Hank Aaron Hits #715

It was a glorious moment. On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record, previously thought unassailable, when he hit his 715th career home run.  Aaron’s historic blast occurred during a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the...

The Tragedy of Edgar McNabb

A murder-suicide in a Pittsburgh hotel on Valentine’s Day in 1894 firmly occupies a place on the roster of baseball’s tragedies.  It was the fatal result of a love affair between a major league pitcher and a baseball mogul’s wife. Edgar McNabb...

Tom Selleck and Baseball

A prime time powerhouse on the roster of Reagan Era television programs, Magnum, p.i. invokes images of Aloha shirts, a red Ferrari, and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap worn by the title character, played by Tom Selleck “with a shaggy charm that manages to cut...

George Steinbrenner Buys the Yankees

Midwesterners are a stoic lot; stereotypically speaking, they’re quiet but not timid.  Theirs is a mission of doing a job without complaint, fanfare, and insolence.  To be from the Midwest, certainly, is to have a work ethic in your DNA where seeking attention...

1969

As described by German Prussian politician Otto von Bismarck, politics is the art of the possible.  So is baseball.  When the New York Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles to win the 1969 World Series, possible elevated to miraculous. Once again, National League...