Classic Baseball Radio

The police are lined up around Griffith Stadium to keep the peace as the Washington Senators are visited by the New York Yankees. There’s little love between the two teams or their fans; the last meeting in July ended with the Yankees’ catcher Bill Dickey punching Carl Reynolds onto the injured list with a broken jaw. Dickey  Today’s game will be Reynolds first game back, and following a 30-game s...

A Saturday game in May can be both an inconsequential checkmark in a season and a game that can be looked back on as a captivating moment in history.  It’s impossible to look back at 1972 and ignore the first players' strike that disrupted the first two weeks of the season. Spring training was curtailed, and both hitters and pitchers are still struggling with timing in May. 86 games were wiped fro...

The Chicago Cubs are on a tear. The Northside faithful can feel a dynasty building beneath their feet, with every pitch, every hit, and every run coming home. And now they have a hero. In what was seen as the most lopsided and controversial transfers in baseball, even while it was happening, the New York Yankees placed their star pitcher Hank Borowy on waivers, and the Cubs slammed $100,000 into t...

Just another Friday night in the Steel Capital of the world, and the defending World Series champions welcome the St Louis Cardinals to Pittsburgh? Think again. The Pirates’ 1960 World Series win feels like it is from another era, as the team struggled through injuries and performance, but was still adrift in the middle of the National League. The NL is looking tired as well, stuck with 8 teams an...

What a difference a year makes. From finishing second-last in the American League, the Boston Red Sox are sitting just one-and-a-half games behind the White Sox after the All-Star break. Their midweek series against the third-placed California Angels is another “must-win” series in the chase for their first pennant since 1946. The Angels are chasing just as hard, looking to show that the expansion...

Can a four-game series define a season? The Brooklyn Dodgers’ “Boys Of Summer’ are no longer boys. The defending World Series champions find themselves in a three-way brawl for the 1956 National League pennant with the young upstart Milwaukee Braves and the heavy-hitting Cincinnati Redlegs. Every head-to-head matchup carried the weight of a play-off game, and pressures both on- and off-field impac...

The shadow of war hangs over the 1941 season, a season that historians call “the last pure summer of baseball” before the world is irrevocably changed. Club rosters will be weakened as the peacetime draft moved to a wartime footing, yet baseball served as a vital yet fragile distraction. As the defending American League champions, the visiting Detroit Tigers are without star player Hank Greenburg,...

The Cleveland Indians' Big Four rotation served them well in 1954, delivering 111 wins and a ticket to the World Series. Yet their power is fading, and many worry that the AL pennant in the previous year was a high-water mark. They would rack up eight winning seasons in the decade, but only a sole defeat in the Fall Classic to show for it. In tonight’s game the welcome the young and eager Chic...

The year of the pitcher is over. Following a league-wide ERA of 2.98, Denny McLain’s 31 wins, and Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA, the MLB took drastic action; the mound was lowered from 15 inches to 10 inches, and the strike zone was reduced. As the season begins, pitchers are coming to terms with a brand new game, none more so than this match-up between the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Sutton and the Cincinna...

The ageing empire of Casey Stengel’s Yankees is in a desperate three-way street fight for the American League against the Chicago White Sox (the defending champions) and the ‘Kiddie Krops’ of the Baltimore Orioles. With only half a game separating them in the loss column, every game is a make-or-break. In tonight’s game, the Yankees welcome the Orioles into the cauldron of the House that Babe Buil...

Welcome to Classic Baseball Radio’s Clubhouse, where we step back from the hectic pace of the games and take some time to talk about the history of baseball. Consider these bonus episodes as the pre-recorded explainers and profiles you normally see on sports broadcasts. As always, we look forward to your feedback. Joining us in the Clubhouse is Liz Thompson from Diamond Scorecard Designs. Her mom...

The Philadelphia Phillies were meant to have the 1950 National League sewn up. With two weeks left in the regular season, they were seven and a half ahead of the Red Sox and nine ahead of the Dodgers. Then they collapsed. In the second-last series of the season, the Phillies travel to the Polo Grounds to take on a rampaging New York Giants who have won 15 of their last 25 games. The Phillies? Just...

