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Betsy Jochum was one of the sixty original players, as well as one of the best, in the early years of the All-American Girls Professional Base Ball League, a professional women’s circuit born during World War II and made famous in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. Sixty years later, she had the […]

With one extraordinary season Roger Maris secured his place in baseball history. And yet his establishment of the major league home run record in 1961 proved to be more of a personal curse than a professional triumph. It also overshadowed, indeed overwhelmed, the totality of a career characterized at least as much by his consistent […]

As confetti filled the sky within Raymond James Stadium on January 9, 2017, Clemson assistant football coach Bill Spiers soaked it all in. The Tigers — representing his alma mater, and the team of which his son Will was a member — had just beaten the Alabama Crimson Tide 35-31 in a dramatic national championship […]

Immersed in a pennant race that would go down to the wire, the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers took the field at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on September 28, 1966, in hopes of putting distance between themselves and their two closest competitors. The St. Louis Cardinals had no intention of making this endeavor any easier […]

The fractured skull Philadelphia Athletics shortstop Skeeter Newsome suffered on April 9, 1938 left a gaping hole in the club’s defense. Ten players, including Newsome after he recovered, attempted to fill the void through the 1939 season. One was Al Brancato, a 20-year-old September call-up from Class-A ball who had never played shortstop professionally. Enticed […]

“There are those who can, and there are those who will,” an old saying goes. James Paul David “Jim” Bunning was clearly one of the latter. He willed himself to become a great pitcher and then a successful politician through hard work and determination. Though he struggled for almost six seasons in the minor leagues, […]

But for a bucket kick, Bill Werber might reside in the Hall of Fame rather than be remembered as a good major-league ballplayer of the 1930s who helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to National League pennants in 1939 and 1940 and to the world’s championship in 1940. It happened in 1934, toward the end of […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   In the early 1880s prosperous tobacco merchant John B. Day re-established the national pastime in New York – operating teams in both major-league circuits with great success. In 1884 Day’s New York Metropolitans were American Association pennant winners […]

Outfielder Greg Harts got into his only three big-league games with the New York Mets during the 1973 pennant race. The lefty was called up from Double-A and got a hit in two pinch-hit at-bats. His only other appearance came as a pinch-runner; he never played in the field in the majors. Harts ran well […]

It took quite an odyssey for right-hander Rex Cecil to get into his first major-league game. It was August 11, 1944, and he was in San Diego. It was a Friday. Cecil had been playing professional baseball since 1937, when he was 20 and pitching for the Vancouver Maple Leafs. He’d never played for a […]

It was early in the evening on March 9, 1934, as the City Light truck made its way down Fourth Avenue South in downtown Seattle. The driver saw a rotund older man step from the curb to cross the street a short distance ahead. The truck slowed to allow him to cross, but when he […]

Before signing a $100,000 bonus contract with the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, John Stephen DeMerit had been a standout athlete since he was a youngster. In the fifth grade he set a record for the 100-yard dash (12.1 seconds) at the Port Relays, an annual event held in his hometown of Port Washington, Wisconsin, 27 miles […]

Dave Righetti pitched in the major leagues for 16 seasons (1979; 1981-95), amassing 252 saves. He also served 18 years (2000-2017) as pitching coach for the San Francisco Giants.  However, “Rags” is remembered most for a performance that came during his early years as a starting pitcher. On July 4, 1983, before 41,077 fans at […]

In his high-school yearbook, Mark Wiley said his ambition was to play professional baseball. “It’s funny,” Wiley said. “(Kids) laughed at me over that.”1 But Wiley, who began his 49th season in professional baseball in 2018, understood the reaction. He didn’t letter in baseball until his senior season for Helix Charter High School in La […]

On the evening of September 21, 1964, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Art Mahaffey was pitching a gem of a baseball game. In the top of the sixth inning it was a scoreless duel in between Mahaffey and the Cincinnati Reds’ John Tsitouris at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. With two outs, 25-year-old Reds rookie Chico Ruiz […]

Cuban entrepreneur Roberto “Bobby” Maduro was a singular baseball man. When he passed away in 1986, the news made the front page of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish newspaper of Miami, where he and so many of his countrymen made their home after Fidel Castro took power. In that story, Fausto Miranda (the dean of […]

When Dave Hoskins of the visiting Dallas Eagles warmed up before his start against the Shreveport Sports on the evening of June 9, 1952, he had reason to be apprehensive. Earlier that day, Hoskins, the Texas League’s first Black player, had received three letters threatening his life. At the time Louisiana was not particularly hospitable […]

George Foster experienced American League baseball for the first time in his 18-year career on August 15, 1986, a little over a week after his tumultuous relationship with the New York Mets ended after controversial remarks.1 With 347 career home runs, the 1977 National League Most Valuable Player joined a youthful Chicago White Sox roster […]

“I don’t like [the DH] at all. It’s just a horse$#!* rule. When we win because Gates Brown or Frank Howard or one of our other designated hitters got a big hit, I’m still going to say the same thing: It’s a horse$#!* rule!” — Tigers manager Billy Martin1   In 1973, opposition to the […]

The 1959 season marked 57 years since the Minneapolis Millers became charter members of the American Association in 1902. The Millers had independent ownership until Mike Kelley sold the franchise to the New York Giants in 1946.1 They were a Triple-A farm team for the Giants from 1946 through 1957, then became a Boston Red […]

On July 1, 2005, Chicago White Sox starter José Contreras took the loss at Oakland Coliseum after allowing four runs in 4 1/3 innings. But even with a 3-5 record and a 4.34 ERA, manager Ozzie Guillén saw little reason to worry about the 33-year-old Cuban defector who joined his club through a midseason trade […]

“When I missed that first pitch, I told myself, ‘Mo, you’re not gonna get another one like that, not in this situation.’” So thought Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Rick Monday.1 Monday, a lefty, was batting in the top of the ninth inning with two outs in a tie game with the 1981 National League […]

As Roberto Clemente’s career was entering its twilight period, a Puerto Rican prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system was drawing rave reviews from the future Hall of Famer. Though the prospect was traded to the Oakland Athletics in a controversial swap in 1970, he never forgot the lessons Clemente taught him in Pittsburgh, and on […]

The Washington Senators played at Griffith Stadium from 1911 to 1960 before leaving for Minnesota. The expansion Senators played one year there in 1961 before moving across town to D.C. Stadium, later called Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. (Library of Congress, Horydczak Collection)   When the National League dropped four cities, including Washington, after the 1899 […]