Classic Baseball Radio

Going in to the 1961 season, the single-season record for home runs was 60, held by Babe Ruth. Leaving the 1961 season, that record was earned by Roger Maris and his 61 Bronx Bombs. Except some argued that 1961's longer season meant it shouldn't be seen as a record. Baseball Commisioner Ford Frick announced that the record was for 154 games, not 162, so it should be shown seperately with a...

Duke Snider was, arguably, the first poster-boy for the Dodgers following their move to Los Angeles, but his legendary status (and seven consecutive All-Star appearances) was earned while the team was based in Brooklyn. During his career, this Center Fielder was named to the National League All-Star team eight times, appeared in six World Series, won the Fall Classic in both 1955 and 1959, and was...

The Knuckleball… a pitch that is turbulent, unpredictable, and rarely mastered. One player who did was Phil Niekro. With 318 career victories he currently sits 16th on the All-time Winners list, the highest of any knuckleball pitcher. Of course the knuckelball is a fickle mistress. Niekro may have had three 20-win seasons, but he also had two 20-loss seasons as well; and to top it all off he is th...

For many, Bob Feller is the fastest pitcher the baseball world has ever seen, with a reported 107 mph pitch once leaving his hand. And if Ted Williams says that's true, who is going to argue with that> In an interrupted career, Feller posted a lifetime ERA of 3.25 on 266 wins from 570 games, including 44 shutouts, 12 one-hitters, and three no-hitters. On retirement, he was the number three...

For 1.944 games, Eddie Mathews played Third Base for the Braves; first the Boston Braves, then the Milwaukee Braves, and then the Atlanta Braves. Travelling for the team as it moved cities in the fifties and sixties.  And he posted an impressive record; 12 All-Star appearances, two World Series victories, and nine consecutive season with thirty or more home runs. He retired with 512 homers, puttin...

Bill Singer picked up the first ever save for the Dodgers in their game against the Reds on April 7th 1969. Four more pitchers joined Singer on April 8th; the Red Sox's Juan Pizarro, the Expos' Carroll Sembera, the Pirates' Chuck Hartenstein, and the Pilots' Jack Aker. It's to the Seattle Pilots' game we head to this week. Not only is it one of the first games to have a sav...

Games can be important because of the players, of firsts, of society, or more. Today's classic baseball radio broadcast features an important first for umpiring that reflects society. In 1966 Emmett Ashford became the first African American umpire in the major league. Having umpired since the late 1930s  (by virtue of being the volunteer when another umpire failed to turn up to a game), he mad...

Jim Palmer won a World Series ring in the sixties. Jim Palmer won a World Series ring in the seventies. Jim Palmer won a World Series ring in the eighties… and Jim Palmer is the only pitcher win rings in three different decades. It's also worth flagging up his six All-Star appearances, three Cy Young awards, a no-hitter in 1969, his career ERA of 2.856, plus the simple to say but hard to compr...

When someone picks up awards for Rookie fo the Year, Most Valuable Player, and the Cy Young Award during their career, you know they are something special. And yes, pitcher Don Newcombe was something special. For today's classic game, let's go back to one of the many firsts that Newcombe had in his career, namely becoming the first black pitcher to start a game in the World Series. It'...

A key pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the late fifties and early sixties, Bob Friend still holds the Pirates' career records for innings pitched (3480), strikeouts (1682), and batters faced (14,644).  The four-time All Star played with Pittsburgh for fifteen years, but the last year of his MLB career saw him play in New York… adding  delightful footnote. He played the first half of the s...

Warren Spahn has finished out the 1958 season with 22 wins. That's an important stat, as it marks him out as the first left-handed pitcher to have nine 'twenty win seasons' in the Majors. He will eventually record 363 wins in his career. It should come as no surprise that the best left-handed pitcher each year wins The Warren Spahn Award. His 22 wins in the 1958 season have brought the...

Founded by the American Actor Gene Autry, the Los Angeles Angles was one of the the first expansion clubs (the other being Washington). The first year they played at the Los Angeles Wrigley Field - home of the previous LA Angels who had played in the PCL league. Four years as tennants of the Dogers followed, before Angel Stadium was opened. The team may not be as storied or as rewarded as the orig...