The San Diego Padres have lost their last nine games, and with rumours of the franchise moving to Washington, the management is looking for anything to bring the winning ways, and the fans, back to San Diego Stadium. Is the answer Dave Winfield? San Diego picked Winfield with the fourth overall pick in the first round draft. Winfield was a pitcher, but the Padres needed bats in the lineup, so they...

Following an injury at the 1937 All-Star Game, Dizzy Dean lost his fastball, and the St Louis Cardinals traded away one of the leading lights of The Gashouse Gang. The Chicago Cubs picked up Dean in exchange for three players and the then-legendary sum of $185,000, convinced that his arm would recover. The fastball never returned, but Dean equipped himself with a new arsenal of knuckles, screws an...

1956 is a year that Yankees fans have fond memories of... Mickey Mantle will take the triple crown, Don Larsen will pitch a perfect game in the World Series, and Whitey Ford will lead the American League in ERA and winning percentage. Today, let's listen to Ford in action. The Chicago White Sox are visiting the Bronx for a doubleheader. Ford will face a line-up that includes a young Luis Apari...

The Boston Red Sox are in trouble. They are 36-37 at home, and have three games left to avoid the losing record; and they've just lost the first game in a two-game series against the Detroit Tigers. Locked in fourth place, they are playing for pride and to avoid a losing season in Fenway Park. But they have an ace in the line-up. Ted Williams, returning from military service in Korea, is comin...

The SF Giants have just lost a place in the World Series, with arch rivals the Dodgers taking the National League's spot the previous evening. The Giants' 94-67 record with one game to go is not enough. Game 152 has become one to win for the pride of the club and to end the season with a W. The Cincinnati Reds were even further back in the National League. The core trio of Frank Robinson, Vada Pin...

The records credit Jim Bouton with the win, but everyone who followed the Yankees' 1963 season knows that the driving force in the middle of the year was Elston Howard. Stepping up into a leadership role after Mickey Mantle broke his foot and moved to the Injured List for ten weeks, the Yankees catcher would shepherd the rotation through the summer months with performance like this one, taking...

You can’t talk about Nolan Ryan without talking about the moments he flirted with Baseball Immortality. In a career that lasted 27 seasons, he threw a record seven no-hitters, three more than the number two on the list, Sandy Koufax. He also threw twelve one-hitters, sharing that record with Bob Feller. Today, we turn back the clock to 1970, as Nolan Ryan returns to Major League Baseball after a s...

Knuckleball pitcher Dick Fowler spent his entire career in the Majors with the Philadelphia Athletics. During the Second World War, he enlisted at the age of 22 and served three years with Canada’s 48th Light Highlanders, known as "The Ladies from Hell" thanks to wearing kilts on the battlefield. His first start on returning from service saw him face the St Louis Browns and hurl a no-hitter, the f...

The Boston Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates prepare to meet for the first time in the 1930 season, with the two clubs starting the campaign facing different challenges. The Pittsburgh Pirates, under manager Jewel Ens, have been playing inspired baseball. They have stormed out of the gate with a 9-3 record, establishing themselves as an early pennant contender alongside the St. Louis Cardinals in the...

The 1969 World Series saw the Baltimore Orioles humbled by the Miracle Mets. The team carried that burden through the 1970 season, using it not to fall, but to rise. After 108 wins in the regular season, they stormed back to the World Series. Facing them were Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine." While the Orioles' offence delivered the runs, it's widely regarded that the defence w...

What options do you have when your Game 7 starting pitcher falls ill? For the Milwaukee Braves in 1957, the answer was to call back Lew Burdette from two days' rest to pitch in the winner-takes-all duel against the New York Yankees. Burdette had already pitched two complete games and a shutout in the second. Now the weight of facing the Yankees, who were looking to go back-to-back in the Fall...

The 1945 World Series between the Chicago Cubs an the Detroit Tigers is all square heading into Game 3 game apiece. The Cubs starting pitcher is 36-year-old veteran Claude Passeau, and he's about to throw a near perfect game with just 28 plate appearances by the Tigers. While his name is not brought up in discussions of the best pitchers of the era, his performance in Game Three is one of the...

The Seattle Pilots organisation spent just one year in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee and rebranding as the Brewers. With just one year on the books, the Pilots' record brings up some interesting triva. While several players on the 1969 roster would feature in various All-Star games, only two would wear the Pilots in the celebration of baseball. Don Mincher would return following his 1967...