This is an archive of selected biographies that have appeared on Portal:Baseball. Biographies are currently located monthly. To nominate a biography, please see Portal:Baseball/Selected content nominations.
Week 2, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 – August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 3, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 – August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 4, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 5, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 6, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 7, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 8, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 9, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
Week 10, 2007
Morris "Moe" Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American Major League Baseball catcher who also served briefly as a spy for the United States. His is said to be the only baseball card on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Berg spoke several languages and was sometimes called "the brainiest guy in baseball" by admiring newspaper sportswriters, who featured him in their columns far more than was called for by his sports prowess. His reputation was fueled when he did very well as a guest on the radio quiz show Information, Please! in 1938. Berg answered questions about the derivation of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences. Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball." (...more)
Week 11, 2007
Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe (July 7, 1902–August 11, 2005) was at his death thought to be the oldest living professional baseball player (it was later discovered that Silas Simmons was born seven years earlier in 1895), one of only a handful of major league (considering the Negro Leagues major) players who lived past their 100th birthdays, and a former star in the Negro Leagues. Playing for more than 30 teams, Radcliffe had more than 4,000 hits and 400 home runs, won about 500 games and had 4,000 strike-outs. He played as a pitcher and a catcher, became a manager, and in his old age became a popular ambassador for the game.
Damon Runyon coined the nickname "Double Duty" because Radcliffe played as a catcher and as a pitcher in the successive games of a 1932 Negro League World Series doubleheader between the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Monroe Monarchs. In the first of the two games at Yankee Stadium Radcliffe caught the pitcher Satchel Paige for a shutout and then pitched a shutout in the second game. Runyon wrote that Radcliffe "was worth the price of two admissions." Radcliffe considered his year with the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords to be one of the highlights of his career. The Crawfords beat the Monarchs 5-1 in the best-of-nine series.
Radcliffe pitched three and caught three of the six East-West All-Star games in which he played. He also pitched in two and caught in six other All-Star games. He hit .376 (11-for-29) in nine exhibition games against major leaguers Based in part on this, he would sometimes claim to be the greatest baseball player of all time. Despite this claim, he is not a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (more...)
Week 12, 2007
Jim Thorpe (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953) was one of the most versatile and accomplished athletes in modern sports. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, starred in college and professional football, played Major League Baseball and also had a career in basketball. He subsequently lost his Olympic titles when it was found he had played two seasons of minor league baseball prior to competing in the games (thus violating the amateur status rules). In 1983, thirty years after his death, his medals were restored.
Thorpe signed with the New York Giants in 1913 and played sporadically as an outfielder for three seasons. After missing the 1916 season, he again played for the Giants in 1917, but was sold to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. In the "double no-hitter" between Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs, Thorpe drove in the winning run in the 10th inning. Late in the season, he was sold back to the Giants. In 1919, Thorpe was traded to the Boston Braves for Pat Ragan. In his career, he amassed 91 runs scored, 82 runs batted in and a .252 batting average over 289 games. He continued to play baseball with teams in minor leagues until 1922.(more...)
Week 13, 2007
Jim Thorpe (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953) was one of the most versatile and accomplished athletes in modern sports. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, starred in college and professional football, played Major League Baseball and also had a career in basketball. He subsequently lost his Olympic titles when it was found he had played two seasons of minor league baseball prior to competing in the games (thus violating the amateur status rules). In 1983, thirty years after his death, his medals were restored.
Thorpe signed with the New York Giants in 1913 and played sporadically as an outfielder for three seasons. After missing the 1916 season, he again played for the Giants in 1917, but was sold to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. In the "double no-hitter" between Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs, Thorpe drove in the winning run in the 10th inning. Late in the season, he was sold back to the Giants. In 1919, Thorpe was traded to the Boston Braves for Pat Ragan. In his career, he amassed 91 runs scored, 82 runs batted in and a .252 batting average over 289 games. He continued to play baseball with teams in minor leagues until 1922.(more...)
Week 14, 2007
Steven Louis Dalkowski (born June 3, 1939 in New Britain, Connecticut) is a retired left-handed pitcher in minor league baseball. He is sometimes called the fastest pitcher in baseball history and had a fastball that may have exceeded 100 mph (161 km/h). Some experts believe it went as fast as 110 mph (177 km/h), others that his pitches travelled at 105 mph (169 km/h) or less. The Guinness Book of Records records the fastest pitch ever as 100.9 mph (162.4 km/h) by Nolan Ryan. As no radar gun or other device was available to measure the speed of his pitches precisely, the actual top speed of his pitches remains unknown. Regardless of its actual speed, his fastball earned him the nickname "White Lightning".
Dalkowski was also famous for his unpredictable performance and inability to control his pitches. His alcoholism and violent behavior off the field caused him problems during his career and after his retirement. After he retired from baseball, he spent many years as an alcoholic, making a meager living as a migrant worker. He recovered in the 1990s, but his alcoholism has left him with dementia and he has difficulty remembering his life after the mid-1960s.
