Baseball Books for Baseball Fans

05/30/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 30

On baseball's old Decoration Day: a record nobody had touched, a fallen hero brought home, a blast that nearly left the Bronx, and a 22-year-old's afternoon of perfection.

Bobby Lowe's Four-Homer First (1894)
Boston's second baseman became the first player in major league history to hit four home runs in one game, in the second game of a doubleheader against Cincinnati, a 20-11 Beaneaters win. Two came in the third inning off Elton "Icebox" Chamberlain. Lowe piled up 17 total bases, a record that would stand for sixty years, and the crowd was so delighted it showered him with $160 in coins at the plate.

Captain Eddie Grant Comes Home (1921)
On Memorial Day, between games of a Giants doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, a stone monument was unveiled in deep center field to Captain Eddie Grant. A Harvard Law graduate who traded the infield for the infantry, Grant was the first major leaguer killed in action in World War I, struck by a shell in the Argonne Forest in 1918 while leading the search for the famous Lost Battalion. As 30,000 looked on, his sister pulled away the flag from a plaque that called him "Soldier, Scholar, Athlete."

Mantle Almost Leaves the Bronx (1956)
In the heart of his Triple Crown season, Mickey Mantle nearly did what no one ever had. Batting left-handed against Washington's Pedro Ramos, he drove a pitch into the ornamental facade hanging from the roof of Yankee Stadium, the ball dying inches below the lip of the upper deck. No fair ball had ever come closer to leaving the old ballpark. That afternoon he also became the first player to reach 20 home runs by the end of May.

Eckersley's Perfect Afternoon, Almost (1977)
Before he was the most feared closer in the game, Dennis Eckersley was a 22-year-old with a fastball and a mustache. On Memorial Day in Cleveland he no-hit the California Angels, fanning 12 in a 1-0 win. Only two reached base, and one was erased on a double play. Less than a year later the Indians traded him to Boston, a deal their fans still mourn.

Ed. 05.30.26

05/29/2026

You can read my review of Baseball’s Greatest What If elsewhere on this page.

Pete Reiser’s 1941 season stands as one of the best “rookie” campaigns in NL history.

He slashed .343/.406/.558, with his batting average, runs scored (117), doubles (39), and triples (17) all leading the NL. He also topped the league in slugging percentage, OPS (.964), OPS+ (164), and total bases (299) - and hit 14 home runs with 76 RBI.

Only four other times in NL or AL history has a player led his league in all four of those categories - batting average, runs, doubles, and triples - and the others are all Hall of Famers.

At just 22 years old, he looked like a future Cooperstown lock - before the wall-crashing that would derail his career began the very next season.

05/28/2026

The Two Dutch Leonards

Both were pitchers - Hubert “Dutch” Leonard was a lefty who played for the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers, while Emil “Dutch” Leonard was a righty who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Washington Senators, Philadelphia Phillies, and Chicago Cubs.

Let’s start with the original…Hubert Dutch:

⚾️ He holds both the American League record and the modern-era record for the lowest single-season ERA of all time - 0.96 in 1914. Just an amazing season with a hearty 224 innings.

⚾️ Hubert Dutch led the Red Sox to two World Series championships in 1915 and 1916. However, despite the success, he wasn’t well-liked. Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans declared: “As a pitcher, he was gutless. We umpires had no respect for Leonard, for he whined on every pitch called against him.”

⚾️ After leaving baseball, he accused his former manager Ty Cobb (and Tris Speaker) of fixing games with gamblers. The charges were eventually dropped by Commissioner Landis and the two eventual Hall-of-Famers were reinstated.

⚾️ Post MLB career, Hubert Dutch became wealthy owning and operating vineyards in California. When Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps in 1942, Leonard promised to manage the farms of neighboring interned Japanese American farmers. When the war ended, he returned the land and $20,000 in accumulated profits to the farmers.

Kind of an amazing and wild life! What about the other Dutch…Emil?

⚾️ Debuted in 1933 with Brooklyn and kept pitching all the way until 1953.

⚾️ Emil Dutch became a knuckleball specialist after being demoted to the minors. During Washington’s 1945 season, he was part of what was possibly the only four-man rotation in baseball history to consist entirely of knuckleball pitchers.

