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Baseball has yet to take firm hold in the island of Jamaica, even though it is surrounded by other nations with a strong tradition in the sport. As the 2023 season ended, five men of Jamaican birth have made it to the major leagues, most of whom learned the game in the United States. The […]

In an issue published a few days after the grand opening of Forbes Field, Sporting Life extolled Pittsburgh team owner Barney Dreyfuss: “[he] had the mind to conceive and the courage to execute the plans which have given the world the grandest and most costly ball park in existence, deserves the greatest credit, highest praise, […]

For as long as he could, Fermín “Mike” Guerra kept playing baseball all year around, in his native Cuba and in the United States. The two lands obviously had quite different cultures, baseball and otherwise, and Guerra even told Roberto Gonzalez Echevarría that he had been initiated into santería, the particular syncretic Afro-Cuban religion.1 Fermín […]

About one of every 200 high-school baseball players is drafted by a major-league team. Of those drafted, about 66 percent of first-round draft picks ever get to play in a major-league game, let alone make an Opening Day starting lineup.1 Of the 18,911 players who have donned a big-league uniform, only four have hit three […]

As of September 2020, when this story was originally published, the two oldest living major leaguers were Eddie Robinson and George Elder, both veterans of WWII. Robinson served in the Navy but because of a leg operation was never in a combat zone. Elder served as a Marine artilleryman in the Pacific theatre. He served […]

Possessing Hollywood-good looks and a keen sense of humor, Jim Pagliaroni was a beloved teammate and fan favorite who knew how to work a room. “Pag is a 6-4 stack of happiness … [who] seems to have been born with a gift of laughter. He refuses to take either himself or baseball seriously … [and […]

“And the 3-2 pitch. Fly ball to deep left field — it’s mile high and it’s out of here!”1 Not the “shot heard round the world.” But a shot that reverberated among the 80,000 plus fans that rose as one as Colorado Rockies TV play-by-play announcer Charlie Jones called the first Mile High Stadium home […]

For many people, Steve Rogers is the guy who gave up the game-winning home run to Rick Monday in the 1981 National League Championship Series. However, to think of him for just that one pitch does a disservice to a player who was a five-time All-Star, an ERA leader, and the ace of the excellent […]

“Baseball is our way of life in the Amaro family,” said Rubén Amaro Sr. Four generations of Amaros have played professionally. Amaro’s father, Santos, had a long and distinguished career in Cuba and Mexico. His son, Rubén Amaro Jr., became a player, executive, and coach in the major leagues. Rubén Sr. was in the majors […]

Tom Butts stood 5-feet-8 and weighed just 142 pounds, but his size was not the reason he acquired the nickname Pee Wee. Rather, the strong-armed shortstop’s defensive prowess reminded observers of his White contemporary, Pee Wee Reese.1 “I’d compare Butts with Reese or [Phil] Rizzuto or anyone I’ve seen in the big leagues,” opined Roy […]

Frank Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits across 18 seasons playing minor-league baseball (1946-63) — but appeared in just one major-league contest. He played a single inning at shortstop for the Yankees in 1953 and never got to bat. Verdi is perhaps most remembered for his 24 years of managing in the minor leagues and independent ball, […]

A late-inning home run by Willie Mays was the decisive blow in San Francisco’s dramatic 2-1 victory on the last day of the 1962 regular season, clinching a playoff berth for the Giants against their downstate rival Los Angeles Dodgers. Meanwhile, Dick “Turk” Farrell, the right-handed hurler for the Houston Colt .45s who surrendered the […]

Cut loose by the team that first signed him, Tom Burgmeier was waived by the Houston Colt 45’s, but his road to the major leagues went back on course when he was signed by the Los Angeles Angels. It took him four years to make the majors, where he would go on to pitch in […]

Ameal Brooks played for semipro and Negro League teams from the late 1920s to 1950. He was known primarily for his work as a versatile catcher and outfielder, his clouting abilities at the plate, and an affinity for alcohol, which may explain his habit of jumping from team to team, sometimes in midseason. For more […]

John Bradley Clontz was born on April 25, 1971, in Stuart, Virginia (population 1,400), five miles north of the state’s border with North Carolina. Outside of Clontz, Stuart’s best-known native son is Leonard Wood, who formed in 1950 with his four brothers what became a successful auto-racing empire, perhaps what southwestern Virginia is best known […]

Henry “Hank” Schenz was claimed off waivers by the New York Giants from the Pittsburgh Pirates midway through the 1951 season, setting in motion a unique connection to the most famous event in baseball history. As told by Joshua Prager in The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot […]

On April 29, 1995, rookie right fielder Jon Nunnally became the first Kansas City Royals player to hit a home run in his first big-league at-bat. Five years later, on June 28, 2000, Nunnally did it again, when he homered on his first plate appearance as a player for the Orix BlueWave in Osaka, Japan. […]

Jacobs Field in Cleveland was the site for Major League Baseball’s 68th All-Star Game on July 8, 1997. A sold-out crowd of 44,916 turned out for the midsummer classic as it returned to the shores of Lake Erie for the first time since 1981. The host Indians ended the first half of the season on […]

Bobby Malkmus was a small, light-hitting, versatile middle infielder who made his major-league debut for the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 during their frantic midseason search for a second baseman. Poor hitting (2-for 22) and the club’s acquisition of All-Star Red Schoendienst marked the end of the Malkmus experiment after less than four weeks. Malkmus returned […]

The tall, lanky left-handed pitcher started with youth baseball, excelled in the minor leagues, played for four major-league teams, then continued as a pitching coach at various levels to complete a 50-year career in baseball. Standing 6-feet-2 and weighing 200 pounds, James Philip “Jim” Shellenback, born November 18, 1943, in Riverside, California, grew up in […]

On June 23, 2009, the Boston Red Sox made their first trip to the US capital since their 4-3 victory over the Washington Senators on September 19, 1971. From the American League’s founding in 1901, the Red Sox were regular visitors to Washington. They had played Washington’s original AL team, known as the Nationals and […]

More than one football coach has used the adage “A tie is just like kissing your sister.”1 On May 28, 1964, the Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers must’ve felt the same, after their 17-inning, 4-hour and 58-minute marathon at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field ended in a 2-2 tie. This was the longest game of the […]

His team losers of seven straight between June 17 and June 24, New York Mets manager Terry Collins had a problem. With the Mets scoring only nine runs in those losses, it was obvious what that problem was: “We are not hitting, end of story that’s pretty much it. We’ve got to start hitting.”1 Missing […]

The 1924 World Series marked the fourth straight post-season appearance for the New York Giants and the first for the Washington Senators. Despite having Walter Johnson, who is still regarded today as one of the greatest pitchers of all time, the Senators had experienced limited success since the American League became a major league in […]