The Infinite Baseball Card Set is a never-ending card set of baseball’s forgotten heroes: Negro League legends, barnstorming mercenaries, semi-pro sluggers, blacklisted bums, foreign phenoms, bush league oddballs, and the famous before they were famous.
I say this all the time, but it’s stories like this that make this game interesting to me. You can take all the Hall of Famers and multi-million dollar contract guys – I’ll take Earl Huckleberry’s one unlikely afternoon in the big leagues anytime. […]
When the Red Stockings disbanded in 1871, Cincinnati found itself without a pro baseball team. It was up to a former Princeton ballplayer and a crowd-funded team across the river in Kentucky to bring pro baseball back. […]
This is a piece I wrote about ten years ago. I included an abbreviated version in my book, The League of Outsider Baseball, and always liked by illustration of the young Tommy. So, without further yapping, here’s my story of Tommy Lasorda’s early career as a southpaw who dreamed of playing for his beloved Dodgers. […]
Today, Wright’s time in Montreal is seen as a brief footnote to Jackie Robinson’s story – but I’m going to flip it the other way around and argue that those six weeks with Montreal was just a brief footnote in Johnny Wright’s story… […]
While Satchel Paige is usually referenced as the finest pitcher Blackball produced, many fans and sportswriters alike who witnessed both Paige and the man known as Cyclone Joe Williams pick the latter as the best. […]
From the start of his career in 1906, Lloyd was Blackball’s most sought after attraction and he switched teams often, stating “Wherever the money was, that’s where I was.” […]
Called “Boojum” because of the sound his line drives would make hitting the outfield wall, many consider Jud Wilson to be the most dangerous hitter in Black baseball history. […]
Wild Bill Wright’s contemporaries called him the Negro League’s “most complete ball player.” Built like an NFL linebacker, the 6’-6” outfielder had blinding speed on the base paths, fielded with grace and was a line-drive hitting machine. […]
Cool Papa Bell earned his nickname as a teenage pitcher in St. Louis where his unflappable demeanor on the mound caused his teammates to say he was “one cool papa!” […]
During this past summer, I was contacted by Scott Bush, Chief Executive Officer of the Society for American Baseball Research, who asked if I would be interested in doing a redesign of the other SABR publication, Baseball Research Journal. Needless to say, I said YES… […]