Milt Pappas made the All-Star Game three times, had a 10-year streak over .500 wins, an eleven year streak of double digit wins, pitched for 209 wins in his career… and never managed more than 17 wins in a season. That might feel about right for a pitcher in 2023, but back in 1972 Pappas was the epitomy of a long, slow burn into the history books.  June 17th 1972 saw the Los Angeles Dodgers are vi...

As the MLB works to bring the stolen base back into the game, let's remember one of the great power hitters who combined the hits with the speed.  Bobby Bonds was the first player have two season with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases, setting the record of five thirty-thirty seasons… a record that has never been beaten, although he now shares the five season ticket with his son Barry Bonds. By...

With the news that the Athletic are set to leave Oakland for the shiny bright lights of Las Vegas, it's worth remembering just how often the club has moved around. Way back in 1901, a new Philadelphia team was founded, and it joined the nascent American League, winning the Pennant six times and the World Series three times in the first twelve years. Their next period of dominace was during the...

If you wanted someone who could hit for power in the expansion era, you wanted Orlando Cepeda. The so-called 'Baby Bull' would be in contention for the leading batting, home run, RBI, slugging, and total bases awards every year for his first five years. He would alos be the first Puerto Rican All-Star, taking to the field in 1959. His first nine years saw him play first base for the San Fr...

Elston Howard was the first African American player on the New York Yankees roster, he was the first black player to win the American League MVP award, and he held the fielding percentage record as a catcher (a career .993) for seven years. He also invented the batter's donut. The now ubiquitous warm-up aid debuted in 1955 - with the St Louis Cardians the first to invest in it. Unfortunatly a...

Ron Hunt can rightly be described as loving the ball more than any batter in the 1971 season, when he became the first batter to be hit by fifty pitches in a single year. It wasn't an aberration either; in the last seven years of his twelve year career he led the Hit By Pitch counter in the National League.  His all-time count of 243 HBPs was the record in the live-ball era, and would not be o...

It's Father's Day, and Jim Bunning steps up on the mound to start the first game of a double-header for the Phillies and the Mets in Shea Stadium. He's going to throw 89 pitches that will burn his name into the history books. He'll be number seven in an incredibly exclusive club that has only 23 members. He'll be the first National League pitcher to join the club since 1880.  T...

Ted Williams sits alongside the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron in the pantheon of baseball hitters. He spent his entire time in the Majors with the Boston Red Sox. Over 19 years he averaged .344/.482/.634. He was the last player to average over .400 in a single season, and to this day that .482 on base percentage is highest of all time. It's 1960, and Ted Williams is in his last s...

The New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers played their final game together on 8th September, 1957. 22,376 crowded into the Polo Grounds to say goodbye to the rival teams.  Of course the Giants and the Dodgers weren't leaving baseball, they were both heading out to California to establish Major League Baseball on the West Coast where they play to this day. But this would be it for the classi...

Thanks to the expansion teams, 1969 saw the AL and NL both split into two divisions. That resulted in the first divisional championship games ahead of the World Series. In the National League the Atlanta Braves picked up the first NL West pennant, and faced an unexpected opponent in the NLCS. For the first seven years of the Mets, this expansion team never climbed higher than ninth place, and in f...

The world had other things on its mind during 1944, but baseball was there when America needed to take a break from the horrors of war. It wasn't pretty baseball; the fittest men were on the front lines, others were pulling double and trip shifts in factories, and that left a depleted pool of players. But it was baseball nonetheless, and it added another line to the history of the game, with the o...

Legendary catcher and broadcaster Tim McCarver died this weekend, aged 81. Here at Classic Baseball Radio, we'd like to take a moment to remember his career with one of his earliest appearances as Catcher for the St Louis Cardinals. As a player, he won two World Series, appeared in two All-Star games, and is a member of the Cardinals' Hall of Fame. He is one of just 31 players to have played in fo...

1968 is known as 'The Year Of The Pitcher', and no other pitcher stood out more than the Detroit Tigers' Denny McLain. With a winning record for the last three years, his achievement in the '68 season would become one of the greatest pitching performances in history. Because the wins just kept coming. It's September 14th, and the Tigers welcome the Oakland Athletic to Detroit. McLain is first up a...