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It took a tremendous blast to hit a home run over the 86-foot high right field roof at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. From the time of the roof’s construction in 1925, until the stadium’s final game in June 1970, only 19 balls, hit by 10 different players[1], ever cleared the roof. Among the men who accomplished […]

Just five short years after the Pittsburgh Pirates won the 1979 World Series championship, the team had fallen to last in the National League East. They were on their way there again in 1985 – but a rebuild was under way, as the trade for Bob Kipper that August showed. The deal in which the […]

This outfielder was the first member of the Lumbee people of Robeson County, North Carolina, to play in the majors. Throughout his playing days, Gene Locklear’s skill as an artist also got attention. “They are both individual things, and you have to have talent. You can’t just have desire,” Locklear said in 2005.1 One of […]

Often overshadowed by those of two older brothers, Kerry Don McDaniel’s brief career in baseball is remembered by a nickname – Butch – appended to him by a neighbor’s father but never used professionally by the athlete. Instead he laughingly remembered being known solely as the younger brother of Lindy or, a few years later, […]

Numbers don’t define Tom Brookens, but one has to start somewhere. Third base was his primary home for 10 major-league seasons with the Detroit Tigers, starting on July 10, 1979, through the 1988 season, followed by one-year stints with the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians. His last major-league game was on September 30, 1990. […]

His nickname was “Smoke” – a good nickname for a pitcher. And the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Joe Kiefer had a good long minor-league career with 169 wins to his credit. His career earned-run average was an unimpressive 4.05 and he did lose 146 games, pitching for 15 different teams, but he was good enough to work […]

Harsh sunshine beat down on the Los Angeles Coliseum floor. Two men, drenched in sweat, practiced baseball drills while local temperatures soared past 100 degrees in the spring of 1960. Maury Wills, an eager Dodger infielder, and Pete Reiser, an enthusiastic LA coach, worked together for nearly two weeks. “You can’t quit,” Reiser said over […]

Near the end of his long major-league career, Rudy May said, “I learned that it’s better to throw an 85 mile an hour fastball on the outside corner than it is to throw a 95 mile an hour fastball down the middle.” Asked when he discovered that, he replied, “When I couldn’t throw a 95 […]

Catcher Rick Cerone had an 18-year career in the major leagues (1975-92), but he used his athletic talent and fame well beyond the baseball field. An excellent multiple-sport athlete in his youth, his real love was baseball. Prior to his major-league career, he was a college baseball star, and after his time in the majors, […]

Strong quick wrists, an open, positive demeanor, and unwavering confidence made young Ed Spiezio an outstanding baseball prospect. Cardinals Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst once told The Sporting News that Spiezio was the “the finest looking young hitter” he had ever seen.1 In five seasons with the Cardinals (1964-1968), Spiezio played on three National League […]

In August 1985, The Cosby Show was tops on television, Back to the Future was a box-office hit, and Mike Young was one of baseball’s hottest hitters. That month, Young went deep nine times in a 14-game stretch for the Baltimore Orioles. He finished the season with 28 homers – 20 of which came after […]

The unusual 1981 season, torn into halves by a players strike and lengthened by a specially added first round of playoffs, ended on a familiar note – a World Series featuring the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The former New York City neighbors were facing off for the 11th time. The Yankees had […]

Change was in the air in the spring of 1969. As the turbulent Sixties came to a close, even staid major-league baseball went through a much-needed transformation. After a severe lack of offense in the “Year of the Pitcher,” baseball lowered the mound and shrank the size of the strike zone to give hitters a […]

The Philadelphia Phillies captured the 1983 National League pennant with hitting and pitching metrics above league average. The team’s major weakness was defense; it was tied for the third most errors in the NL. Despite a major turnover in personnel in the offseason, the 1984 Phillies team had some similarities with their 1983 counterparts. Both […]

The Detroit Tigers, led by player-manager Ty Cobb, got off to a slow start in the 1925 season. Going into St. Louis in early May for a four-game series against the Browns, the Tigers had a 4-13 record with one tie. The team was stuck in the American League cellar and had yet to win […]

Less than a week before the 1944 midsummer classic, Boston’s “All-Star squad quartet”1 of second baseman Bobby Doerr, right fielder Pete Fox, pitcher Tex Hughson, and left fielder Bob Johnson paced the Red Sox to a 13-3 thrashing of the Detroit Tigers. A crowd of 5,146 at Fenway Park saw all nine of Boston’s starters […]

For the second time in 18 days, a sellout crowd of over 55,000 came to Yankee Stadium hoping to witness right-handed starter Roger Clemens’ 300th career win.1 Clemens, who had begun his career with the Red Sox and won three Cy Young Awards there, had won number 299 in Boston on May 21, beating Red […]

Many of the 25,884 fans in San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium on August 23, 1986, were looking forward to a postgame concert featuring The Monkees, an iconic rock group of the 1960s on their 20-year reunion tour.1 But the afternoon’s main attraction was a baseball game between the hometown Padres and the visiting Philadelphia Phillies. […]

In 1932 the MVP winners in both the American and National Leagues plied their trade in Philadelphia. A’s first baseman Jimmie Foxx won the AL award by blasting 58 home runs, more than any other hitter in the city’s professional baseball history. A mile away, Phillies outfielder Chuck Klein gained the NL’s accolade by slugging […]

“This was the best I’ve put all my pitches together this season,” said Jim Bunning of his overpowering victory over the Cincinnati Reds.1 In what Philadelphia Phillies beat writer Allen Lewis described as a “dandy display of power pitching,” Bunning matched his personal high with 14 strikeouts to win his eighth straight decision, equaling his […]

It was still early in the 2004 season, but the teams playing this Saturday afternoon game at Fenway Park were off to very different starts. The visiting Kansas City Royals were 8-19 under manager Tony Peña and in last place in the American League Central Division. The host Boston Red Sox were 18-11 under Terry […]

By the time Johnny Vander Meer came to the Cleveland Indians a few weeks before the 1951 season kicked off, he was far from the dominating starter who threw back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. After he was released by the Chicago Cubs on March 30 for loafing,1 Vander Meer made a call to an old friend […]

Roberto “Bobby” Ramos was born in Cuba in 1955. Emigrating to Miami, Florida, as a child, he caught for the Jackson High School baseball team. At the end of his senior year, he was named to the All-City team and selected in the seventh round of the June 1974 amateur draft by the Montreal Expos.1 […]

In a time when baseball players from the Dominican Republic were just beginning to populate major-league rosters, the Dominican-born Alou brothers—Felipe, Matty, and Jesús—made history in 1963 by becoming the first instance of three brothers appearing as teammates in a major-league game. Their place in baseball history is also defined by their becoming part of […]