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A milestone for any starting pitcher is winning 20 games in a season. Frank Lary did it twice for the Detroit Tigers. The right-hander joined the 20-win club for the first time on September 23, 1956, when the fifth-place Tigers breezed past the second-place Cleveland Indians, 11-1. Lary was an Alabama farm boy who followed […]

First-year manager Jim Leyland’s Pittsburgh Pirates sought their sixth consecutive win and a series sweep of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on April 20, 1986. The Pirates eventually emerged with a victory, but it took 17 innings, 17 pitchers from both sides, and nearly four months. Chicago right fielder Keith Moreland tied the game […]

The Racine Belles, needing a win to tie the best-of-five All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Western Division championship series against the Rockford Peaches, took a slim 1-0 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning of Game Two. Rockford slugger Eleanor Callow (née Knudsen, later Litterick) was not about to let Racine pull even. She […]

In pursuit of their first postseason berth in 26 years, the Milwaukee Brewers traded for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia in July 2008. Sabathia made an immediate impact in Milwaukee, winning his first nine decisions as a Brewer. Win number nine came in the most dominant start of his 19-season Hall […]

The Pan-American Highway cuts through the northern Andes state of Tachira in western Venezuela, facing Colombia.1 The capital city of San Cristobal hovers 2,694 feet above the Torbes River, developing its own unique identity, more Colombian than Venezuelan. It was here on October 15, 1967, that Carlos Jesus García Guerrero was born.2 During his childhood, […]

Imagine being stationed in center field when your team records the final out of the World Series. To experience that twice is less likely than pitching a perfect game or hitting 500 career homers.1 Even rarer – being in center field for clubs from both the American and National Leagues when they became champions, something […]

On September 16, 1976, Larry Landreth made his major-league debut with the Montreal Expos. In doing so, he became the first homegrown Canadian to play for a big-league team based in Canada.1 The 21-year-old hurler had quickly advanced through the Expos’ farm system, compiling a 44-32 record and a 3.10 ERA in his first four […]

At age 25, after becoming the best hitter in three different minor leagues – preceded by two-years’ service as an officer in the US Navy – Frank Saucier was the St. Louis Browns’ most sought-after and anticipated post-World War II rookie since the club signed future 20-game-winning pitcher Ned Garver and slugger Roy Sievers, the […]

Phil Morrison’s baseball career is indelibly connected to that of his older brother Johnny, known as Jughandle because of his quick-dropping curveball. Johnny’s glowing recommendation led directly to the professional baseball career of Phil, who was three years younger. Just as Johnny started out with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1920, Phil began pitching for his […]

Dick Fitzgerald’s left arm should be put on display in a glass case, if not donated to science. It’s known as the ultimate innings-eater. It has Satchel Paige wear-and-tear. It has an expiration date on it somewhere, doesn’t it? Doing a complete inventory, the Pennsylvania native has served up more than a million pitches, encompassing […]

Jack Sanford got his start in baseball with a push from his big sister. Sanford was named National League Rookie of the Year, won sixteen straight games one season, and started three times in the World Series, but he never got over being labeled “no prospect” when he was a teenager. John Stanley Sanford was […]

With his spectacles and quiet demeanor, Vic Sorrell gave the impression of a professor or preacher instead of a baseball lifer. After a standout career as a high-school and collegiate star in North Carolina in the early 1920s, right-handed pitcher Sorrell debuted for the Detroit Tigers in 1928. Toiling during some of the team’s leanest […]

In September 1970, amid a woeful stretch for Cleveland baseball, a David and Goliath battle played out in front of 7,857 fans in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. The 97-win Orioles, who had already clinched the American League East, started Dave McNally in pursuit of his 24th victory. Cleveland gave local flamethrower Jim Rittwage his first big-league […]

 The switch-hitting José Vidro made three All-Star teams and batted over.300 for five straight seasons, 1999 through 2003. He remains the best second baseman in the truncated history of the Montreal Expos. Born on August 27, 1974, in Mayaguez, on Puerto Rico’s west coast, Vidro grew up about 15 miles away in Sabana Grande, where […]

Speedy Everett Booe was one of a multitude of major-leaguers who played only a year or two in the big leagues, and then spent the majority of their careers in the minors. Booe was a rookie flash in the pan for the Pirates in 1913, and then jumped to Indianapolis and Buffalo of the upstart Federal […]

Solid left fielder Joe Rudi was a core member of the Oakland A’s 1972-74 dynasty. He was the runner-up for the American League Most Valuable Player twice during this period, and he also won three straight Gold Gloves (1974 through 1976). Rudi’s numbers with the bat don’t look dazzling today, but he did lead the […]

As a pitcher, Lary Sorensen handled plenty of challenges over the course of his successful 11-year major-league career with seven teams. But not even the best-hitting opposing lineup—like the one he faced in the 1978 All-Star Game—compared to the opponent he battled after his playing days: alcoholism. His story resembles an amusement park ride, with […]

Don Leppert signed his first professional contract shortly after his 23rd birthday, scouted on Korean War-era military-service teams in a sport he had not intended to play as a pro. He reached the majors a few months before his 30th birthday, when the defending World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates sought to strengthen their bench. He […]

Pat Collins, back in the minors in 1925 after six frustrating seasons with the St. Louis Browns, found himself in the right place at the right time in 1926. Collins saw his playing time bottom out with the Browns in 1924 and the 28-year-old was relegated to the American Association. His response to playing more […]

Skip and Pete. Two names forever etched in the history of the Atlanta Braves and in the history of baseball on television. Just the mention of their names brings back warm memories and a smile to many baseball fans, and not just those in Atlanta. Rarely is one of them ever mentioned without the other […]

The first player from “The Big Island” of Hawaii to make it to the major leagues was pitcher Onan Masaoka. The lefty’s 1999 Bowman baseball card aptly described his ability and his nemesis, command: “Pure power southpaw . . . Lively low-to-mid 90s heater . . . Gets outs with breaking stuff, too, when mechanics […]

The Joe Vosmik story is the classic American tale in which the scion of an immigrant family falls in love with the national game of the family’s adopted country. Vosmik’s tale has all the required elements: precocious skills, early passion, an indulgent father, a disapproving mother who later relents and shares her son’s ardor, obsession, […]

Barely more than one square mile in size and with about 15,000 residents, Harrison, New Jersey, was an improbable site for the construction of a new major-league ballpark in early 1915. But timing, circumstance, and geography were all the impetus needed for the erection of spacious Harrison Park. In its maiden year, the new ballpark […]

Why would you ever call it Baker Bowl, When all Baker did Was despoil its Soul! — Seamus Kearney   Fans enter the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, circa 1915. (Library of Congress)   The Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds, a.k.a. National League Park, a.k.a. Baker Bowl, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1887 to 1938, […]