There are a lot of Major League games every season. There have been a lot of Major League seasons. The spring->summer->fall carnival ride of rises and dips, the sheer volume of numbers and storylines, the numerous ways to organize and contextualize: all of this makes it easy and natural to […]
In 1956, Henry Aaron – playing in his age-22 season – led the NL with 340 total bases. Over in the AL, Mickey Mantle – playing in his age-24 season – paced the Junior Circuit in this same category, with 376. This excerpt from that season is notable not only […]
The 2007 Devil Rays finished the year 30 games below .500 and posted their 10th losing season in as many years of existence (it was also the ninth time in those 10 seasons the club had failed to reach even 70 victories). Pretty bleak, for certain. But on September 5 […]
On May 1, 1966, Cleveland’s Sam McDowell went the distance on a one-hitter to defeat the White Sox, 1-0. The gem lowered the left-hander’s ERA to 1.55 and raised his shutout tally to two. The next time Cleveland played a ballgame, on May 3, the outcome looked familiar, thanks to […]
When Rennie Stennett tied the Major League record for hits in a nine-inning game, his seven came out of the leadoff spot. When he tied the modern era record for triples in a game, Lance Johnson struck his three when batting at the top of the order. When they tied […]
In 1998, Texas cleanup hitter Juan González embodied that descriptive amazingly well and often, with eight different games featuring at least five RBI. No other player in the modern era has produced so many big-RBI games, although a few aren’t too far behind. In 1930, Lou Gehrig had seven such […]
On April 22, 1983, George Brett, batting genius, stroked a double as his Royals improved to 7-4 on the year. The two-base hit gave the future Hall of Famer nine doubles to go along with four home runs and gave him more extra-base hits through his club’s first 11 games […]
When Reggie Jackson hit 37 home runs before the 1969 All-Star break, that explosive first half saw the youngster (he turned 23 that May) wallop in bunches, with eight multi-home run games. Imagine that – before the Midsummer Classic that year, Jackson already had more multi-homer games than any other […]
It’s been more than a decade since the American League saw the same player capture the batting crown, on-base title, and slugging belt. A year after he claimed the traditional Triple Crown in 2012, Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera took home the rate-stat version, slashing .348/.442/.636. Minnesota’s Joe Mauer – in 2009 […]
On April 20, 1992, Giants starter Dave Burba threw a 2-1 pitch to his first adversary of the contest. The offer was gladly received and instantly returned by that opponent in the form of a, as described within the Baseball Reference play-by-play account, “Fly Ball to Deep LF Line”: Craig […]