Savannah’s Bananas

When James Oglethorpe led the settling of Savannah, Georgia in 1733, he used a geometric shape for the layout—squares.  Robert Johnson has the distinction of the first square being named after him; Johnson—South Carolina’s colonial governor—and Oglethorpe were...

McGraw and McGillicuddy

One was pugnacious.  The other, almost regal. When John Joseph McGraw took the field, he embraced baseball games as bouts, thus earning his nicknames Mugsy and Little Napoleon. When Cornelius McGillicuddy managed the Philadelphia Athletics, he wore a suit rather than...

Cy Young’s Perfect Game

It’s appropriate the first perfect game in the 20th century belongs to the pitcher whose moniker adorns baseball’s most prestigious award for hurlers.  Denton True “Cy” Young. Young’s feat on May 5, 1904 decimated the Philadelphia...

The Decade of Baseball Migration

The 1950s was a decade of change. Elvis Presley spearheaded the introduction of rock and roll, television replaced radio as the preferred mass medium for news and entertainment, and several baseball teams migrated westward—way westward for two teams, mid-westward for...

61 in ’61

In 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the nation’s youngest elected president, The Dick Van Dyke Show débuted, and Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut in space. 1961 was also the year of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle.  The M&M boys. As...