UsefulNotes / Historical People to Know in MLB

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"It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before."

— Ken Burns' Baseball

Organized baseball is one of the oldest professional sports in the world (the National League having been founded in 1876), and so Major League Baseball has produced many noteworthy players, announcers, coaches, and team owners. Listed below are the most (in)famous among those. Also listed are some greats who never got their chance in MLB because of the vile "gentlemen's agreement" that excluded Black Americans from the Majors until 1947. (In 2024, MLB officially recognized stats from the Negro Leagues, and many of its players have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.)

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Infielders

Honus Wagner, a Pennsylvania coal miner who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates around the turn of the 20th century, is widely considered the greatest shortstop ever. He played every position except catcher, only settling in at shortstop after seven years in the league. He's also known as the face on the most valuable baseball card ever. It was originally printed in 1909 and packaged with loose tobacco. Wagner, being strongly anti-tobacco, refused to allow production of this card to continue; over time, its rarity made it something of a Zillion-Dollar Bill. Recent sales have ranged from $200,000 to over $2,000,000 depending on the card's condition and backstory (for example, one card was briefly owned by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and another by actor Charlie Sheen).
Lou Gehrig, The "Iron Horse", played for the New York Yankees at around the same time as Babe Ruth, giving the Bronx Bombers two of the best hitters in the game's history for ten years. One of the things he's most notable for is formerly holding the record for most consecutive games played, with 2,130 games in a row from June 1, 1925 to May 2, 1939, without ever missing one. It was a record considered unbreakable for a long time, until Cal Ripken Jr. broke it in 1995. According to popular legend, the streak started when the Yankees' previous starting first baseman, Wally Pipp, asked for a game off due to some minor malady, and then Gehrig played so well in Pipp's absence that he never got his job back. In fact, Pipp simply hadn't been playing well and was benched for his underperformance. Nonetheless, the expression "Getting Wally Pipped" is still used to describe a player in baseball (or other sports) who misses time due to injury and then loses his job to his backup. Gehrig's streak ended because of a rare disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is now also known (in North America) as, wait for it, Lou Gehrig's disease. Before his retirement he gave a famous speech at Yankee Stadium. Less well known is that no complete recording of the speech exists, only the newsreel highlights of it. Probably the most universally beloved baseball player in the history of the game, save Stan "The Man" Musial; despite his team affiliation, to this day not even a member of the Red Sox Nation will say anything against him.
Rogers Hornsby, also known by his nickname "Rajah", was perhaps the greatest right-handed hitter to play the game and one of, if not the, greatest hitter of all time. Hornsby batted a lifetime .358 average (trailing only Ty Cobb at .366, and with the official incorporation of Negro Leagues stats by MLB in 2024, Josh Gibson at .371 and Oscar Charleston at .365), won the Triple Crown in the National League twice (one of which was also an MLB triple crown), was a two-time MVP, and batted .400 or higher three times. He actually collectively hit .400 over a five-year period from 1921 to 1925 (a period including his 3 seasons hitting .400 or above, a season with a .397 average, and a down year when he "only" hit .384), and he hit 144 Home Runs over that period, more than anyone else not named Babe Ruth. Hornsby's .424 batting average in 1924 has never been matched in the modern era^note—nobody since Ted Williams in 1941 has even hit .400. Hornsby was also famous for a mean disposition and dislike of younger players; despite excellent offensive statistics, he was often traded because nobody else on the team could stand him. In one incident while assessing prospects for the New York Yankees, the nicest analysis he could muster was that one of the prospects only "looks like a Major League ball player" (the player in question? Mickey Mantle).^note Rajah was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942, but the Hall held no induction ceremony during U.S. involvement in World War II, and never bothered to include (among other players) Gehrig or Hornsby in later ceremonies. The Hall finally rectified that error in 2013, when Gehrig, Hornsby, and nine other figures voted in during the war years were part of the induction ceremony.
