer Don Bosch in a trade with Pittsburgh, on December 6, 1966, anticipation ran high. Bosch was touted to be as good defensively as Willie Mays, and for the Mets and their fans, it seemed that their search for a reliable center fielder was finally over. To acquire […]

Long before Bill Veeck sent a midget up to bat, Joe Engel sent a teenage girl out to pitch to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Engel, “the Barnum of the Bushes,” was minor league baseball’s premier showman for nearly four decades. “I don’t care what you say about me,” he said, “as long as you […]

At 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds (or more), burly Joey Meyer could really lay into a ball. The Hawaiian was a very promising minor-league slugger. On June 2, 1987, he unloaded a homer that is still talked about today — a shot into the second deck of the left-center stands at Denver’s Mile High Stadium that […]

One of the greatest defensive shortstops of the Deadball Era, Donie Bush used quick feet and soft hands to lead the American League in assists five times and putouts three times, and his 425 putouts in 1914 established an American League record and tied a major league mark which has never been broken. At the […]

Note: On Wednesday morning, April 23, 2014, Conrado Marrero passed away quietly in his native Havana, Cuba, marking the end to one of the most celebrated and tenacious baseball lives on record. The sad news comes less than two days before the seemingly ageless Cuban legend would have reached his 103rd birthday, extending a remarkable […]

The San Diego Padres celebrated their 50th season in Major League Baseball in 2019. (SAN DIEGO PADRES)   San Diego’s quest for major-league baseball began earnestly in the mid- to late 1950s, around the time California’s largest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, ascended to “the bigs.” Home of the Pacific Coast League Padres since […]