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.
Back in art school, I had a painting professor who used a peculiar phrase to describe the little details that make a painting standout: “moments.” In this post, I’ll share some of my favorite “moments” in the 1921 Orioles series. […]
There was no more famous Baltimore Oriole than Babe Ruth. The 19 year-old got his start with Jack Dunn’s Birds, and between Dunn and catcher Ben Egan, Ruth quickly developed into the hottest pitcher in the minor leagues. However, competition from the Federal League led Jack Dunn to sell his greatest find, causing a lifetime of resentment and the reason why he would hold on to so many of his stars long past the time they should have gone to the major leagues. […]
Of the thirteen members of the 1921 Orioles that made it to the majors, perhaps none was as unlikely to have done so as Lefty Matthews. Dogged by lack of control over his pitches, Matthews was given several chances by the Orioles before he was released to the low minors. Somehow Lefty. Caught a break, becoming one of only some 16,000 ballplayers who could claim they made it to The Show. […]
With a starting rotation of Ogden-Grove-Thomas-Bentley and Harry Frank in the bullpen, there was not much use for another rookie right-hander. However, Rufe Clarke just so happened to have been a former first baseman and an all-around talented ballplayer – an attribute that came in handy in the summer of ’21. […]
Every successful team boasts at least one jack-of-all-trades utility man – a guy who a manager can feel comfortable penciling in to play multiple positions when one of the regulars was hurt, in a slump of just need a day off. Back in the 1920s, a good utility man was often the difference between the pennant and a second-place finish. Wade Lefler was the 1921 Orioles’ ultimate utility player. […]
Jimmy Lyston had been around the Baltimore Orioles for many years, at times a bat boy and later moving up to peanut vendor and finally part of the groundskeeping crew. When Orioles owner-manager Jack Dunn saw the peppery 18 year-old groundskeeper fielding balls during batting practice, he signed him to a contract for the 1921 season. […]
I was marveling at the staggering records the Baltimore pitching staff racked up during 1919-1925: Grove had seasons of 25, 18, 27 and 26 wins, Jack Ogden had his 31 in ’21, Tommy Thomas won 32 in another, then of course there was Jack Bentley with his .412, Triple Crown season while also leading the league in pitching winning percentage – and then I saw the name Harry Frank. […]
Of all the players on the 1921 Orioles, Jack Bentley was the undisputed favorite. All but forgotten today, back in the early 1920s Baltimore Bentley was a flapper-era rock star. […]
Built along the lines of a football player and the exact opposite of the skinny Lefty Grove, Tommy Thomas was the 1921 Orioles third starter. In his first season with Baltimore, Thomas would win 24 games for the pennant-bound Birds. […]
Before he was the ace of the legendary 1929-31 Philadelphia A’s and one of the most dominating southpaw in major league history, Lefty Grove was a 3-time 20 game winner for Jack Dunn’s Baltimore Orioles. […]
The 1921 edition of the Baltimore Orioles boasted no less than four major league-quality starters, three of which would each post 30-win seasons in Baltimore. All four would go on to pitch in the majors and one would wind up with a plaque in Cooperstown. The undisputed ace of the ’21 club was right-hander Jack Ogden who would re-write the International League record books that summer. […]
Catching was always the weak link in Jack Dunn’s seven consecutive pennant winning teams. The 1921 team had Babe Ruth’s first catcher from 1914, Ben Egan, but he was 37 and injury prone. One of the young prospects recruited by Dunn was Baltimore sandlot star Calvin “Ducky” Davis. […]
Orioles owner-manager Jack Dunn maintained a vast local web of scouts that scoured everywhere from dusty Baltimore sandlots to prestigious Maryland universities. One of the gems that the scouts discovered was Dick Porter, a hard-hitting versatile infielder and outfielder who would spend eight years as one of the Orioles key members. […]
The way a typical Orioles inning went in 1921 was the number one and two hitters, Maisel and Lawry, would get themselves on base, and use their speed to swipe an extra base and get into scoring position. The consummate contact hitter Merwin Jacobson would advance the runner. Then Big Bill would come to bat, ready to slug them all home… […]
Between two stints in the big leagues, center fielder Merwin “Jake” Jacobson batted third the Birds’ lineup, his big bat being used to advance speedsters Fritz Maisel and Rabbit Lawry who batted before him. […]
