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When an active player or manager dies during the regular season, surviving teammates face a difficult choice: Play the next scheduled game in their honor, or postpone it in their memory? In the twenty-first century the trend has been to stay off the field. Teams – or front offices – that have chosen to postpone […]

“It was a fastball, and I thought I hit it good,” said Willie Mays after clouting a round-tripper against Houston in the inaugural season of the Astrodome to join the rarefied company of Babe Ruth (714), Jimmie Foxx (534), Ted Williams (521), and Mel Ott (511) as the newest member of the exclusive 500-home-run club.1 […]

The Chicago Cubs and New York Mets traveled halfway around the world to start the 2000 season — for the first-ever major-league games to take place outside of North America. The Mets had blazed trails four seasons earlier; their August 1996 series against the San Diego Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, was the first time for […]

In 1980 Minnesota’s Gary Ward wasn’t even in the majors long enough to use up his rookie status. (His official rookie season took place in 1981.) Even so, against the Milwaukee Brewers on September 18, 1980, Ward accomplished what fewer than 200 other major-leaguers – and only 12 actual rookies – did when he hit […]

The Atlanta Braves had been spiraling downward. From a division championship in 1982, Atlanta’s plummet to the National League West Division basement was slow but sure. In 1983 the Braves finished in second place, three games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1984 they were second again but looking up at the San Diego Padres, […]

Game Five. Two words guaranteed to bring angst to the heart of any Washington Nationals fan. Three times since 2012 the Nationals had made it to a National League Division Series Game Five – and all three times they had lost, in heartbreaking fashion.1 A fourth NLDS trip, in 2014, had resulted in three one-run […]

“Was just telling you that boy could hit that long ball this year and he just did it.” – Al Helfer1 The baseball season is about to burst into bloom. Examine the Opening Day starting lineups closely. You may recall stories of favorite players or the memories of visits to the ballpark. Perhaps a rivalry […]

Going into Game Three of the 1981 American League Division Series, the Milwaukee Brewers faced a challenge: Make history, or go home. The Brewers – founded as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 – earned their first postseason berth in the strike-altered 1981 season. But the New York Yankees beat the Brewers in Milwaukee in the […]

John Kruk was shirtless in the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse. This was nothing new. What was new was the custom T-shirt in his hands. He held it high so teammate Darren Daulton could read its red-lettered inscription: “If I can’t play in the game, I’ll take my ball and go home.”1 It would take more than […]

“Al Benton, 45, once the relief pitching ace of the Tigers, now partly blind, was one jump ahead of the FBI on a car-theft charge today.”1 That’s the kind of news story that attracts attention. Indicted in May 1957 on charges of driving a stolen car from Sacramento to Oklahoma City three years earlier, Benton […]

On August 30, 1977, there were two numbers that headlined the baseball sections of the Cleveland dailies. Those numbers were 1 and 893, each representing baseball records at opposite ends of the spectrum. The evening before, the Cleveland Indians hosted the Chicago White Sox in a regionally-televised broadcast of ABC’s “Monday Night Baseball.” The White […]

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis called the 1935 World Series “the greatest ever.”1 Goose Goslin was the man of the hour after smacking a clutch ninth-inning single to cap the victory. Teammates mobbed the Goose; the incessant backslapping accompanied a bloody nose, mussed hair, and a torn uniform. The mood in the Chicago Cubs’ clubhouse […]

Bob Welch may be most famous for his epic strikeout of Reggie Jackson to end Game Two of the 1978 World Series. He did that as a 21-year-old rookie for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But the tall, lean right-hander enjoyed many other highlights over a 17-year career. He won 211 games, including 27 in 1990, when he […]

Earl Averill, a 5-foot-10 catcher and outfielder, compiled a career .242 batting average and had 44 home runs mostly in part time roles over seven major league seasons (1956, 1958-1963) with the Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, and Philadelphia Phillies. Despite clutch performances, such as walk-off home runs and key […]

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, César Tovar was a fixture at the top of the Minnesota Twins lineup. The speedy, enthusiastic little Venezuelan (5-feet-9 and 150 pounds) came up as a second baseman, but he could handle just about any spot – he is perhaps best remembered today as one of the four […]

Michael Thomas “Mike” Roarke grew up playing ball in West Warwick, Rhode Island, starred in football and baseball at Boston College before graduating in 1952, built a reputation as a stellar catcher and handler of pitchers in the minor leagues in the 1950s, came to the Detroit Tigers in a multi-player trade with the Milwaukee […]

Every major leaguer dreams of making the postseason and hoisting the World Series trophy. A few will get to not only hoist the trophy, but be the hero of the World Series. Not many players can say that they hit a home run to win the deciding game of the World Series, or that they […]

Baseball is a young man’s game. A game of quick reflexes, short memories and the daily grind. In the opening week of the 2009 season, 22-year-old Nick Adenhart had already overcome an untimely Tommy John surgery and four seasons in the minor leagues to make the Los Angeles Angels’ Opening Day roster as their number-three […]

The major league baseball season is a marathon to be sure. A team’s journey is often fraught with periods of starts and stops, twists and turns, heartbreaking defeats and miraculous victories. Injuries, trades, and slumps test a manager’s mettle. For those fans who are fortunate enough to root for a team that is in the […]

Among a lifetime of lively anecdotes, perhaps none better evokes the colorful and adventurous life of Ed Burns than that told by another renowned sportswriter from the profession’s glory days, Red Smith. Writing four days after Burns’s untimely death, on January 27, 1955, at the age of 64, Smith suggested that his colleague “probably was […]

One of the rarest things in baseball is a shut-down righty-lefty bullpen. Players, managers, and – let’s face it – agents, like relief roles defined. Today you have eighth-inning guys and ninth-inning guys. And if you’re lucky, you have hurlers who can form a human bridge from the starters to those players. Having two closers—one […]

After two successful seasons at Triple A, Matt Brown was in his third spring-training camp with the Anaheim Angels in 2009. An exhibition game in late March showed what a challenge it was for Brown, 26 at the time, to make the Angels’ Opening Day roster. The Angels and Brown both got off to good […]

“He was a faithful, conscientious player, who always worked to win and could always be depended upon.”1 To have something very complimentary said about you at your passing is gratifying, but the person who says it can be as telling about your life. This testimonial was made by 1870s star ballplayer (and future Hall of […]

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in SABR’s “Baseball Research Journal,” No. 25, in 1996 and is reprinted here in its original format. By Mark Simon With the growth of television and everything that comes with it (cable, satellite dishes, etc.), there seems to be less appreciation for baseball on the radio than there used […]