Jackie Robinson was an African-American who played in 1947 for the Dodgers after African-Americans had been informally banned from the major leagues for 60 years. After this, the other major league teams slowly integrated. So naturally, he's a pretty big deal, especially since he was an excellent player throughout his 10-year career. His number, 42, was retired across Major League Baseball in 1997, the only player to receive that honor, with two exceptions: First, players who wore 42 at the time were allowed to keep wearing it (Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, who retired at the end of the 2013 season, was the last player to wear it),^note and second, every player in the game wears it on April 15, the anniversary of Robinson's Major League debut. The number has become associated with Robinson so much that a movie about his life simply had the number 42 as its title (with Chadwick Boseman playing him). Contrary to what some might say, Robinson did not refuse to leave Brooklyn when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. By the end of his career, he had begun to show symptoms of diabetes (and would be diagnosed with the disease mere months after his retirement), and had already planned to retire (to become an executive at the Chock full o'Nuts coffee company) before the rumors that the Dodgers would move came out.^note
Ernie Banks, the Chicago Cubs' longtime shortstop/first baseman, is generally considered to be one of the greatest players never to reach the playoffs; indeed, he holds the rather dubious record of most games played without a postseason appearance. The first black Cubs player, Banks was the first player to win two straight MVP awards. He retired with 512 home runs and 2,528 regular season games. A perpetual optimist who had a great love of the game, he was well known for his catchphrase "It's a beautiful day for a ballgame… Let's play two!", stemming from his desire to play doubleheaders. His unwavering cheerfulness led to him earning the nickname "Mr. Sunshine", and Banks was so well-liked during the team's championship drought that he also earned the moniker "Mr. Cub". To this day, and even after his death in 2015, Banks remains an icon in Chicago.
Brooks Robinson^note is regarded by pretty much everyone as the best defensive third baseman ever. Known as "The Human Vacuum Cleaner" and "Mr. Hoover" (from the vacuum cleaner brand) for his fielding prowess, the Baltimore Orioles icon was also no slouch as a hitter (though not quite as good as Mike Schmidt below). During his 23-season career, spent entirely in Baltimore, he appeared in 18 straight All-Star Games from 1960 to 1974;^note was AL MVP in 1964; helped the O's to World Series wins in 1966 and 1970, being named series MVP in the latter; and won 16 Gold Gloves (all consecutively), at the time a record for any player and still the all-time record for a position player.^note His 23 seasons in Baltimore were the most with a single franchise when he retired in 1977; this record was later equaled by Carl Yastrzemski with the Red Sox. Robinson entered the Hall of Fame at his first chance in 1983 and passed away in 2023.
Mike Schmidt was known for both his defensive prowess (earning 10 Gold Gloves by the time of his retirement), and his power-hitting ability (he finished his career seventh all time with 548 career home runs). Playing his entire career in Philadelphia, he earned three MVP awards (at that time unheard of for a third baseman), and played in two World Series, winning in 1980. Five years after his retirement, he was named to the Hall of Fame, and about five years after that, he was named to the MLB All-Century team as the starting third baseman. Pete Rose once said about Schmidt: "To have his body, I'd trade him mine and my wife's, and I'd throw in some cash."
George Brett, another Hall of Fame third baseman, spent his entire MLB career with the Kansas City Royals. Drafted out of high school in 1971, he made it to The Show late in the 1973 season. Initially, he struggled at the plate, but extensive work with Royals hitting coach Charley Lau fixed that, and he became a consistent .300 hitter for almost all of his career. The perennial All-Star went on to become AL MVP in 1980, a World Series winner in 1985, and a three-time AL batting champion. Notably, he's the only player ever to be a batting champ in three different decades (1976, 1980, 1990). Brett retired with 3,154 hits, a record for a primary third baseman until Adrián Beltré passed it decades later, and is one of only five players with 3,000 hits, 300 homers, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Miguel Cabrera, and Stan Musial). The first-ballot Hall of Famer also has a peripheral role in pop culture—in 2012, one Ella Yelich-O'Connell, better known as Lorde, saw a picture of him signing baseballs in his Royals uniform in National Geographic and gave a song she had written the title "Royals". It became her debut single, an international smash hit, and earned her the Grammy for Song of the Year. Brett is also credited with popularizing (though not coining) the term "Mendoza Line"^note to describe batting futility.
Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's career hits record, and somewhat coincidentally, is about as well-liked as Cobb was. (He's still revered in his hometown of Cincinnati, where he played for most of his career and managed, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone from another city who likes him.) He gambled on baseball (as a player and manager), which caused him to be banned from the sport and made ineligible for the baseball Hall of Fame when he would have been elected easily for his achievements. He was proven to bet on his own team, though he swore until his death in 2024 that he always bet on them to win.^noteThat would still raise a conflict of interest by creating an incentive to focus on winning specific games at the risk of overworking and injuring players who might be needed later in the season. Since the original ban on gambling was made to prevent players from intentionally losing games, whether Rose's ban is a fair judgment remains one of baseball's open debates. (Before PEDs came along, gambling was considered the single biggest scourge of the sporting world. Going back to the Black Sox scandal, betting on baseball in any way is prohibited, with a lifetime ban for betting on games you have a role in, so it's academic if your name isn't Bill James.) While Cobb sharpened his spikes, Rose is well known for once running over opposing catcher Ray Fosse in a run into home plate, separating the catcher's shoulder. This would have been acceptable play had it not happened in the All-Star Game, which at the time was a meaningless exhibition. (While the incident did not end Fosse's career as is often reported—he stayed in the lineup during the second half of the season, and played eight more seasons, three as a starter and one as an All-Star—he was never again as good as he was prior to the injury.)