The power behind the 1921 O’s could be found in their outfield. That summer the three regulars hit a combined .334 with 80 doubles, 37 triples and 34 homers. While all three would have career years with Baltimore, 1921 belonged to left fielder, Otis Lawry… […]
Every successful team needs a respected veteran to help guide the younger players and inspire with their experience. The 1921 Orioles were luck as they had two of these valuable assets – third baseman Fritz Maisel and catcher Ben Egan. Tall and gangly, Ben Egan was a baseball lifer. The Upstate New Yorker began […]
Fritz Maisel was the veteran backbone of Jack Dunn’s “Endless Chain of Champions.” Deceptively short and stocky, Maisel possessed blinding speed on the bases, a valuable asset in the hit and run Deadball Era style of playing. […]
All but forgotten today, Joe Boley had the makings of a superstar, and indeed he was, just on a minor league level. It wasn’t a lack of talent that stood in the way of his making the big leagues, it was that Joe Boley was too good. […]
Signed right off the Baltimore City College campus by Orioles owner Jack Dunn in 1918, Max Bishop would team up with shortstop Joe Boley to form the best middle infield in the minor leagues. […]
Finding a ball player like Babe Ruth would seem like a once in a lifetime chance, but for Baltimore Orioles owner-manager Jack Dunn, it happened twice. […]
The best way to begin my series on the 1921 Orioles is with their owner-manager, Jack Dunn. A true “baseball lifer,” Dunn had been a big league pitcher at the turn of the century before becoming a manager and finally owner of the minor league Baltimore Orioles. Dunn’s insistence on staying independent from any major league teams enabled him to assemble a ball club that would win seven consecutive International League pennants. […]
Today I’m unveiling the historical minor league team that I will begin to cover in its entirety. 20 players, from the manager and starting lineup to the pitching staff and utility players. There’s a Hall of Famer and well-known All-Stars, scrubs and never-weres. This team is part of a seven pennant-winning dynasty. I’m talking about the 1921 Baltimore Orioles. […]
For the entirety of his life, society did everything possible to marginalize Sol White and his accomplishments. But while a lesser man would have accepted his fate and faded from memory, Sol White made sure he preserved it. […]
Last month, in the care-free, pre-virus era, I teased a new Booklet Series called “After the Black Sox.” I had previewed each card as I finished it, but left one out: Shoeless Joe Jackson… […]
For the past year or two I’ve been working with a company out in California called Team Brown, and recently completed my third line of baseball-themed apparel. […]
It’s nice to have my work so prominently showcased in the official magazine of the Hall of Fame, but I find it a bigger thrill to have my work accompany an article by my good friend, Charlie Vascellaro. […]
A month or so ago, Walt Friedman of Summer Game Books called me up to ask if I had an illustration he could use on the cover of the updated reprint of Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide. I was immediately excited because Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide is a monumental work of early […]
This post is going to be the first one of several updates on what I’ve been up to lately – which in hindsight, actually looks like a lot. […]
Like many students of Negro League history, I was initially attracted to the subject by the rich stories that seemed too good to be true. Over the decades, many of those great tales have been proven false–but most, like the one I’m going to relate below, began with a true event, and no matter how much it was re-told and embellished over the years, that real story makes no less of a great story. […]
I love those “what if?” questions in history. You know, those major events in history that hinged on one minor and insignificant event or individual: what if Hitler had gotten into art school or what the world maps look like now if Gavrilo Princip was a lousy shot? Baseball has plenty of those great “what if’s” as well, and it was one of those minor turn of events that gave the game its greatest player. […]
Big League ballplayers always say they don’t hear the heckling from the stands – but how about from the opposite dugout? […]
ON DECEMBER 28, 1951 an El Mante, Mexico police officer was escorting a suspected car thief. The officer had apprehended the man when the paperwork he produced for the 1947 Buick he was driving wasn’t adequate enough to prove ownership. The officers suspicions were further aroused when the man offered to sell him his […]
