What if…

What if… Charlie Finley hadn’t broken up the 1970s Oakland A’s dynasty? Bob Uecker hadn’t appeared in Major League? there was no Designated Hitter position? the Mets had never traded Nolan Ryan to the Angels? Yogi Berra had played for the...

The Hall of Fame Case for Gene Autry

Gene Autry wore many hats, proverbially speaking, besides the cowboy dome piece in his movies: Owner of Los Angeles television station KTLA from 1963 to 1982 Original singer of the Christmas standard Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Army Air Corps officer and Air...

The Great Holdout of 1966

In March of 1966, Bobby Hull set an NHL scoring record for a single season, Gemini 8 brought NASA one giant leap closer to a manned moon landing by completing the first docking with another space craft, and Julie Newmar set hearts of males from eight to eighty beating...

The First Angel

William Shakespeare, like other innovators, warned of worries that could prevent success—”Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt,” wrote the Bard in Measure for Measure. It is a certainty, of course, that...

When the Braves Left Boston

Until 1953, New Englanders split their major league loyalties between two teams—the Braves and the Red Sox.  With a Beantown pedigree predating the National League’s formation in 1876, the former trekked to the land of beer and bratwurst—Milwaukee—while the...