- Rose's litigiousness reputation wasn't helped by his: when the Commissioner (see the "Others" folder below) started an investigation against him for his gambling, he filed suit in Ohio state court against the Commissioner, the Reds, and MLB asking the court to stop the Commissioner's investigation. The case is famous for all kinds of amazing dick moves on Rose's part (well, technically his lawyers', but frankly they're such fantastic dick moves that it's hard not to see how he wasn't involved in the decision to make them), and as a result, Civil Procedure law casebooks often include his case in the introduction to show wet-behind-the-ears first-year law students how bizarre their profession can get… and reinforce baseball's universal agreement that Pete Rose was an asshole.
Ozzie Smith was a shortstop who played for three years with the San Diego Padres, then was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, where he spent the remainder of his 19-year career. Though not known for his offense (he managed to collect over 2,400 hits but had almost zero power), Smith is perhaps the greatest defensive shortstop in the history of the game. He appeared on fifteen All-Star teams and collected thirteen Gold Gloves for his defensive play, won the 1985 NLCS MVP award, and was a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He set the single-season record for assists in 1980 with 621, the career mark with 8372, has a lifetime fielding percentage of .978 (13th all-time among all shortstops), and his Range Factor of 5.215 ranks fifth all time at his position. Ozzie quickly became a beloved icon in St. Louis, where his athletic and acrobatic play quickly earned him the nickname "The Wizard of Oz". If there was ever a definition of the Human Highlight Reel it was Ozzie in his prime, and any countdown of the best defensive plays of all time will feature him prominently. American Idol fans might remember his name from season 4, when his son Nikko finished in 9th place.
Cal Ripken Jr. was an excellent shortstop and two-time Most Valuable Player who became famous for never missing a game for over 17 years (a whopping 2,632 games in a row), and this consecutive-game streak is one of baseball's "records to know", up there with Bonds' home run records and DiMaggio's hit streak. Furthermore, he started every single game during the streak, hardly ever left a game early, and for over five years, he played every single inning. He also played his entire career with one team (the Baltimore Orioles), which is seen as somewhat rare. A lot of people tend to forget that he had Hall-of-Fame numbers even without the consecutive game streak—in addition to his two MVP awards, he also has over 3,000 hits and has the third-most home runs of any Shortstop in history, behind Alex Rodriguez and Ernie Banks (and Ripken stayed as a shortstop for a much bigger chunk of his career than those two did—Ripken moved to third in his last few years, but A-Rod and Banks moved to third and first respectively about halfway through their careers). Early in his career, some doubted that a player as large as Ripken (6'4", 225 lb) was could stick at shortstop, but he proved them all wrong, playing great defense for most of his career and winning two Gold Gloves—and modern sabermetric analysis rates him as being one of the best defensive shortstops in the game's history. Made 19 consecutive All-Star teams, between his third season in 1983 and final season in 2001, although his last few selections were a bit questionable and more because of how hugely popular and respected he was than how he was playing on the field. In his last all-star game in 2001, he was elected to start as a third baseman (the position he'd played for several years at that point), but Alex Rodriguez, the starting shortstop in that game, swapped positions with him at the start of the game to give him one last hurrah at short. He went on to hit a home run in the game (on a pitch that many allege the opposing pitcher, Chan-Ho Park, grooved) and win the All-Star MVP Award. Some naysayers think that him keeping his streak alive when he was past his prime was to the detriment of his team.