One hundred and one years after eight Chicago White Sox players were banished to baseball purgatory, this new booklet series explores what became of each Black Sox. This new series will pick up where most history books end, for these ballplayers did not disappear into obscurity, but continued to play the game they betrayed—far beyond […]
Originally posted on my old blog back in October, 2010, I thought i would bring it back due to Kerouac’s being one of the eleven first-time candidates on the Baseball Reliquary’s 2020 Shrine of the Eternals ballot. […]
THREE DECADES AGO, when I was an art student in Baltimore, I had become interested in the city’s Negro League team, the Elite Giants. I had the good fortune to meet many former Elite Giants players as well as the fans who rooted for them. The Elites (pronounced EE-lights) became my favorite Negro League […]
This was one of those moments where either a hero or goat is created. Hollywood is fueled on this type of drama, where one becomes either Roy Hobbs or The Mighty Casey. But neither Hobbs nor Casey were entrusted with Harvard’s athletic reputation that afternoon in 1927; Izzy Zarakov was. […]
He’s credited with a lifetime Negro League average of .321, Cuban Winter League average of .311 and .311 in games played against white major league teams. If you’re talking about consistent, you’re talking about Clint Thomas. […]
New York Giants manager John McGraw had been around the game long enough to know he had to find that elusive “it” to get his team over the hump and win the pennant – he just had to find it. Instead, “it” found him. […]
A long, long time ago, I was an 18 year-old art student spending my summer not like all my well-to-do classmates backpacking across Europe or sailing in the Caribbean, but in a sweltering garment factory in Passaic, New Jersey earning the cash for my second year of school. One afternoon on my lunch break […]
Of the 15 players who recorded the highest single-season batting averages in the minors, more than half made it to the majors, and only one name appears twice – yet, he is not one of the players who got the call to The Show…
[…]
In early June, Rupe Mills was leading the Federal League in batting, home runs, fielding percentage, pitching wins – in fact, Mills was leading in EVERY category because he was the ONLY player in the league that year. […]
It seemed like some crazed pulp magazine story, but it was really happening. The co-pilot was no match for the crazed passenger who now hammered on his body with ham-sized fists until he slumped to the cabin floor. Now nothing stood between him and the pilot. […]
Anyone who’s done their share of baseball research by culling through old newspapers knows how easy it is to get sidetracked by an interesting article totally unrelated to the thing you’re looking for. That’s what happened when I was going through a 1925 Dallas sports page and stumbled on an Associated Press article that caused me to abandon what I was originally searching for and set my artistic sights on an obscure outfielder whose major league career totaled just 173 games spread over 5 mediocre seasons with 5 different teams. […]
Back in the spring of 2016 I was asked to create 16 portraits of Chicago Cubs greats that would be placed on permanent display in the famous Bleacher Section of Wrigley Field. I can’t tell you how much of an honor this is, to be a part of a ballpark as special as Wrigley Field. […]
When the Cincinnati Reds arrived in Havana in November 1908 for a 15-game exhibition tour, they last thing they expected was to be beaten black and blue by the Almendares Azules and their young pitching ace, José Méndez. […]
When doing my annual studio cleaning, I came upon the box of art cards I did years ago. I had made up 25 sets of cards, some of which I gave or sold off. I spent the weekend sorting through the remaining cards and was able to put together 20 sets of 90 cards plus […]
Dear Subscribers, I hope you have been enjoying the inaugural season of the Infinite Baseball Card Set Booklets Series. There are three more booklets left in this first series, and I am hoping to have the final one mailed out in August. From there I will be beginning SEASON 2 which will also have 12 […]
Somewhere enroute to Dallas, Branch Rickey stopped long enough to send a telegram which went something like this: “Am on my way with a hot potato. Batterton looks great and is great.” […]
Memorial Day, 2019. When you’re outside today, and hear the sweet “slap” of a ball hitting the well-worn leather of a glove, give a little silent thanks to Sam Kau and all the other Americans who gave their lives over the past 243 years to keep this nation safe and secure. […]
In the first Guest Author piece on the new website, Dr. Charles H. Brown ruminates on his favorite ballplayer and the trials and tribulations of sticking by his childhood hero long after the cheering stopped. […]
