Betting, Blindness, and Baseball

Baseball is a game of sounds. The crack of the bat.  The roar of the crowd.  The shouts of the vendors. Radio announcers, of course, provide sonic backdrops from optimism lacing spring training to tension surrounding the World Series.  Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, Red...

Aspro the Astro

Bob Aspromonte fit nicely with the cultural paradigm built upon a “boys will be boys” philosophy in the 1960s, the decade when Joe Namath swaggered while Dean Martin swigged, offering touchstones for male fantasies of being famous and female fantasies of...

Rusty Staub: Bonus Baby

When Daniel Joseph Staub signed a major league contract, he fell under the “bonus baby” nomenclature.  Nicknamed “Rusty” by a nurse upon his birth on April 1, 1944, Staub became so known.  In a 1967 article for Sports Illustrated, Gary Ronberg...

The Trade

Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants enjoy synonymity—you can’t think of one entity without the other.  It wasn’t always that way, however. Big Six, as Mathewson became known, began his major league tenure with the Cincinnati Reds.  John Brush owned...

Houston Blasts Off

Houston ignited its major league status with victory.  On April 10, 1962, the Colt .45s overtook the Cubs 11-2 at Colt Stadium.  Bob Aspromonte, Al Spangler, and Román Mejias each scored three runs in the bout while Norm Larker and Hal Smith scored one apiece. Bobby...