Twenty-five years ago today, one of the game’s greatest sluggers had perhaps the greatest games of his career. Just 23 years old, rookie first baseman Mark McGwire had a tremendous day at the plate. On June 27, 1987, the A’s played a terrible Indians team before barely 13,000 fans in Cleveland. The Indians had won […]

Twins 4, White Sox 1: Kevin Youkilis made his Chisox debut and went one for four in a loss and gave us this odd picture of him in a White Sox uniform. Adam Dunn went 0 for 4 and struck out four times, but the list of things he gives less of a crap about […]

40 years ago today, a pitcher mad a damn impressive debut. For a few innings, people could be forgiven for thinking the next great hurler was making his debut. That did not turn out to be the case, but it was a memorable start. The pitcher was Bill Slayback, and he was a 24-year-old the […]

I’m back after a week’s vacation. I wrote up a long sappy version of it last week, but here’s the short version: San Diego for five days, during which I took Mookie and Carlo to their first ever major league game to see the Rangers vs. the Padres last Monday night. It was a doubly […]

Fifty years ago today, was a special day in the history of Tiger Stadium. The old ballpark hosted many games in its day—6,879 regular season ones, 27 postseason contests, plus an All-Star game or two—but none were longer than the marathon game that took place a half-century ago today. On June 24, 1962, the Tigers […]

Yesterday, on June 23, 2012, Jim Thome made history. In the bottom of the ninth in a Phillies-Rays game tied 6-6, the veteran slugger hit a pinch-hit solo walk-off home run to end the game. It’s the 13th regular season walk-off home run of Thome’s career—more than anyone else in baseball history. Previously, he was […]

10 years ago today was one of the saddest days in 21st century baseball. Today was the day the Cardinals-Cubs game at Wrigley Field was cancelled due to some news as shocking as it was tragic. It was on June 22, 2002 that Darryl Kile died. He was a star NL pitcher who came up […]

100 years ago, a Hall of Famer made his big league debut, southpaw starting pitcher Eppa Rixey. He’s frankly one of the stranger and more questionable Hall of Fame picks. He isn’t one of the worst mistakes in Cooperstown history. Those guys are short career’ed hitters with numbers inflated by the era they lived in […]

We may as well officially declare this R. A. Dickey Day at The Hardball Times. Troy Patterson tops the homepage with his article examining Dickey’s remarkable strikeout totals with his knuckleball. Patterson may have thought it was well-timed, coming soon after Dickey’s 12-strikeout one-hitter on June 13 against the Rays. Little did he know—okay, by […]

Seventy years ago today, one of baseball’s great milestones was attained. On June 19, 1942, longtime National League star Paul Waner singled for career hit No. 3,000. He was just the seventh man to join the 3,000 hit club, and the first in nearly 20 years. He’d been a star for the Pirates for nearly […]