Despite having won three straight pennants and a World Series, the 1924 Yankees pitching staff was in need of a major rebuilding. Among all the spring training hopefuls was a tall, mysterious Mexican nicknamed “The General.” […]
And just like that, another Opening Day has arrived. I know New Year’s Day is supposed to be the start of a new year, but to me, that day is baseball’s Opening Day. With the 2019 season about to dawn, I got to thinking about my Pop, and how we formed a friendship around the game of baseball, and how important that relationship was to me. […]
From Maui to Hiroshima, Los Angeles to Sioux Fall and Sacramento to Kobe, Jimmy Horio stopped at nothing in a relentless pursuit of his dream: becoming the first Japanese-American to play in the major leagues. […]
The rest of the Yankees were content with baiting Ty Cobb from their dugout – all except a 29 year-old rookie named Shags Horan. The big, gold-toothed Irishman scooped up a handful of Navin Field turf and threw it in Cobb’s face. Both teams braced themselves for Cobb’s retaliation… […]
Of all the one-and-done players in the Baseball Encyclopedia, no one, not even Moonlight Graham, has as good a story as Jesse Baker. Underworld prizefight connections, Hollywood stunt doubles and Ty Cobb – Baker’s tale has it all! […]
After blowing out his arm, doctors told Carl DeRose that his baseball career was finished. Undaunted, the pitcher begged for one last chance to prove himself. On June 26, 1947 he did, and in doing so made baseball history. […]
In 1907, a teenage girl defied the standards of the day by pitching for a men’s baseball team. A year later she was barnstorming across the Midwest, with 3,000 fans filling Cleveland’s League Park to see “The Girl Wonder” play ball. […]
The freshman who tried out for the Yale baseball team in the Spring of 1947 wasn’t your typical college kid. The 22 year-old just left the U.S. Navy where he spent the last 3 years on an aircraft carrier flying torpedo bombers against the Japanese. Upon his discharge, he married his long-time girlfriend Barbara and entered Yale University. […]
One of my best friends is a nephew of Paul Gillespie, catcher for the 1942-45 Chicago Cubs. Though he had a short career due to war service and then injury in the ’45 Series, Gillespie has his own special place in baseball history as one of just 2 players to hit home runs in their first AND last career at bats. And speaking of bats, look at what just came in the mail today… […]
I just wanted to say that I know it has been a month since I have posted a brand new story. It’s not that I have run out of material, or have gotten bored with The Infinite Baseball Card Set – both of those things are very, very far from the truth. The reason behind […]
No other moment in sports history comes close to that single game in October, 1951. Countless non-fiction books have been written about the ’51 pennant race, the game, what happened to the home run ball, and the players after the cheering died down. Thomson’s home run has been employed as a plot device for shelves of fiction novels and TV shows, and hardly an autobiography of a person alive in 1951 could escape mentioning where they were on that day. […]
Cy’s single game for the 1934 Phillies earned him place in baseball history, but it is the rest of his story that makes him so much more interesting – navy veteran of World War II, survivor of an accident that almost rendered him paralyzed for life, Hollywood bit actor and, most intriguingly, a man who was affectionately called “the best friend we dope fiends have.” […]
Since 1913, the name Walter Malmquist has sat atop the list of highest single-season batting averages. His .477 has become one of baseball’s iconic numbers as well as a record that has never been topped. But did he really hit .477? […]
I’m just putting the finishing touches on my next story and illustration – a new look at Walt Malmquist’s 1913 Nebraska State League season. Who the heck is Malmquist and why should you care about his season in an obscure and defunct bush league? Well, for more than a century Walt Malmquist’s .477 has been touted as the highest recorded single-season batting average in professional baseball. Problem is, Walt Malmquist didn’t hit .477. […]
Back in the late 1980’s, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Leon Day. The old Negro Leaguer lived nearby me in Baltimore, and I would spend afternoons in his little second floor baseball room listening to his stories. I once asked him what was the best game he ever pitched, and instead of naming his Opening Day no-hitter or one of his record-setting strikeout games, Day told me about his Game 2 masterpiece in the 1945 G.I. World Series… […]
It was the week before Christmas, 1919.