Wade Boggs was one of the all-time great contact hitters, racking up five American League batting titles, eight Silver Slugger awards, and an astounding 12 straight All-Star selections on his way to the 3,000-hit club. He spent his entire career in the AL East, playing his first decade with the Boston Red Sox before signing with the New York Yankees in 1993, where he would spend the next five years. In that time, Boggs had his best seasons as a fielder, winning the Golden Glove at third base in back-to-back years, and made a crucial pinch-hit at-bat in the 1996 World Series, driving in the winning run in Game 4 to tie the series. When the Yankees won the series two games later, Boggs famously jumped onto a police horse and rode it around the field in celebration. Boggs then finished his career as a member of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, starting in their first game ever and hitting their first home run, as well as recording his 3,000th hit. Even though it was the twilight of his career by then, the Devil Rays still retired his number, as did the Red Sox years later. On top of all that, Boggs is a strong contender for the title of all-time most superstitious athlete, with his more famous habits including eating chicken before every game, always taking exactly 150 ground balls during warmups, and writing the Hebrew word chai in the dirt before every at-bat. Not dead, despite what the Gang from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia think.
Mark McGwire was the holder of the single-season home run record after Maris. He was scary dangerous as a rookie (he set the rookie home run record of 49, which held up for nearly three decades before Aaron Judge broke it), was one half of the "Bash Brothers" on Oakland's feared late-'80s teams, then got hurt a lot for a while. After this, he resurfaced in St. Louis where he broke the record. Almost immediately afterward, it was uncovered that he had used androstenedione, a legal but all-too-steroid-like performance-enhancing substance, an event which is generally considered the climax of the "Steroid Era". For years his reputation was ruined, but he slowly became an accepted member of the St. Louis sports community again after becoming the Cardinals' hitting coach. Most recently the bench coach for the Padres, but left after the 2018 season, citing family reasons.
Chipper Jones, during his 19-year career, was typically considered the best switch-hitter in the game and one of the best of all time. Among his many accolades, he's the only switch hitter to finish his career with a .300 batting average and over 400 homers. Plus the only switch hitter with 5,000 or more at bats with a .300 batting average, .400 on-base percentage, and .500 slugging percentage. And one of only two players with 5,000 or more at bats to have hit .300 from both sides of home plate, the other being Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch. And one of only two overall #1 draft picks to finish his career batting over .300 (along with Joe Mauer, in the "Catchers" folder of this page). He spent his entire career with the Atlanta Braves, at one point even reworking his contract with them so they would have more money to spend on other players. However, he was never that great of a power hitter, despite consistently putting up solid numbers over the past decade and a half. Given that he was hitting in the era of players such as Bonds, McGwire and later Pujols, and that the '90s Braves teams he played for were spearheaded by their fearsome starting rotation of Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz, he's basically a case of Overshadowed by Awesome. He retired at the end of the 2012 season, and was easily elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try in 2018, making him the second #1 overall pick in Cooperstown (preceded by Ken Griffey Jr. [in the "Outfielders" folder of this page], and followed in 2019 by Harold Baines and 2024 by Mauer).
Jim Thome (pronounced TOH-mee), who played for six teams in a 22-year career, most notably the Indians in the 1990s and the Phillies in the early 2000s, is something of a forgotten man in recent baseball history—despite being one of only nine players with 600 career homers. A big part of it was his personality. While universally considered one of the nicest individuals in sports, and also beloved everywhere he played (a Cleveland newspaper poll found him the most popular athlete in the city's history, though that was before LeBron James came to town), he was noted for his reluctance to promote himself. One of the few power hitters of the steroid era who was never suspected of PED use. He last played in 2012 but didn't formally retire until 2014. Thome was elected to the Hall alongside Jones, also on his first try, in 2018.
Alex Rodriguez, best known for his tenure on with the New York Yankees, was baseball's highest-paid player from 2001, when he signed a 10-year, $250-million contract with the Texas Rangers, to 2014, when his salary was exceeded thanks to larger contracts given to Clayton Kershaw and Miguel Cabrera. A shortstop in the first half of his career with the Mariners and Rangers, he moved to third base upon being traded to the Yankees in 2004, as the Yankees already had Derek Jeter at shortstop. His status as one of the game's all-time greats has never been in any doubt; he was a prime MVP candidate every year from his age-21 season in 1996 to about 2010 (he won the award three times, and arguably should have won more), when age and injuries started to rob him of some of his skill. His large contract combined with the fact that he used performance-enhancing drugs several times throughout his career make him one of baseball's most passionately disliked figures. His most passionate haters are mostly fans of the Red Sox (for reasons including A) He's a Yankee, B) A failed trade that might have brought him to Boston instead of New York in 2003, and C) A number of in-game incidents, most notably slapping the ball out of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo's glove in the 2004 ALCS) or the Mariners (because he started in Seattle, then left after the 2000 season and signed that massive contract). But even some Yankees fans hate him, for nebulous reasons ranging from "he's cold and distant" to "he hasn't played in a World Series" (not true after 2009) to "he doesn't deliver big hits when you need them" (an assertion statistics do not support), to opting out of his contract during the last game of the 2007 World Series (the Yankees weren't playing in it, having been eliminated in the first round of the postseason, but the timing still attracted lots of criticism) to sign a slightly bigger 10-year contract with the Yankees shortly after, to his late-career decline in production, among others. Known by his nickname "A-Rod", but prior to 2009 his lack of postseason performance led to detractors (including within the Yankees locker room) to call him "A-Fraud", and his admission in 2009 to having used steroids earlier in his career while playing for the Rangers inevitably led to him being called "A-Roid". Injuries slowed his production tremendously in his last few years, to the point where he was no longer considered an elite player. He was banned for the 2014 season due to allegedly obtaining (and using) large amounts of PEDs from Biogenesis, a now-closed South Florida "anti-aging clinic". While he had a bit of a resurgence in 2015, joining the 3,000-hit club and passing Willie Mays to go into fourth on the career home run list along the way, he struggled to produce the next season, leading the the Yankees benching and eventually cutting him from the team to make way for younger prospects (with one year on his contract left to go, this forced them to eat quite a bit of dead money). A-Rod played his last game as a Yankee in the middle of the 2016 season and officially retired in 2017 (despite being only four home runs away from joining the 700-homer club) to work as a full-time baseball broadcaster.
