One Run at Comiskey

One Run at Comiskey (1934)

The second East-West Game, the Negro Leagues' All-Star showcase, came down to a single inning. Satchel Paige entered in the sixth and shut the door with four scoreless innings and five strikeouts. In the eighth, Cool Papa Bell drew a walk, stole second while the batter behind him struck out, and came home on Jud Wilson's little infield single. East 1, West 0. Starting in right field for the West was Sam Bankhead, best of five ballplaying brothers.

Dan Bankhead Skips the Line (1947)

Thirteen years later to the day, Sam's younger brother Dan became the first Black pitcher in major league history. Brooklyn bought him from the Memphis Red Sox and sent him straight to Ebbets Field with no minor league cushion. The pitching went badly: ten hits in three and a third innings, a 16-3 loss. Then he came to the plate, fouled off four straight pitches from Fritz Ostermueller, and drove the next one into the lower deck. First at-bat. Home run.

Leo Durocher Answers Back (1966)

Durocher hated the Astrodome. He called it a stadium with a ten-cent infield, and he had already torn one phone off its wall there that June. On this night, walking out to make a ninth-inning pitching change, he watched the message board flash "A message from Leo, who." He ripped the second phone loose and threw it onto the field. Umpire Tony Venzon strolled over, picked it up, and said nothing. Houston scored five in that inning and won anyway.

The Flutter Ball Duel (1992)

A scout once told Tim Wakefield his bat would never get him past Double-A, so he taught himself a knuckleball. Fourteen months later he was beating Tom Candiotti and the Dodgers, 2-0, on six hits, in the first National League matchup of knuckleballers in a decade. Candiotti was one of the veterans who had shown him how to change speeds and stay patient with a pitch that answers to nobody. Wakefield kept throwing it until he was forty-five.