⚾️ He also has a gambling connection as he was offered a bribe before a crucial 1944 pennant-race game. An anonymous caller promised him close to $20,000 to let down against the Tigers, and Leonard said, “I promptly told the guy where to go and hung up the phone.”

⚾️ He was a five-time All-Star who won 191 major league games with a 3.25 ERA. According to Jackie Robinson, “I am glad of one thing, and that is I don’t have to hit against Dutch Leonard every day. Man, what a knuckleball that fellow has. It comes up, makes a face at you, then runs away.”

Those two pretty much run the gamut of life experiences!

05/28/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 28

A pitcher takes a stroll to right field, two New York legends head west, a hitters' park goes nuclear, and a 41-year-old passes a ghost.

The Pitcher Becomes the Right Fielder (1886)
Chicago was beating last-place Washington so badly that player-manager Cap Anson got creative. After three innings, he sent starting pitcher Jim McCormick out to right field and brought rookie Jocko Flynn in to finish on the mound. The final was 20-0, Chicago's most lopsided shutout in franchise history. Only two of the 20 runs were earned. Cannonball Crane wore the loss. Chicago would win the NL pennant that year.

The Dodgers and Giants Get Their Permission Slip (1957)
National League owners voted unanimously to let Brooklyn and New York move to California. The fine print: both teams had to go or neither could. Walter O'Malley had already locked in Los Angeles. Horace Stoneham was thinking Minneapolis until O'Malley nudged him toward San Francisco. The clubs had been founded the same year (1883) and had spent 75 seasons in New York. By October, both were gone. A rivalry that had been a subway ride apart was suddenly 382 miles by air.

Twelve Home Runs in One Afternoon (1995)
A Sunday at Tiger Stadium broke a record nobody thought would fall. Since 1900, more than 130,000 major-league games had been played without two teams combining for more than 11 home runs. On May 28, 1995, the White Sox and Tigers hit 12. Chicago took the slugfest 14-12. The Tigers hit seven, an MLB record for a losing team. Frank Thomas, Lou Whitaker, and Cecil Fielder all left the yard. Only 10,813 fans were there to see it.

Bonds Passes the Babe (2006)
In the fourth inning at AT&T Park, Barry Bonds turned on a 90-mph fastball from Colorado's Byung-Hyun Kim and crushed it 445 feet to center. Home run 715. Babe Ruth, fixed at 714 since 1935, had been passed. Bonds was 41. Streamers fell from the upper deck, two banners unfurled in center field, and his 16-year-old son Nikolai, working as batboy that day, met him at home plate. The Giants lost 6-3.

Ed. 05.28.26

05/25/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 25

A catcher's career ended in an instant, a phenom who couldn't buy a hit, eight strikeouts in the rain, and a pitcher beating the same team twenty years apart.

Mickey Cochrane's Last At-Bat (1937)
At Yankee Stadium, Tigers player-manager Mickey Cochrane homered off Bump Hadley in the third. Two innings later, the count went to 3-1. Hadley's next fastball hit him above the right temple and fractured his skull in three places. The on-deck hitter said Cochrane "dropped like someone had hit him with an ax." The two-time MVP and 1935 World Series champion was 34, unconscious for ten days, and never played again. Hall of Fame, 1947.

The Day Willie Mays Couldn't Buy a Hit (1951)
Twenty-year-old Willie Mays was watching a movie in a Sioux City theater when a message flashed on the screen telling him to call his hotel. The Giants were calling him up. He'd been hitting .477 at Minneapolis. His debut at Shibe Park went 0-for-5. Two balls he crushed were caught at the wall by Del Ennis and Dick Sisler. During batting practice, the Phillies had stopped to watch him spray balls onto the roof. Leo Durocher stuck with him. 660 home runs, 24 All-Star Games.

Surkont Strikes Out Eight in the Rain (1953)
Max Surkont was a journeyman with a 61-76 record and exactly one day of glory. In the second game of a doubleheader at County Stadium, the Braves right-hander struck out the side in the third and fourth. After his seventh straight K in the fifth, a 33-minute rain delay nearly washed it all away. When play resumed, Andy Seminick went down looking. Eight in a row, a new modern record. It stood for 17 years until Tom Seaver fanned ten straight in 1970.