Screenwriter and film director Ron Shelton played in the minor leagues alongside Dalkowski. His 1988 film Bull Durham features a character named "Nuke" LaLoosh (played by Tim Robbins) who is based loosely on Dalkowski. Also in the film The Scout Brendan Fraser's character is loosely based on him.(more...)
Week 15, 2007
Steven Louis Dalkowski (born June 3, 1939 in New Britain, Connecticut) is a retired left-handed pitcher in minor league baseball. He is sometimes called the fastest pitcher in baseball history and had a fastball that may have exceeded 100 mph (161 km/h). Some experts believe it went as fast as 110 mph (177 km/h), others that his pitches travelled at 105 mph (169 km/h) or less. The Guinness Book of Records records the fastest pitch ever as 100.9 mph (162.4 km/h) by Nolan Ryan. As no radar gun or other device was available to measure the speed of his pitches precisely, the actual top speed of his pitches remains unknown. Regardless of its actual speed, his fastball earned him the nickname "White Lightning".
Dalkowski was also famous for his unpredictable performance and inability to control his pitches. His alcoholism and violent behavior off the field caused him problems during his career and after his retirement. After he retired from baseball, he spent many years as an alcoholic, making a meager living as a migrant worker. He recovered in the 1990s, but his alcoholism has left him with dementia and he has difficulty remembering his life after the mid-1960s.
Screenwriter and film director Ron Shelton played in the minor leagues alongside Dalkowski. His 1988 film Bull Durham features a character named "Nuke" LaLoosh (played by Tim Robbins) who is based loosely on Dalkowski. Also in the film The Scout Brendan Fraser's character is loosely based on him.(more...)
Week 18, 2007
Clark Calvin Griffith (November 20, 1869 - October 27, 1955), nicknamed "the Old Fox", was a Major League Baseball pitcher (1891 - 1914), manager (1901 - 1920) and team owner (1920 - 1955).
Griffith entered the American Association in 1891, pitching 226 ⅓ innings and winning 14 games for the St. Louis Browns and Boston Reds. He began the following season with the Chicago Colts, and in 1894 began a string of six consecutive seasons with 20 or more victories, compiling a 21-14 record and 4.92 ERA. Griffith lowered his ERA over the following years to a low of 1.88 in 1898, the lowest mark in the league.
Griffith won 20 games for his 7th and final time in 1901 as a member of the Chicago White Stockings in the nascent American League; it was also the first year he assumed managerial duties. His success extended beyond his own play as the White Stockings won the AL title with an 83-53 record.
Week 25, 2007
Damon Runyon coined the nickname "Double Duty" because Radcliffe played as a catcher and as a pitcher in the successive games of a 1932 Negro League World Series doubleheader between the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Monroe Monarchs. In the first of the two games at Yankee Stadium Radcliffe caught the pitcher Satchel Paige for a shutout and then pitched a shutout in the second game. Runyon wrote that Radcliffe "was worth the price of two admissions." Radcliffe considered his year with the 1932 Pittsburgh Crawfords to be one of the highlights of his career. The Crawfords beat the Monarchs 5-1 in the best-of-nine series.
July, 2007
Fred Clarke (October 3, 1872 - August 14, 1960) was a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.
Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers, Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in major league history at the time and is still tied for tenth-longest. For six years, Clarke held the major league record for wins by a manager. (...more)
August, 2007
Sanford Koufax /ˈkoʊfæks/ (born Sanford Braun, on December 30, 1935) is an American left-handed former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1955 to 1966.
Koufax's career peaked with a run of six outstanding seasons from 1961 to 1966, before arthritis ended his career at age 30. He was named the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1963, and won the 1963, 1965, and 1966 Cy Young Awards by unanimous votes; in all three seasons, he won the pitcher's triple crown by leading the league (indeed, both major leagues) in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average. A notoriously difficult pitcher for batters to face, he was the first major leaguer to pitch more than three no-hitters (including the first perfect game by a left-hander since 1880), to average fewer than seven hits allowed per nine innings pitched in his career (6.79; batters hit .205 against him), and to strike out more than nine batters (9.28) per nine innings pitched in his career. He also became the 2nd pitcher in baseball history to have two games with 18 or more strikeouts, and the first to have eight games with 15 or more strikeouts. (more)
September, 2007
Jim Thorpe (May 28, 1888 – March 28, 1953) was one of the most versatile and accomplished athletes in modern sports. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, starred in college and professional football, played Major League Baseball and also had a career in basketball. He subsequently lost his Olympic titles when it was found he had played two seasons of minor league baseball prior to competing in the games (thus violating the amateur status rules). In 1983, thirty years after his death, his medals were restored.
