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Gus Greenlee, in hat and tie, shown here with some members of his Pittsburgh Crawfords team. (SABR-Rucker Archive)   The United States Negro Baseball League is mostly known for its minor role in the Jackie Robinson story. It was famously backed by Branch Rickey in 1945, possibly for use as a cover for the Brooklyn […]

Silas Kenneth Johnson was born in Danway, Illinois on Friday, October 5, 1906. He shared his strong Norwegian heritage with older brother Alvin. Their parents, Nels and Tillie Johnson, added two more male siblings—Jesse and Tilman—to the family roster soon after Si was born. The clan soon migrated to the small town of Marseilles, Illinois, […]

“If there’s a greater day in the history of Tampa Bay, I don’t know what it is,” proclaimed Tampa Bay Devil Rays principal owner Vince Naimoli on March 20, 1995, the day the American League awarded a franchise to the group he headed.1 After many years of city leaders striving to bring a team to […]

Introduction and Context In 1937, both the National and the American Leagues held their Winter Meetings in Chicago, while the National Association met a few days earlier in Milwaukee. Rumors aplenty swirled around these gatherings, but very few teams actually pulled the trigger and made significant deals. The deals that did take place, however (and […]

In the nearly 120-year history of the New York and San Francisco Giants, several of the club’s pitchers have distinguished themselves on Opening Days. “Smiling” Mickey Welch won the franchise opener in 1883, followed by three more first day victories. In 1902, Christy Mathewson’s shutout of Philadelphia snapped the Giants’ losing streak of nine consecutive […]

From the mid-1970s until the Angels won the World Series in 2002, frequent stories of an Angels “curse” or “jinx” appeared in the local and national media. Typically blamed on a rumor that Anaheim Stadium was built on a Native American burial ground, the curse persists to the present day despite the fact that several […]

Roland Hemond has worked in Organized Baseball since 1951, when he was hired by the Hartford Chiefs, the Boston Braves’ farm club (Class A-Eastern League) for a $28.00-a-week entry-level job. Along the way, Hemond has worked as an executive in the front offices of the Boston/Milwaukee Braves, Los Angeles/California Angels, Chicago White Sox (twice), in […]

Whenever a Negro Leagues veteran is asked about James “Red” Moore, the response is almost automatically: “He could pick it!” Then the player adds anything else that he has to say. Such is the reputation that the Atlanta-born former baseball star earned during his career in the Negro Leagues. Described by Atlanta Daily World sports […]

Of the many minor leagues that existed in professional baseball at the end of World War II, the Pacific Coast League (PCL) was at the pinnacle, the one with the best players, several fine stadiums, and robust attendance. In 1946, total attendance for the league was 4,068,372, a PCL record, dwarfing that of any other […]

Seattle Pilots spring training program from 1970. The franchise began spring training as the Pilots but officially became the Milwaukee Brewers on April 1 (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)   “Dewey was in a dream world. He had no money. I swear to God, the whole franchise was being run on a Visa card.” The […]

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees have one of the fiercest rivalries in American sports. It is a rivalry borne out of regional differences that date back to Colonial America. The rivalry goes beyond sports—New York and Boston were early economic rivals, eventually becoming a cultural rivalry between New York and New England. […]

Since the dawn of free agency, there has been increasing affection paid to players who spend their entire career with the same team. From the ballpark statues of Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn to the retired numbers of Robin Yount and George Brett, baseball fans in recent years have celebrated star players who rose through […]

San Francisco Seals 1949 Tour of Japan Program with Lefty O’Doul. (Rob Fitts Collection)   There are moments, sometimes fleeting, often accidental, when sport transcends mere athletic competition. These moments are not judged by wins or losses, nor by runs scored or surrendered. The baseball tour of Japan undertaken by Lefty O’Doul and his San […]

What makes these Detroit Tigers uniform numbers — 2, 5, 6, 16, and 23 — special? Nearly every Tigers fan knows the answer to this question — each of those uniform numbers has been retired, in honor of Charlie Gehringer (2), Hank Greenberg (5), Al Kaline (6), Hal Newhouser (16), and Willie Horton (23). Each of these […]

Babe Ruth turned his cricket bat into a broken, splintered mess. Baseball’s great home-run hitter had just smashed an hour’s worth of bowling (cricket’s term for “pitching”). He whacked balls all over a “subterranean” field near the Thames River in London. Alan Fairfax, formerly a top Australian player, coached Ruth and marveled at his pupil’s […]

The white sand beaches and warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico provide a pleasant distraction to the residents and tourists of Pensacola. A sense of optimism swept the Pensacola community in 1939 as the economy took a turn for the better with the ending of the Great Depression. During that summer, another form of […]

After a World Series appearance in 1965 and finishing second to the Baltimore Orioles in 1966, there were many reasons to believe the Minnesota Twins had a good shot at the American League pennant in 1967. Decades later, this remains one of baseball greatest and most historic pennant races. On September 30, 1967, a Saturday […]

On Opening Day of the 2015 season, Miami Marlins players and fans had to scurry for cover as Marlins Park was soaked with rain — despite the retractable roof installed on the facility.  Dee Gordon slipped as he accelerated out of the batter’s box. The speedy Miami Marlins second baseman had just laid down a […]

Just what is the Baseball Reliquary, anyway? There are as many answers to that question as there are multitudes contained by Walt Whitman, the Brooklyn-based author of Leaves of Grass and the first American artist to embrace the game and assimilate it into his poetic vocabulary.

Umpire John McSherry. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)   In April 1996, 51-year-old major-league umpire John McSherry collapsed and died while working behind the plate a few pitches into the first game of the season at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. McSherry’s weight had been listed at 328 pounds by the league, but even Richie […]

During the four seasons that Bobby Wine and Ruben Amaro were teammates, from 1962 through 1965, they split the shortstop duties for the Philadelphia Phillies — and each won a Gold Glove. In May 1962, Rubén Amaro (who had previously been in the Mexican Army) was recalled to service in the US Army. The Phillies […]

Mary Dobkin at age 77, while speaking to the press about the TV movie “Aunt Mary.” (Historic Images)   Nineteen-seventy-nine was quite a year for Baltimore. The Orioles returned to the World Series for the first time in eight years and one of the city’s most impactful residents got well-deserved national recognition. Her name was […]

Introduction For many in the baseball world, the 2004 season marked the end of an era. Perhaps it was the Boston Red Sox finally breaking the “Curse of the Bambino” to end their streak of futility, or the Expos playing their final games in Montreal, or Barry Bonds’ career finally beginning to wind down as […]

Atlanta’s baseball history is dominated by names such as Hank Aaron, John Smoltz, Greg Maddux, Dale Murphy, and Chipper Jones. The Braves also dominated their division in the 1990s, but that is only a small part of Atlanta’s long and storied baseball history. Anyone can look up the history of the Braves and their players […]