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Roy Campanella with a mighty swing during spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the early 1950s. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   Baseball fans making their way to Ebbets Field for Game Five of the 1953 World Series were in a festive mood even while a weather prediction of overcast skies took shape.1 Police officers yearned for […]

In the 2003 season, when the Boston Red Sox fell just one win short of making the World Series, their starting rotation had little reliable depth behind superstar Pedro Martínez and veterans Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield. GM Theo Epstein sought to bolster the rotation and over Thanksgiving weekend visited with right-hander Curt Schilling. On […]

In spring training, newly acquired Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Joe Carter shared a goal he wished to achieve in 1991 that so far had eluded him. “I’d like to make [the All-Star team], especially with the game in Toronto. Everybody wants to be an All-Star. A lot of guys don’t make it and it’s not […]

Dick Allen joined the Chicago White Sox in a December 2, 1971, trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers.1 It was Allen’s third trade in three years.2 Despite telling the press that he was weary of moving to new teams, Allen joined the White Sox after encouragement from his mother, Era Allen. She knew Chicago manager […]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in 1972 for Atlanta Braves superstar Henry Aaron. After signing a record-breaking contract before the season to become the first player ever to make $200,000 a year, he struggled after moving from his comfortable right-field position to a “disliked” full-time slot at first […]

Ballplayers are trained to always know the count, but perhaps it was Dallas Braden’s blissful ignorance of the balls and strikes on May 9, 2010, that helped him finalize a coveted spot on the perfect-game list alongside Hall of Famers Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, and Randy Johnson. The Oakland Athletics southpaw retired the first 26 […]

“This was a hell of a win for us,” said Pirates manager Chuck Tanner after his team rallied in the eighth inning with a pair of solo home runs to beat the Houston Astros 6-5 on July 21 at Three Rivers Stadium.1The win was the Pirates’ sixth in a row and 10th in 11 games, […]

The Philadelphia Athletics arrived in Cleveland for a five-game series at League Park in late August of 1935. Both teams were mired in the middle of the American League standings with no resurgence in sight for either club.   The A’s were on the downswing from a dominant period when they won three straight pennants (1929-1931) […]

Tommie Agee had the prescience of a soothsayer. During 1970 spring training, he stated how he needed to contribute to the Mets: “I’ve got to hit for a better average, I think, and steal more bases — a lot more.”1 He succeeded on both counts, improving his batting average from .271 to .286 and his […]

Pitcher Andy Messersmith made a deep impact on the Angels’ record book during his five seasons with the team. While some fans might remember him as a Los Angeles Dodger or a free-agent signing with the Atlanta Braves, Messersmith began his career in the majors as an Angel from 1968 to 1972. At the start […]

Roger Kahn’s 1972 classic, The Boys of Summer, a nostalgic chronicle of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their teams of the 1950s, elevated him to the heights of baseball journalism. But his love for baseball even surpassed writing about it; “I enjoyed the illusion that the game belonged to nine-year-old right fielders and poets.”1 And after […]

Sportswriter Charles Dryden’s famous quote “Washington—First in war, first in peace, last in the American League”1 certainly described the situation in July 1968 as the Washington Senators visited the Cleveland Indians for a two-game series at Cleveland Stadium. Even after their 4-2 win in the series opener on July 29, with the go-ahead run coming […]

It was the top of the ninth inning with a runner on first and one out. The date was September 15, 1979, and the visiting Boston Red Sox had a comfortable 5-2 lead over the Baltimore Orioles. The batter hit a ground ball to the shortstop, but instead of turning two to end the inning, […]

In addition to his forte of “long hitting,” Harry Lumley in his prime could “run bases like a thoroughbred” and “more than keep up his end of the game” on defense. “Some of the veteran fans hold him to be the best slugger in the history of baseball,” wrote one commentator in 1907. Ring Lardner […]

Juan Bell’s big league career began under daunting circumstances. The younger brother of an MVP, he was traded for one future Hall of Famer and expected to dislodge another from his position. Bell battled those expectations — and more than one teammate — over seven seasons (1989-1995) with five teams in the majors, but the […]

There have been more successful players who wore the St. Louis Cardinals uniform — but few more beloved by fans than Willie McGee. A work ethic rooted in his upbringing allowed him to make the most of his natural abilities. The switch-hitter used exceptional bat speed to spray line drives all over the field and […]

Gene Autry was the kind of man who paid the bills for old friends in their old age, rode in the front seat beside his chauffeur, and showed up in the bar of his resort hotel to lead guests in a sing-along. During his heyday as a singing cowboy, his fans ranged from the obvious […]

Any list of the greatest players ever to don a Milwaukee Brewers uniform has to include Don Money. He is a four-time All-Star and a Brewers’ Walk of Fame member who holds major-league records as a third baseman. Money was an infield specialist who amassed a .975 fielding percentage over 16 seasons from 1968 to […]

No team in history compares to the 1962 Mets, a completely inept club that bumbled its way to becoming New York City’s “Loveable Losers.” And no two players represent this label better than Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Clarence “Choo-Choo” Coleman, the team’s first baseman and catcher, respectively, whose on-field antics contributed to an inaugural record […]

The archives of baseball are filled with the stories of players whose major-league careers spanned one year, others who played a decade or more, and an unfortunate few who only grabbed a cup of coffee, arriving after years in the minors and leaving after a scant handful of games that gave their careers a certain […]

Tim Teufel, who played mostly at second base but filled in at all three other infield positions, had good line-drive power, with 86 home runs in the majors. After breaking in with the Minnesota Twins in September 1983, he went on to play 10 full seasons. He spent a little over half that time with […]

Metropolis, Illinois, is the hometown of Superman, the comic-book character who leaps tall buildings in a single bound. Back in the day, Robert Dale “Hawk” Taylor was the genuine article when it came to baseball. Unlike mild-mannered Metropolis Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, who left his office, entered a phone booth and came out as […]

Until the Negro Leagues were officially recognized as major leagues in December 2020, there had never been a big-leaguer whose surname began with X.1 However, the reclassification meant that Cuban outfielder Leovigildo Xiqués — who played with the Cincinnati-Indianapolis Clowns in 1944, 1946, and 1947 — filled this empty niche. Xiqués also played in Mexico […]

This article was originally published in “The First Negro League Champion: The 1920 Chicago American Giants” (SABR, 2022).   As witnessed during commemorations in 2020 celebrating a century of Negro League baseball, the foundation of the Negro National League in 1920 provides a generally accepted starting point for Black baseball’s league era. Black baseball, through […]