The 1996 Rockies roster boasted the NL leader in home runs and RBI (Andrés Galarraga), the league’s top base stealer (Eric Young, Sr.) and the top guy in runs scored, total bases, extra-base hits and slugging percentage, Ellis Burks. Burks’ line also dazzled with 40 home runs and 32 steals, […]
In his farewell season in 2016, David Ortiz positively scoffed and sneered and even snarled at that old figure, Father Time. Playing his final game of the year just a couple of months shy of his 41st birthday, Ortiz concluded his age-40 campaign with 38 round-trippers and a .620 slugging […]
There have been 32 Yankees to power through an August and come out at the end with at least nine home runs and at least 23 RBI. Babe Ruth did this on his way toward establishing a new home run record in 1921. Joe DiMaggio did it on his way […]
The 1904 Athletics – pitching staff residence for a trio of Hall of Famers – saw their starters average 5.93 strikeouts per nine innings. Under the lights shining on the current environment, that figure may look, feel, sound … anemic, blah, laughable, but for the era, it was anything but. […]
Major League Baseball’s story in the 21st century has been significantly devoted to single-season longball feats – a Major League record here, an AL record there, a shuffling of NL and AL rookie records, perhaps a new record for catchers this season. The narrative has been much less consumed by […]
In an easy-going, 20-4 rout of the St. Louis Browns on May 21, 1925, Philadelphia Athletics backstop Mickey Cochrane erupted for three home runs. The verb is useful here, as Cochrane entered the game with one four-base hit on his career ledger; then again, he had only played 27 games […]
For those within a certain age range, Dwight Gooden’s 1985 season resonates like no other. The alchemy of age, dominance, the fact that his curveball seemed to (to me, at least) hop upward before crashing down, being in New York, the heights and the depths of the numbers, all of […]