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Ed Sadowski was a right-handed-hitting catcher who played in 217 major-league games in five seasons between 1960 and 1966. He played for the Boston Red Sox (1960), the Los Angeles Angels (1961-1963), and the Atlanta Braves (1966). Despite his brief major-league career, Sadowski had the distinction of playing for both the Los Angeles Angels and […]

“Not all veteran fans remember him. Credit it to the fact that he was simply too good at what he did, which was use his voice with the range and subtlety of a concert violinist,” wrote TV Guide of Ray Scott. “CBS’s National Football League coverage didn’t make a move to any big game without […]

October 9, 1961. Game Five of the World Series, at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. All that separated the New York Yankees from another championship was outlasting the Cincinnati Reds. New York scored five runs in the top of the first, chasing Reds starter Joey Jay. A home run by Roger Maris in the top of the […]

Buddy Gilbert is rarely, if ever, mentioned among baseball’s greatest hitters. Yet he holds a claim to baseball fame: His 10 percent ratio of home runs to at-bats is technically the highest in major league history (given a cutoff of 20 at-bats). The outfielder played in just seven big league games with the Cincinnati Reds […]

On June 22, 1990, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers at Riverfront Stadium. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Reds’ Eric Davis was rounding third base after a base hit to right field—the would-be winning run. Dodgers catcher Mike Scioscia stood at home plate as if he was not expecting a […]

In Good Enough to Dream,1 Roger Kahn lyrically recounts the 1983 Utica Blue Sox’ remarkable run to the New York-Pennsylvania League (NYP) championship as an unaffiliated mélange of minor-league castoffs and free agents.2 Remarkably, despite their season of success, none of the Blue Sox ever attained the reality of the major leagues for as much […]

Not unlike the lead character in Winston Groom’s 1986 novel Forrest Gump, Raymond Floyd Sanders (through happy coincidence or, less likely, adroit planning) was able to build a reservoir of memories in baseball, both delightful and unfortunate, that other ballplayers with much longer careers could only envy. In fact, Sanders’ appearance in four World Series […]

Charlie Gilbert’s baseball career came under the tutelage of his father Larry Gilbert Sr. at an early age. Larry Sr. certainly had a relevant background to help build his son’s future; he had been a major-league player for parts of two seasons, and later was a player and manager for the New Orleans Pelicans (Class […]

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General William Eckert was named commissioner of baseball in late 1965 from a list of candidates that included more than 150 names. The owners wanted someone from outside the game who would be respected by Congress. Truth was, few even knew who William Eckert was at the time. One sportswriter quipped […]

In the history of major league baseball, there have been 952 men who played in only a single game. Of these, 489 were pitchers, 181 of whom were starters. Since 1901, there have been 86 one-game starting pitchers, one of whom was Albert Autry. In common with many other one-game players, Autry never knew why […]

Reference sources correctly note that Peter Alexander Hoy was born in Brockville, Ontario, Canada, on June 29, 1966. That’s where Brockville General Hospital is located, but the Hoy family lived in the nearby village of Cardinal, and that’s where Pete was raised. Described by the Whig-Standard of Kingston as “a sleepy rural town,” Cardinal is […]

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Hal King defined the moniker of journeyman catcher. A left-handed hitter with some pop in his bat, King played for the Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, and Cincinnati Reds for parts of seven seasons. Never quite consistent enough with either bat or glove to keep a starting […]

Tom Hayes is a footnote in baseball history. To the extent that he is remembered at all, it is for selling 19-year-old Willie Mays to the New York Giants and setting him on his path to immortality. However, in his time, this shrewd, gruff man was a towering figure, a pioneer whose impact in the […]

San Francisco Bay Area native Tim Cullen signed with the A’s during spring training in 1972, returning to the region where he had been a two-sport star in high school and helped Santa Clara University become the nation’s top-ranked college baseball team. He did not play in the 1972 World Series and retired after the […]

On August 31, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower traveled approximately two miles from the White House to Griffith Stadium take in an afternoon of baseball featuring the Washington Senators and New York Yankees, whose star, Mickey Mantle, was in pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home-run record. Mantle walloped his 47th round-tripper in the Yankees’ 6-4 victory, […]

There was never an Alex Grammas question on Family Feud. However, if Richard Dawson, the late and long-time host of the popular game show, were to have asked a hundred of his contemporaries how they remembered Grammas, the survey would invariably point to three answers: flawless fielding, excellence as a third-base coach, and his Hellenic […]

On a crisp mid-October day in 1984, Alan Trammell played a key role in putting the Detroit Tigers on the verge of the World Series championship their fans and city had been waiting for since the “Sock It to ’Em Tigers” team of 1968 upended the St. Louis Cardinals. The Tigers led their National League […]

The 18-year-old righty dubbed 1925’s “sensation of the [New York-Pennsylvania L]eague”1 seemingly appeared from nowhere. Advanced to the Eastern League four years later, the youngster known as Dick Oliver was “ranked as one of the pitching mainstays of the [Albany Senators]”2 and a bright future beckoned. The problem was that no such pitcher existed. Hints […]

This is the resume: He was the first National League rookie to hit .300 with 30 homers, 100 RBIs, and 100 runs scored. He was the youngest player with back-to-back 50-double seasons. He was the third major-leaguer to drive in 500 runs in his first four seasons.1 He was the major-league leader in runs scored […]

You’ve seen him on television and in movies. You’ve perhaps enjoyed his beer or seen him on his web series. Oh yeah, he was a pretty good baseball player too. Kevin Edmund Youkilis was born on Thursday, March 15, 1979, in Cincinnati to Carolyn (Weekley) and Mike “Bear” Youkilis, who was himself a “well known […]

Charlie Jamieson was a star American League outfielder during the 1920s. In a career spanning 1915-1932, the speedy singles hitter achieved a .303 batting average with 1,990 hits in 1,779 games. In addition to being a very good leadoff man, he also had a fine reputation in the field. Jamieson initially struggled to find his […]

Pitcher Gordon Zabasky winds up on the mound at Montgomery Field, April 1957, in Carlsbad, New Mexico.   In the spring of 1984, the decaying remains of Montgomery Field – a former minor-league ballpark in Carlsbad, New Mexico – were removed to make way for a multi-field youth soccer complex.1 It symbolized the way America’s […]

A person who coaches in major-league baseball but never plays or manages at that level, is a shadowy figure in an otherwise statistic-rich sport. He or she1 compiles no wins, losses, runs, hits, errors, or any other numerical record that they ever reached the majors. There’s only one tracked statistic that a coach in this […]

Going into the 1982 season, Seattle Mariners starter Glenn Abbott elected to re-sign with the five-year-old expansion club, even though the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets offered him higher salaries than he would receive from Seattle’s three-year deal.1 So, when Abbott reported elbow soreness early in spring training, the club wanted to protect its […]