Baseball History
This Day in Baseball History
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On May 27th, St. Louis Cardinals Rookie Leon Durham went 1 for 5 with 1 RBI in first Major League game, as the Cards lost to the New York Mets 5-9. When I first moved to Chicago and started to regularly attend Cubs games, Leon “Bull” Durham was a fixture. In his 10-year career with… Read more
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On May 24th, 1962, former Washington Senator and Cleveland infielder George “Rabbit” Nill died in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have mentioned here often before that as I “research” baseball history I am naturally drawn to players with the kind of nicknames that you do not see anymore in baseball, or society at large. “Rabbit” is… Read more
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On May 21st, 1987, 24-year-old Gene Larkin played in his first Major League game. I have mentioned here before that I was lucky enough to be at Game 7 of the 1991 World Series where Jack Morris pitched 10 scoreless innings for the Minnesota Twins vs. the Atlanta Braves. The game and the series was… Read more
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On May 20th, 1984, 26,731 baseball fans under the teflon sky of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome got to witness history: the first of 354 career victories by the greatest pitcher of all time.5-4. Over his Hall-of-Fame worthy career, Clemens had a ..649 Winning Percentage (24-13) against the Minnesota Twins, my local nine. The only… Read more
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On May 14th, 1961, Chuck Hinton played his first Major League game. I share a last name with 4 players who played in the Major Leagues: Charles “Chuck” Hinton was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina on May 3, 1934. He played outfield for Washington and then Cleveland. His best season was 1962 when he… Read more
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On May 13th, 1965, future Hall of Fame pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter pitched in his first Major League game for the then, Kansas City Athletics. I have read in a few places over the years that by some sabrmetrics Catfish Hunter does not really belong in the Hall of Fame. That is, of course, cow… Read more
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On May 10th, 1967, Hank Aaron hit the only inside the park homer of his career. In the 8th inning with Jim Bunning pitching, Aaron hit a drive to deep centerfield and beat the relay home. So for those scoring at home, of his 755 home runs, only this one did not clear the fence. The… Read more
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On May 4th, 1982, Twins rookie outfielder Jim Eisenreich (Pride of St. Cloud), who suffers from the nervous disorder Tourette’s Syndrome, is forced to remove himself from a 5-3 loss to the Red Sox when he is taunted mercilessly by bleacher fans and his violent twitching becomes uncontrollable. Eisenreich, hitting .310 after making the jump from… Read more
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“If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field everyday I’d still look you in the eye and say Willie was better. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw and field. And he had… Read more
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On May 1st, 1991, Rickey Henderson surpassed Lou Brock as baseball’s career stolen base leader with his 939th steal as the Oakland Athletics beat the New York Yankees 7-4. I have written a lot about Rickey here because he deserves it. He was that great. Rickey got a bad rap when he broke Lou Brock’s record for Stolen… Read more
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