Jamie Moyer Goes Back in Time (2007)
At Turner Field, Phillies lefty Jamie Moyer beat the Braves. The last time he had beaten them was May 23, 1987, when he was a 24-year-old Cubs rookie. Twenty years and two days, the longest gap in major league history between wins against the same team. Moyer was 44, on his way to a World Series ring and a record as the oldest pitcher ever to win an MLB game, at 49.

Ed. 05.25.26

05/25/2026

Sherm Lollar was the recipient of the first 3 American League Gold Gloves for a catcher and was an anchor behind the plate for the Chicago White Sox. A workmanlike catcher from Arkansas, Lollar never sought the spotlight - but he earned the respect of managers, pitchers, and opponents.

One of the defining moments in Lollar’s development came courtesy of manager Paul Richards, who recognized that Lollar’s low-key demeanor was being mistaken for indifference. As recounted in The Saturday Evening Post, Lollar later reflected on the conversation that changed him:

“When I was having that terrible year in 1952, Richards called me into his office late in the season. He told me that my natural style of catching lacked appeal and I would have to be more of a holler guy. Paul said he understood my problem because he had been the same kind of catcher that I was. I feel that I’ve always hustled in baseball, but until Paul talked to me I probably had a misconception of what ‘hustle’ meant. I hustled to first base on a batted ball, and I hustled when the ball was around me. Richards made me see that something more was expected.

“Paul told me to show a little more animation. He wanted me to be a little more agile in receiving, and to show more zip in returning the ball to the pitcher. He recommended that I run to and from the catcher’s box between innings, instead of just strolling out there.”

Lollar took the advice to heart. But even as he grew into one of the American League’s premiere catchers, he remained perpetually overshadowed by the Yankees’ Yogi Berra. Yogi was distinctive in appearance, celebrated for his malapropisms, and a magnet for publicity. Lollar blended into the background even on his own roster. The brown-haired catcher was “a sad-faced, sad-eyed individual,” one who looked in photographs “as though someone has stolen his favorite catcher’s mitt,” and who was “obscured on his own club by crowd-pleasers such as Nellie Fox, Minnie Minoso, Jim Rivera, and Luis Aparicio.”

Lollar had his finest offensive season as part of Chicago’s 1959 pennant winners, batting .265 with 22 home runs and 84 RBI. In both 1958 and 1959 he finished ninth in the American League’s Most Valuable Player voting.

05/23/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 23

Four answers to the question every pitcher has asked: what do you do when a great hitter is standing in the batter's box?

The First Bases-Loaded Free Pass (1901)
With the Athletics down 11-7 and the bases loaded with nobody out in the ninth, up stepped Nap Lajoie, hitting .525 on his way to a .426 average that still stands as the American League record. White Sox player-manager Clark Griffith pulled his pitcher, brought himself in, and walked Lajoie on four pitches, conceding a run rather than giving him a swing. Three ground outs later, Chicago had its 11-9 win. Lajoie was only the second player in big-league history walked intentionally with the bases loaded.

Hack Wilson's Big Day and Bigger Night (1926)
At Wrigley Field, Hack Wilson became the first player to hit a home run off the center field scoreboard, then situated at ground level. The Cubs beat the Braves 14-8. That night, police raided a Sheridan Road apartment described as an elaborately furnished beer parlor. Wilson was caught trying to dive through a rear window. He was fined one dollar. Four years later he would drive in 191 runs in a season, a record nobody has touched since.

Joltin' Joe Three Times in a Row (1948)
At Cleveland Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader, Joe DiMaggio hit three consecutive home runs against the Indians, the first two off Bob Feller. The Yankees won 6-5. Feller and DiMaggio were the two faces of the American League that year, and Cleveland would win the World Series that October. But this afternoon belonged to DiMaggio.

Shawn Green's Day in Milwaukee (2002)
Green arrived at Miller Park in a 24-game home run drought, having taken extra batting practice five days earlier until his hand blistered. Then he went 6-for-6 with four home runs, a double, six runs scored, and seven RBIs in a 16-3 rout of the Brewers. His 19 total bases set a Major League record that stood alone until Nick Kurtz tied it in 2025. Many consider it the greatest single-game offensive performance in baseball history. Sometimes the slump breaks. Sometimes it explodes.

