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The slice of eternity between when the heavily favored 97-win New York Mets lost the 2006 National League Championship Series to the 83-win St. Louis Cardinals, and the start of the 2007 season provided ample time for Mets faithful to work through the seven stages of grief; shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, and acceptance.1 […]

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitchers Don Sutton and Andy Messersmith began the 1974 National League Championship Series by frustrating the Pittsburgh Pirates’ potent offense in back-to-back wins. With a third standout starter, Tommy John, sidelined after reconstructive surgery on his elbow, the Dodgers turned to Doug Rau to close out the series in Game Three. […]

It was a familiar scenario for the Pirates and their fans, and one not likely to foster a bunch of fond memories. Pittsburgh had fielded some pretty good baseball teams in the 1970s, and five of the previous ones had been good enough to win the National League’s Eastern Division. Three of those times in […]

A solid klop must have filled Jake Geiser’s ears when a baseball ricocheted off a doorstep on Cleveland’s Lexington Avenue and rolled toward the New Philadelphia, Ohio, resident’s feet. Geiser, waiting to board a bus to his home about 90 miles south of the city,1 was standing just beyond the tall right-field fence at Cleveland’s […]

Babe Ruth feared the worst when he played right field in Washington’s Griffith Stadium. The unsightly concrete barrier that separated the playing field from the seats and spectators seemed especially menacing and dangerous. “Babe says he’s been afraid that he was going to bump into that wall in the Washington Park ever since he began […]

On the morning of September 15, 1958, Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train No. 3314 was nearing Bayonne when it ran through several signals and plunged off an open drawbridge into Newark Bay. Forty-eight people lost their lives. One of the victims was George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss, a second baseman who played for the New […]

Jay Tessmer pitched in parts of four seasons in his major-league career. Although he won only a single game, he was a member of three World Series championship teams, playing for the New York Yankees in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Appearing in 22 games during his major-league career, Tessmer pitched 23⅓ innings and finished with […]

Righty Elías Sosa was a useful reliever for eight different big-league teams. He appeared in 601 games at the top level from 1972 through 1983. He posted 83 saves, with a high of 18 in both 1973 and 1979. Though Sosa was never a big strikeout pitcher, “he’s got a good fastball and excellent slider,” […]

In all their history since Babe Ruth arrived, the New York Yankees have suffered through very few lean years. The most notorious were 1966 and 1967, when they finished 10th and 9th in the American League. One of the few bright spots in that period, however, was Dooley Womack. In 1966, the righty reliever made […]

Baseball fans from the 1970s may have faint memories of a lanky backup catcher for the San Diego Padres. Bob Davis, a native of Locust Grove, Oklahoma, became a familiar face for the Padres faithful during the organization’s early years. Standing six feet and weighing 180 pounds, Davis caught 166 games for the Friars before […]

Rarely is the first game of a major-league career the pinnacle of that career. But when New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy handed Russ Van Atta the ball on April 25, 1933 against the Washington Nationals, it was. Van Atta masterfully blanked Washington, 16-0, retiring 14 of the last 16 batters as the Yankees unleashed […]

A speedy, talented and versatile infielder, Sandy Alomar Sr. spent half a century in professional baseball as a player, coach, and manager. That time included 11 full seasons plus parts of four others in the majors from 1964 through 1978. Alomar made the American League All-Star team in 1970 and was a member of the […]

“President Harding’s interest in Baseball and his many kind acts toward individual players was [sic] deeply appreciated by all of us.”1 None other than Babe Ruth expressed this sentiment in his handwritten condolences to the widow of Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States. Harding died while in office on August 2, […]

The 1946 Newark Eagles pitching staff was filled with front-line hurlers like Leon Day, Max Manning, Rufus Lewis, and Len Hooker. However, the team’s roster also lists Jimmy Boyd, who fashioned a 1-0 record with three strikeouts, two walks, and a 1.29 ERA over seven innings in two appearances (one start). Boyd signed a contract […]

The heir to Moe Drabowsky, Tug McGraw, and Roger McDowell, Turk Wendell kept the tradition of lovable zany relievers alive. Wendell had a unique litany of on-field antics, plus a trademark necklace of animal teeth and claws – from beasts he’d hunted himself. “Turkey spurs too,” said the avid outdoorsman, “but no shark teeth.” Yet […]

Bill Harvey was a left-handed pitcher and outfielder who played parts of up to 21 years in the Negro Leagues, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Though unimposing both physically (5-feet-8, 175 pounds) and statistically (31-52, 5.68 ERA in 140 official Negro League games), Harvey had a long and colorful career that was not without its share […]

[A glue guy] is a guy who’s unselfish and who’s a good teammate… A guy who communicates well and who’s honest with his teammates and himself. Somebody the other guys can count on to offer advice or encouragement. He keeps everybody loose, but at the same time, focused… It’s a guy who — in baseball […]

Johnny Murphy was an ace relief pitcher for the 1930s New York Yankees who spent 18 years playing professional baseball. Murphy spent even longer in the front office, first with New England’s obsession—the Boston Red Sox—serving as a scout and then ran the team’s minor league operations. Moving onto New York’s National League expansion franchise, […]

Eddie Lopat rightly earned the nickname the Junkman. The All-Star hurler may not have appeared pretty when getting the job done but, as 166 wins over a 12-year career testified, he found a measure of success. After the southpaw retired, he worked as the pitching coach for the Washington Senators and, following the franchise move […]

Luman Harris said, “I wish baseball went on 12 months a year.”1 He spent 35 years in the game as a pitcher, coach, and manager, and enjoyed most of it, despite more losing seasons than winners. Chalmer Luman Harris was born in New Castle, Alabama, on January 17, 1915, the third of six children of […]

Right-hander Lou Knerr (pronounced Nerr) debuted in 1945 when big-league rosters were ravaged by World War II. He posted a modest 5-11 slate with the cellar-dwelling Philadelphia A’s, but took umbrage with the label of wartime player. “Sure there were a lot of players who shouldn’t have been in the major leagues, . . .” […]

Several years ago, I picked up a large package of records belonging to obscure minor-league ballplayers whose big league dreams had ended in the bushes. Previously rescued from a trash heap by a resourceful collector, these materials had been purged by the San Francisco Giants to make room for the tracking of newer generations of […]

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 […]

Canadian shortstop Brian Ostrosser spent two weeks in the major leagues with the New York Mets in August 1973. A good glove man, he provided depth while starter Bud Harrelson was on the disabled list. He went 0-for-5 in four games as a Met; in 14 2/3 innings in the field, he cleanly handled all […]