Three men were cruising the neighborhood looking for a Caddy. It was, as the stockier one of the three had proclaimed earlier that evening, a “good night for stealing autos.” […]
I’ve been working on a new project lately, and it’s just about out of the prototype stage and into production. […]
The Brooklyn fans didn’t know who the guy was, but it seemed that every time “that man” came to the plate, he tore Dodger pitching apart. Eventually, as more and more singles, doubles and homers flew off the end of his bat, “that man” evolved into a more reverent “The Man” – the name Stan Musial was forever known by. […]
Everyone loves a good story about miraculous underdogs and winning despite the odds – but there is no more incredible comeback story than than of the 1937 Salisbury Indians – when guys named Blackie, Jorge and Bobo came together to overcome an 0-26 record and win the pennant. […]
Just about 98 years ago today, a tall, lanky nineteen-year-old stepped onto the train platform at Baltimore’s Camden Station. The kid’s name was Robert Groves, though everyone back home in Lonaconing, Maryland called him Bob, and here was in Charm City to join the Baltimore Orioles. […]
With his trademark mane of wavy, dark hair, the Indiana native was well known for his many eccentricities, such as practicing his sliding in hotel hallways and wearing ladies silk stockings under his uniform for luck. But for all his flakiness, Smoke holds the record for most no-hitters in one season – FOUR – set in 1908. […]
The area they were clearing of enemy troops looked a lot like familiar places in the northeast and Midwest United States, and many of the boys of G Company thought back to the little places they left behind called Sussex County, Washington Courthouse, Mechanicsburg or Crescent Springs.
To the officers of G Company, this place was just called Hill 378. […]
In the spring of 1913, Cincinnati Reds fans, players and management were finally confident their club was turning a corner. Two years earlier, in what was thinking outside the box for the time, the Reds signed Cubans Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida to fill holes in their roster. Now they were awaiting the arrival of another Cuban import to solve their shortstop problem… […]
One can almost hear the voices of 10 year-old boys repeating the name “MEMO LUNA!” as they expectantly thumbed through a freshly opened pack of the new 1954 Bowman bubble gum cards. While coming across a Ray Katt, Gil Coan or Mel Hoderlein would have merited merely a grunt or groan, even the most jaded 10 year-old boy had to admit that “Memo Luna” had an alluring ring to it. […]
Over the years many women ballplayers were given the title of “the female Babe Ruth”, but Stella Friss may be the only one that came close to living up to it. […]
In the spring of 1922 a strapping young man stepped off the Manhattan train and into the streets of Morristown, New Jersey. The city-slicker shouldered his bag of baseball equipment and headed to Collinsville Oval where he was hired to play for the local ball club. In the scorecard he would be called “Lou Long” – in reality he was Lou Gehrig, and for the second summer in a row he was violating college rules by playing ball for money… […]
When Dick Sipek took the field for the Cincinnati Reds in 1945, he was living the dream of many American kids before and since – with one major exception. Instead of hearing the roar of the crowd, the PA announcer heralding his first at bat or the umpire calling balls and strikes, all Dick Sipek heard was silence. See, Dick Sipek was completely deaf… […]
Today, there is no other avenue for a baseball player besides organized baseball: the major and minor leagues are the only game in town. But one hundred years ago, a guy could make a decent living playing baseball without suiting up for a professional ball club. And that’s just what Overton Tremper chose to do. […]
Mexico City, July 25, 1946.
