by David Krell | Feb 2, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Feb 1, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 31, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 30, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 29, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 28, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 27, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 26, 2017 | David Krell
William Howard Taft invented—unintentionally—the seventh inning stretch, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to continue Major League Baseball during World War II, and George W. Bush skyrocketed American morale after the 9/11 attacks...
by David Krell | Jan 25, 2017 | David Krell
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...
by David Krell | Jan 24, 2017 | David Krell
When Dodgers third baseman Ken McMullen suited up for the 1974 season, he carried the weight of widowerhood on his 6’3″ frame—McMullen’s wife, Bobbie, died of cancer on April 6th, the day after the Dodgers opened the ’74 season. Diagnosed with...