Thorpe signed with the New York Giants in 1913 and played sporadically as an outfielder for three seasons. After missing the 1916 season, he again played for the Giants in 1917, but was sold to the Cincinnati Reds early in the season. In the "double no-hitter" between Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs, Thorpe drove in the winning run in the 10th inning. Late in the season, he was sold back to the Giants. In 1919, Thorpe was traded to the Boston Braves for Pat Ragan. In his career, he amassed 91 runs scored, 82 runs batted in and a .252 batting average over 289 games. He continued to play baseball with teams in minor leagues until 1922.
(more...)
December, 2007
George Edward Waddell (October 13, 1876 - April 1, 1914) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. In his thirteen-year career he played for the Louisville Colonels (1897, 1899), Pittsburgh Pirates (1900-01) and Chicago Orphans (1901) in the National League, and the Philadelphia Athletics (1902-07) and St. Louis Browns (1908-10) in the American League. Waddell earned the nickname "Rube" because he was a big, fresh kid. The term was commonly used to refer to hayseeds or farmboys.
Waddell led the Major Leagues in strikeouts for six consecutive years.
Waddell was odd and unpredictable, including a bad habit of leaving the dugout in the middle of games to follow passing fire trucks to fires, and performed as an alligator wrestler in the offseason. He was also easily distracted by opposing team fans who used to hold up puppies and shiny objects which seem to put Waddell in a trance on the mound. He was an alcoholic for much of his adult life, reportedly spending the entirety of his first signing bonus on a drinking binge (Sporting News called him "the sousepaw"). Waddell's eccentric behavior led to constant battles with his managers and scuffles with bad-tempered teammates; complaints from his teammates forced his trade from Philadelphia to St. Louis in early 1908, despite his importance to the team and his continued success.
(more...)
February, 2008
right|120px Walter Francis O'Malley (October 9, 1903 – August 9, 1979) was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979 and who was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He served as Brooklyn Dodger chief legal counsel when Jackie Robinson broke the racial color barrier in 1947. In 1958, as owner of the Dodgers, he brought major league baseball to the West Coast, moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and coordinating the move of the New York Giants to San Francisco at a time when there were no teams west of Missouri. For this, he was long vilified by Brooklyn Dodger fans.
O'Malley was mentioned several times in Danny Kaye's 1962 song tribute, "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O'Malley!)", which spins a tale of a fantasy game between the Dodgers and the Giants. At one point, the umpire's call goes against the home team:
- Down in the dugout, Alston glowers
- Up in the booth, Vin Scully frowns;
- Out in the stands, O'Malley grins...
- Attendance 50,000!
- So ....what does O'Malley do? CHARGE!!
On March 17, 1970, Walter turned over the presidency of the team to his son Peter, remaining as Chairman until his death in 1979. Peter O'Malley held the position until 1998 when the team was sold to Rupert Murdoch. The team remained successful on the field under Peter and won the World Series in both 1981 and 1988. They remained successful at the box office as well: by the end of the 1980s, they had not only became the first franchise to draw three million fans, but also they had done it more times than all other franchises combined.
(more...)
March, 2008
Lee Arthur Smith (born December 4, 1957) is a retired American right-handed relief pitcher who played for eight teams in Major League Baseball from 1980 to 1997. A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Smith was scouted by Buck O'Neil and drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 1975 Major League Baseball Draft. In his 18-year major league career, Smith's longest tenure with any one team was with the Cubs, with whom he spent his first eight seasons. One of the dominant closers in history, Smith held the major league record for career saves from 1993 until 2006, when San Diego Padres relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman passed his final total of 478 on September 24.[1] Smith was known as an intimidating figure on the pitcher's mound at 6 feet, 6 inches (1.98 m) and 265 pounds (120 kg) with a 95 mile per hour (150 km/h) fastball.[2]
In 1991, Smith set a National League record with 47 saves for the St. Louis Cardinals, and was runner-up for the league's Cy Young Award; it was the second of three times he led the NL in saves, and he later led the American League once while with the Baltimore Orioles in 1994. He also set the major league career record for games finished (802), and his 1,022 career games pitched were the third most in history when he retired; he still holds the team records for career saves for the Cubs (180), and he also held the Cardinals record (160) until 2006. Smith has been a candidate for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame five times since 2003, but has generally received 37-45% of the necessary votes on all total ballots cast by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, with 75% needed for election. After the end of his major league career, Smith spent time working as a pitching instructor at the minor-league level with the San Francisco Giants. He then served as the pitching coach for the South Africa national baseball team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and afterwards continued his previous job as a minor-league roving pitching instructor for the Giants. (more)
- ^ "Padres closer Trevor Hoffman to catch ceremonial first pitch delivered by Lee Smith prior to Thursday's game". MLB.com. 2006-10-04. Retrieved 2007-05-08.
- ^ Long, Shepard C. "Lee Smith". BaseballLibrary.com. Retrieved 2006-08-13.