Mickey Owen, former catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, warily watched the big Cuban standing 90 feet away on third base. Before putting his mask back on he wiped the sweat from his forehead and eyeballed the man they called “El Gigante” – “The Giant”. […]
For many decades blackball historians were baffled by Maddox’s nickname of “One Wing” until the new breed of researchers uncovered contemporary newspaper articles that verified the pitcher-outfielder’s lack of a left arm. This revelation came as a surprise to many, more so when it was found that the one-armed ballplayer was the 1920 Negro Southern League batting champ! […]
Even after the majors were integrated there were precious few slots open to the black players and many men of doubtless talent were left languishing in the minors or never received the call they hoped for. Max Manning is one who received that longed-for call – the problem was, if he took it, his honor and integrity were also on the line. […]
I figured of all the players in my Minor League Home Run Champions Series, Bunny Brief would be the easiest to research. Since the guy is co-owner of the record for most minor league home run crowns in a career (8), I had assumed that someone would have written a book, or a chapter in a book, or for God’s sake at least an extensive article on the guy – but sadly, no one has – until now. […]
Mose Solomon’s popularity with baseball historians stems not just for his tremendous 1923 season with Hutchinson in which he belted 49 homers, but also from his being one of the first baseball stars who openly acknowledged his Jewish faith. This combination of power and religion earned him the unforgettable nickname of “The Rabbi of Swat.” […]
Like so many of the players I write about, I found Jack Kloza while searching for something else. And, like so many of the outsiders I write about, what at first just seemed like a marginal career highlighted by a brief cup of coffee in the majors, turned out to be a very interesting tale on so many levels. I was drawn to this fella because the grainy 1936 newspaper article I found showed a guy who looked remarkably like a young Charles Bronson. […]
Today there would never be a “Babe Ruth of the Minor Leagues.” Once a player starts making headlines in AA or AAA he’s called up before the ink dries on the sports page. However, back in the 1920’s and 30’s, it was a different game and many guys like Buzz Arlett were doomed to spend their career just shy of the big time, remembered only as another “The Babe Ruth of the Minor Leagues.” […]
A late start to his career and appendicitis kept Ollie Carnegie firmly entrenched in the minor leagues. Accepting that he’d never be a big leaguer, Carnegie finished in the top five in home runs four out his first five seasons in Buffalo, cementing his reputation as “The Bambino of Buffalo.” […]
Clarence “Big Boy” Kraft was the power behind the 1919-1924 Fort Worth Panthers, one of the finest minor league teams of the pre-war era. His 55 homers in 1924 was the highest recorded in the minors up to that time and only second to Babe Ruth’s major league record of 59 he set in 1921. As could be expected, after that 1924 season, everyone wanted a piece of Big Boy… […]
Tony Lazzeri – you know him, right? Victim of Grover Cleveland Alexander’s big strikeout in Game 7 of the ’26 World Series, charter member of the Yankees’ Murderer’s Row and first superstar ballplayer of Italian heritage – well, back before he was with the Yanks, he made baseball history under a different name… […]
On the day Moose Clabaugh hit home run number 62, the Brooklyn Robins announced they had purchased the slugger, delivery due ASAP. As soon as that news hit the wires, no less than three other teams claimed they had the rights to Moose. After the legal dust settled, Clabaugh was on the next train east – destination Ebbets Field. […]
In the five and a half decades after he retired in 1942, Joe Hauser was the go-to man for “what if”, “hard-luck” and “where is he now” baseball stories. Hauser’s career stretched from the Deadball Era of Ty Cobb through the Roarin’ Twenties of Babe Ruth and on into the hardscrabble Depression Era 1930’s. That he lived to be 98 years old made him one of the most interviewed ballplayers and a direct and priceless link back to the game’s Golden Age. […]
For Bob Crues, his shot at having his own place in history came down to one night in Amarillo back in 1948. For 138 games, “Home Run Bob” had ripped apart West Texas-New Mexico League pitching. With one last game to play, Crues’ home run tally stood at 69. One more and he would break the record set by Joe Hauser in 1933. […]
Back in the summer of 1954, Joe Bauman was living a double life. By day he’d put in a full day’s work pumping gas at one of the Texaco service stations he and his wife Dorothy owned. Then at 5 he’d clock out and spend the evening chasing baseball’s most elusive offensive record. […]