Rattled in the Clinches: Manager Pie Traynor and the Epic Collapse of the 1938 Pirates

On the evening of September 29, 1938, inside the funereal visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley Field, a despondent Pie Traynor leaned back, fired up a cigarette, and prepared to lie through his teeth. His Pittsburgh Pirates had just lost three crushing games to the Chicago Cubs thanks to Gabby Hartnett’s famous “Homer in the Gloamin’” and [...]

The Battle For George Sisler’s Soul

In 1910, 17-year-old phenom George Sisler signed a contract with Akron of the Ohio-Pennsylvania League between his junior and senior years of high school.  Because he was a minor and had failed to garner his parents’ consent, Sisler and his father Cassius requested that the contract be declared invalid.  Sisler then enrolled at the University [...]

The Pittsburgh Americans? It Almost Happened

Over the first 30 years of the modern era, Barney Dreyfuss’ Pittsburgh Pirates battled John McGraw’s New York Giants for National League supremacy, but had Ban Johnson gotten his wish, the Pirates might have been the class of the American League instead. On October 11, 1899 a group of executives from the Western League, including [...]