Adrián Beltré was a third baseman who played for four teams in a 21-season career, retiring after the 2018 season. One of the longest-tenured players in baseball before his retirement, he came up with the Dodgers as a 19-year-old in 1998. Though he was generally well-regarded for his solid offense and great defense earlier in his career with the Dodgers, Mariners, and Red Sox, he didn't really hit his stride until he joined the Texas Rangers in 2011, and generally excelled for them for the rest of his career. Even with his ups-and-downs earlier in his career, he still has some very impressive career statistics, and he got his 3000th hit in 2017. Despite his impressive career statistics, he only has four All-Star appearances, on account of his inconsistencies early in his career and having to share the spotlight with a lot of other great third basemen late in his career. He also never won an MVP award, although he was in contention for one a few times; notably, in 2004, his last year with the Dodgers, he put up numbers that would ordinarily be easily good enough to win the award, had Barry Bonds not been producing utterly insane statistics at the same time. A renowned bad-ball hitter, Beltré was frequently known to swing very hard at low pitches, sometimes falling on one knee during his follow-through while he hits the ball well over the fence. A first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2024, he was also considered among the nicest and friendliest players in the game, and in his final years as a player was well known for his epic bromance with Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus. Does not like being touched on the top of his head.
Albert Pujols was a first baseman and designated hitter who played for three teams, but is best known for his time with the St. Louis Cardinals. During his first stint with the Redbirds, he was seen by many as baseball's best player for most of the 2000s, and, strangely enough, is polite, charitable, and well-liked. Lots of fans hoped that he would break Barry Bonds' records someday. He is nicknamed "The Machine" due to his formerly incredibly consistent production. For a 10-year stretch from 2001 to 2010, he hit .300 with at least 30 Home Runs and 100 RBIs every year. He won three MVP awards in this time (2005, 2008, 2009), and the only reason he didn't win more is because Barry Bonds was putting up ridiculous numbers from 2001 to 2004. After he left the Cardinals at the end of the 2011 season, his production noticeably slowed due to age and injury, and his decline soon became clear, to the point that he never came close to being as valuable as the huge contract the Angels signed him to (10 years, $240 million). In 2017, his production declined even further—though he became the newest member of the 600-homer club, he also set career lows in most offensive categories, putting up the sort of hitting stats that would be considered bad even for a good defensive shortstop (for comparison, the average shortstop had a triple slash line of .260/.315/.407 in 2017; Pujols hit .241/.286/.386), let alone a player like Pujols who mostly DH's, a position with the sole job of hitting. His year was bad enough that plenty of analysts questioned whether he should be a full-time player anymore, with some questioning whether he might have been the worst player in baseball than year. That said, he could still occasionally hit like his old self from time to time—he even managed to pass 100 RBIs in 2017, despite his otherwise bad hitting (spending most of the season hitting after Mike Trout probably helped). He was only slightly better in 2018, although he did manage to collect his 3000th hit that May, becoming just the 4th player ever to have both 3000 hits and 600 home runs. The following season, he became the third player to officially reach 2000 career RBIs.^noteThe Elias Sports Bureau, the official record keeper for MLB, includes only RBI totals from 1920 onward. Other statistical sources list 19th-century star Cap Anson and Babe Ruth with more than 2000 RBIs. He was released by the Angels in May 2021 and signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the rest of that season before returning to St. Louis for his final season in 2022. Though he had only hit .236 overall in 2021, he was a very respectable .294 with a .939 OPS against lefties; with the NL adopting the DH in 2022, the Cards saw use in him as a DH against southpaws. He performed decently until August, when he improbably turned back the clock. In a 10-game stretch that month, he hit .548 (!) and slugged 1.300 (!!) with 7 homers and 14 RBI, and cooled off only slightly into September, reaching the 700-homer mark about a week before the end of the season. Pujols would end his career at second place in total bases and RBI, behind only Hank Aaron in both. He also set two more obscure home run records—263 go-ahead homers (those putting his team ahead at any point in a game) and homers against 458 different pitchers. He can book his trip to Cooperstown for July 2028.
