Category: Major League
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Walter Dilbeck, Evansville Baseball and Veterans Day
Although the title of my first book prominently calls out a “Global Disaster”, referring to Dilbeck’s attempt to form a third Major League, this man was really a hero in many ways. I may have been a little harsh in my book’s title, but any objective observer would say things did not go well in…
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Happy Birthday to Steel Arm Tyler – Evansville’s Major League record holder
His nine victories with the Memphis Red Sox in 1925 are the most by a 17 year-old pitcher in Major League baseball history. https://www.seamheads.com/NegroLgs/player.php?playerID=tyler01ste Born in Evansville in 1907, he began his professional pitching career at the young age of 15. William “Steel Arm” Tyler was considered the greatest black pitcher in baseball during his…
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The Continuing Story of Wee Willie
My second book has gone to print, so I’m back with more of what didn’t make my first book (see Books section). I devoted a short piece in my first book to this young phenom, who pitched a no-hitter for the Evansville Hoosiers at the age of 15 in storied old League Park on Louisiana…
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Cotton – Fame by a Few Inches
The NCAA Division I Basketball Championship is over. So, this will be my final entry about Evansville baseball and prominent college basketball players. Charles Francis “Cotton” Nash was a Kentucky basketball legend along the lines of Corky Withrow, but unlike Corky he plied his college hoops trade at the summit. Like former Evansville Brave Ralph…
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Black Ball in Evansville: Diamonds in the Shadows 1900-1960s.
Now Available. Don’t Miss It. While researching my first baseball in Evansville book I knew I had to write another on the subject. I urge baseball lovers to step up to the plate for another taste of baseball in the Pocket City from Evansville’s own M.T. Publishing Company. This topic is one I couldn’t wait…
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Chuck Tanner – Evansville’s Ultimate One and Done Player
Local fans got literally the briefest glimpse possible of a future major league managerial star in late July 1946 when 17-year-old outfielder Charles “Chuck” Tanner took his place in the batter’s box at Bosse Field as an Evansville Brave. The teenaged fly-chaser replaced a Braves batter who was given the heave ho by the plate…