Across his magnificent, inaugural Hall of Fame class career, Christy Mathewson paced all his NL peers in fewest walks per nine innings on seven different occasions, a repetition of supremacy that since Matty had his last leadership campaign in 1915, has been surpassed by only Greg Maddux. Before Mathewson started […]
In the first game of a doubleheader on August 19, 1930, Cubs center fielder Hack Wilson delighted the home crowd with his 43rd home run of the year – an astounding total from a couple of perspectives. There was this: by day’s end, Wilson enjoyed a 14-homer leadership advantage over […]
Harold Baines drove in 1,628 runs in his 22-year career, more RBI than all but 33 players in Major League history. The number and ranking is/was an essential part of his narrative, even serving as the final statement on his Hall of Fame plaque. 10 of those 1,628 came in […]
The 1895 Baltimore Orioles won more games than any other NL club that year and did so with a young array of talent that shimmers even when looking from a perch more than 125 years removed. By Baseball Reference’s accounting and evaluation, that club had a trio of position players […]
The 2025 Tigers have scored 309 runs – an impressive output at this stage of the season but not really anything exceptional to trace through history. The worthiness of any exploration lies along a convergent path, one that places that runs scored tally alongside the team’s runs allowed (Detroit has […]
For all the enjoyment a Major League ballgame can provide when its young stars showcase their extraordinary physical gifts – those unimaginable blends and demonstrations of reflex and reaction time and flexibility and adjustment – the opportunity to savor something with a different profile can be equally alluring. Historically, this […]