- He's also called "El Hombre" (The Man), although he has said that the nickname "The Man" only belongs to Musial, to whom the name is a Shout-Out and Call-Back.
Miguel Cabrera, who spent most of his best years with the Detroit Tigers, played third base, in the outfield, and first base during his career. A week before the 2014 season began, he signed a 10-year, $292 million contract extension with the Tigers, at the time the largest contract in baseball history. He originally came up with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins halfway through the 2003 season, put up decent numbers for a then-20-year-old rookie, and contributed a bit to the Marlins' World Series win that year. He spent the next few years in relative obscurity despite several All-Star appearances, as the Marlins were middling and he was outshined by several other players, like Albert Pujols. Then, during the 2007 offseason, he and the Marlins' ace pitcher Dontrelle Willis were traded to the Tigers for a package of very good prospects. People's opinions of the trade were somewhat mixed at the time, and as Willis was never even remotely good after this point and the Marlins finished 10 games better than the Tigers in 2008, it made the trade look initially bad on Detroit's part. However, none of the prospects the Tigers gave up ever had any success with the Marlins (though one or two of them had some degree of success with other teams), while Cabrera would reach far greater heights than he had with the Marlins. Spending the next several years as the Tigers' first baseman, he made a few more all-star appearances and led the majors in batting average in 2011 and helped lead the Tigers to the playoffs that year. He moved to third base in 2012 to make room at first for Prince Fielder, who the Tigers had signed to a massive contract during the offseason. In that season, he hit .330 with 44 home runs and 139 RBIs, and became the first winner of the hitting Triple Crown (leading his league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in/RBIs) since 1967, a feat that many had once thought was no longer possible in the modern game, due to batters becoming more specialized more in either hitting for average or power at the cost of the other. As a result, he won his first MVP handily, although many thought Mike Trout should have won it—Cabrera was certainly a better hitter than Trout that year, but Trout was a much better defender and a much faster baserunner. Incredibly, he did even better the following season in most of his statistics and looked like he might become the first back-to-back Triple Crown winner, but injuries at the end of the season limited his power greatly, and though he finished with a .348 batting average, 44 home runs, and 137 RBIs he still fell well short of the Triple Crown, thanks to Chris Davis hitting 53 homers. He did still win his third consecutive batting title and second consecutive MVP award. He went on to win yet another batting title in 2015, despite suffering both lingering pain from an offseason ankle surgery and a midseason calf strain that put him on the disabled list for the first time in his career. He rebounded a bit in 2016, but then had an uncharacteristically bad year in 2017, ending a streak of seven consecutive All-Star appearances and failing to get any MVP votes for the first time in his career. He started off 2018 looking like he was going to bounce back a bit, but injuries ended up costing him most of the season. Cabrera, who joined the 500-homer club in 2021 and the 3000-hit club in 2022, retired at the end of the 2023 season with a place in Cooperstown all but assured.