Ed. 05.23.26

05/22/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 22

A future preacher striking out four times, a pitcher whose grandson begged for a no-hitter, a rookie debut for the ages, and a switch-hitter doing it from both sides.

Billy Sunday's Forgettable Debut (1883)
A 20-year-old Iowa kid named Billy Sunday took his first major league at-bats for the Chicago White Stockings and was struck out four times by Grasshopper Jim Whitney. It took him three more games to get his first hit. Sunday hung around for eight seasons, then walked away at 28 to preach. By his death in 1935, he had delivered an estimated 20,000 sermons to crowds totaling roughly 100 million people in person. Before Billy Graham, there was a converted ballplayer with four Ks in his debut box score.

The Record No One Wanted (1911)
Boston Rustlers pitcher Cliff Curtis lost his 23rd straight decision, a record for futility that would stand for 82 years. When Anthony Young of the Mets tied the record in 1993, Curtis's grandson reached out and asked Young to please throw a no-hitter next time out so the Curtis family could keep its small place in the record book. Young could not oblige. He ran the streak to 27 before the Mets finally walked off a win for him that July.

Newcombe Announces Himself (1949)
Two days after a rough debut in relief, Dodgers rookie Don Newcombe made his first MLB start and shut out the Reds 3-0 on five hits. He drove in two runs himself. The third Black pitcher in major league history won 17 games as a rookie and won Rookie of the Year. He's one of only two players ever to win ROY, MVP, and Cy Young (Justin Verlander joined him in 2011).

Reggie Smith, Both Sides, Three Times (1976)
Cardinals switch-hitter Reggie Smith hit three home runs at Veterans Stadium against the Phillies. Three-run shot off Jim Kaat righty in the fifth. Solo shot off Ron Reed lefty in the seventh to tie. Solo shot off Tug McGraw righty in the ninth to win it, 7-6. It was the only three-homer game of Smith's 17-year career. He retired with 314 homers, seven All-Star selections, a Gold Glove, and a 1981 World Series ring.

Ed. 05.22.26

05/21/2026

This Day in the Old Ball Game: May 21

A ball that nobody could catch, an umpire who never got the chance, a hitter on a hot streak nobody noticed, and the Babe doing the impossible while losing by 8.

The Ball, the River, and the Rowboat (1880)
At Albany's Riverside Park, Lip Pike, baseball's first great Jewish slugger, blasted a pitch clean over the wall and into the river. Worcester right fielder Lon Knight hopped into a rowboat to chase it, then gave up. Most ballparks of the era had no rule granting a home run on a ball over the fence, so outfielders went after them. Knight, who had thrown the first pitch in NL history four years earlier, finally rowed back empty-handed.

Baseball's Most Hated Owner Banishes an Umpire (1901)
Giants owner Andrew Freedman, the most despised man in baseball, accused umpire Billy Nash of incompetence and barred him from the Polo Grounds. With no umpire on hand, two players were drafted to officiate the game between their own teams: Pittsburgh's Chief Zimmer and the Giants' John Warner. Somehow it worked out for New York. 20-year-old Christy Mathewson won his seventh straight start 2-1.

Earl Sheely's Quiet Slugging Spree (1926)
Earl Sheely of the White Sox hit three doubles and a home run vs. the Red Sox at Comiskey Park. Combined with his three doubles the day before, that gave him seven consecutive extra-base hits, tying a major league record. The six doubles across the two games tied another. Sheely was never a famous slugger, but for 48 hours in May 1926, he was the hottest hitter in baseball.

Babe Ruth's First Regular-Season 3-HR Game (1930)
At Shibe Park, Babe Ruth finally did in the regular season what he had twice done in the World Series. He hit three home runs in one game. The first two came off A's right-hander George Earnshaw. The third, in the eighth, came off Lefty Grove and reportedly cleared the park, the street, a house, and two backyards before landing on the roof of the next house. The eventual champion Athletics hung nine on the Yankees in the seventh and won 15-7. The Babe could hit three out and still lose by eight.

Ed. 05.21.26

05/19/2026

Check out this beautiful new book coming soon from our friend Gary Cieradkowski:

Coming this July!