1934, Dizzy Dean, and the Cardinals of St. Louis

When Dizzy Dean pitched for the Cardinals in 1934, St. Louisans rested as easy as a stray feather landing on a duck’s backside—the Arkansas native led the major leagues in wins, strikeouts, and complete games.  With a 30-7 record, Dean marked the Cardinals as an...

A Capital Forfeit

Washington, D.C. is a city often laced with discord, evidence by the combative nature of politics.  Baseball, too, is combative, but rarely on the level witnessed on September 30, 1971. In the last game of the second incarnation of the Washington Senators, a melee...

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...