Joey Votto is a first baseman who was most recently in the Toronto Blue Jays organization, though spent almost all his career with the Cincinnati Reds. The Canadian was on almost everyone's short list of the best hitters in baseball from his 2010 MVP season to 2018 or so, although he also somehow manages to be a bit more obscure and underrated than one would expect. He ends up in debates about sabermetrics a lot, thanks to his high walk totals that have given him a career .412 on-base percentage; he had the highest OBP of any active player until age-related decline took Mike Trout past him in 2022. Because of his great plate discipline and frequent walks, some, including his former manager Dusty Baker, have criticized him for not being aggressive enough and not driving in enough runs for a middle-of-the-order hitter, even though he usually puts up decent RBI totals and has hit 100 RBIs twice. In addition, as sabermetricians will point out, he probably contributed more runs by getting on base as often as possible at the cost of a few home runs rather than swinging for the fences on pitches well outside the strike zone like some seemed to want him to, and his RBIs largely depended on the hitters before him getting on anyway. Sadly, his formerly prodigious hitting declined a bit as he aged. After a temporary benching midway through 2020's 60-game sprint, he decided to change his approach. After previously focusing on plate discipline at the sacrifice of power, he began to focus on power while sacrificing plate discipline, leading to more offensive production. Votto was named NL Player of the Month for July 2021 after setting the league on fire, setting a franchise record by hitting home runs in seven straight games from July 24–30,^note including two back-to-back two-homer games for nine total dingers in the stretch for 11 overall in the month. However, in 2022 and 2023, strings of injuries would have him missing more time and being less productive when he did see the field. The Reds, in the middle of a youth movement and unable to commit to regular playing time for the former league MVP, declined their 2024 team option and Votto became a free agent for the first time in his career at the age of 40. The Blue Jays signed him to a minor league contract in spring training, but he made few appearances as injuries continued, and he officially retired that August.
Derek Jeter was a shortstop who retired at the end of the 2014 season after playing his entire career with the New York Yankees. Jeter was generally thought of as "The Heart and soul" of the run of great Yankees teams from the mid-'90s to the 2010s, although he was usually not their best player statistically in any single given season. In his last season, Jeter was the only active player with 3,000 career hits. He is also personable and charismatic, and tended to play well in clutch situations. However, sportswriters and Yankees fans often had a Godlike reverence of him to the point of causing a Hype Backlash for everyone else. However, even with the backlash, he was widely still considered an undeniable Hall-of-Famer, and he ended up being inducted into the Hall in his very first year on the ballot (only one vote shy of a unanimous induction). He went on to help start a website dedicated to publishing stories written by athletes, The Player's Tribune, before joining the ultimately successful effort to buy the Marlins from Jeffrey Loria. While he ran the baseball and business operations of the Marlins, he only owned 4% of the team; the vote in owners' meetings belonged to the lead investor, hedge-fund billionaire Bruce Sherman.^note His more famous but controversial decision as owner—the December 2017 trade of Giancarlo Stanton to his former team—sent shockwaves to baseball in general, but did not deter the Yankee fans, who thanked him for the trade which while it cost them Starlin Castro, also repeated a prior incident in 1919, when the Yankees got Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox and gave the team, for the first time in almost a century, two HR leaders at the same time. The 2017–18 offseason would also see several of Stanton's former teammates moving teams as well under his watch (most notably Christian Yelich to the Brewers, Marcell Ozuna to the Cardinals, and Dee Gordon to the Mariners, with J.T. Realmuto also being traded the following year), in what was criticized by many as a fire sale along the lines of the sales that Loria used to make regularly. Aside from his duties for the team, in his role as team president he has been active in engaging with the people of Miami that have supported their team through the years, including the huge Latino community present there, such as exiles from Cuba and people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and many others. Jeter left in 2022 with the Marlins having the worst overall record in the NL during his tenure as CEO.

Outfielders

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson was a star player for the White Sox who would have been a certain Hall of Fame inductee had his career not come to a crashing halt after he got accused of helping some gamblers during the 1919 World Series (the infamous "Black Sox" scandal). Unfortunately, what was initially regarded as a definitive account of the scandal, Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out (adapted into the film of the same name, was found to be inaccurate only after most of the people involved in it had died, resulting in numerous conflicting accounts and several unsolved mysteries.

In any case, Jackson was certainly not directly involved in throwing the World Series; in fact, he played exceptionally well throughout the World Series, even in the games his teammates intentionally lost: across the entire Series that year, he bettered most of his regular-season batting statistics, committed no errors, threw out five baserunners, either scored or batted in half the runs the White Sox scored, hit the only home run of the Series, and got twelve base hits (which stood as a World Series record for forty-five years).^note

Despite this, Jackson was still banned for allegedly knowing about the incident and not reporting it (and allegedly taking the bribe money like his teammates); he was easily the most popular player to be banned (and still is: most people very likely wouldn't be able to name any player from either team, or even tell you who the other team was^noteThe Cincinnati Reds.). In his defense, the seven other people involved in the scandal all confirmed that he had never attended their meetings; one of them, Lefty Williams, also confirmed that they'd used Jackson's name without his knowledge because without his purported involvement, they wouldn't have been paid to fix the World Series. In turn, this suggests that until he was banned from baseball, had it gotten out that he hadn't taken the money, he might've been murdered by the mob, who have a long history of involvement in fixing sports bets and are not forgiving of those who double-cross them. They're believed, for instance, to have murdered popular boxer Andre Anderson in 1926 (in Chicago, no less) after he refused to continue fixing matches, which in turn inspired Ernest Hemingway's popular short story "The Killers". Some accounts have also suggested that Jackson tried to report the fix to White Sox owner Charles Comiskey but was unable either to persuade Comiskey to bench him for the Series or to get a meeting with Comiskey of any sort. The phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe" is a reference to the scandal (although the story it is based on is believed to be apocryphal) and occasionally comes up in political debates every now and then.

In short, there is really no evidence that Jackson was directly involved in the scandal, and even the evidence that he knew about it is at best inconclusive. Regardless, he was certainly one of the greatest baseball players in history; his career batting average of .356 is the fifth highest in MLB history, and his single-season average of .408 in 1911 remains the highest batting average of any rookie in history. Babe Ruth said he modeled his hitting approach on Jackson's, and Ty Cobb reportedly later told Jackson he had more natural ability than Cobb did. Despite the scandal, Jackson remained quite popular: he was unanimously inducted into what at the time was the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame in 1951, even though his tenure with the organization was rather short, owing to an outpouring of support for him from the franchise's fans.^note In 2025, a rule change rescinding lifetime bans upon a person's death made Jackson newly eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, whose Classic Baseball Era Committee will next consider his case in 2027.
Babe Ruth^note was, for many years, recognized as the greatest player ever, and probably the most influential player ever. If you've only heard of one ballplayer, it's probably him. He was originally a pitcher, and awesome, but changed position when management determined he was even more awesome as an everyday position player—and absolutely glorious as a hitter. He basically invented the modern concept of power hitting and was pretty much the prototypical "fat power hitter" of the kind that populates today's outfields and first bases (he was even left-handed). He hit lots of home runs at a time when everybody else hit hardly any, which prompted baseball leaders to change the ball and thus lower the Difficulty Levels of hitting, leading largely to today's game. Was sold to the NY Yankees by the Boston Red Sox, which supposedly cursed the Sox not to win a World Series (or at least until 2004). His records have since mostly been broken (but as any hardcore fan will point out, while Ruth's records have been broken by a collection of men, you must remember that they were all set by one). A great Boisterous Bruiser, he loved eating,^note drinking,^note womanizing,^note and general carousing, and he is subject of numerous tall tales about his sex and alcohol-related experiences; he was nevertheless noted for being a fundamentally decent, fun-loving guy who was good with kids. Was rumored to be partially black, which back in his day was a pretty big deal. He was once given a rather enormous contract which let him earn more than the President, in an era when people didn't think that was a good thing. His response: "I had a better year than he did."^note He was also one of a small handful of players to be successful as both a hitter and a pitcher, and probably the only one most people could name until Shohei Ohtani showed up.^note
Willie Mays, another name frequently cited as the best baseball player ever (even by other great players; Joe DiMaggio once claimed that although there was no such thing as a perfect ballplayer, Mays was the closest thing to it; and Mickey Mantle consistently maintained that Mays had the better career), was a center fielder who spent most of his career with the New York/San Francisco Giants. Mays excelled in all aspects of the game, including hitting for both power and average, and possessing great running speed and incredible defensive skills. He had 660 career home runs, sixth all-time behind Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Albert Pujols, and Alex Rodriguez. Coincidentally, Mays is also Barry Bonds' godfather. Mays' most famous moment on the diamond was probably the incredible over-the-shoulder running catch he made in the 1954 World Series, a moment often cited as the single greatest defensive play in baseball history. While he narrowly missed out on being a World Series MVP, since he won his only ring the year before the award was introduced, the league named the award after him starting in 2018, changing the trophy accordingly to depict the Say Hey Kid making the play. Shortly after Mays' passing in 2024, one ESPN journalist made a case that if writers in Mays' era had the same voting philosophy as today's writers, Mays would have won eight league MVP awards instead of the two he did win.
Mickey Mantle is another name that often comes up in greatest player ever debates. An incredible power hitter with lumberjack-like arms, Mantle was also once considered the fastest man in the sport, and one of its greatest fielders. He hit the longest documented home run in baseball history, which became the first homer to be known as a 'tape-measure' home run due to a team official (allegedly) using a tape measure to record its distance. Baseball historians agree that he almost certainly would have broken the career home run record had injuries not hampered him for a large part of his career; the bones of his particularly injury-prone left leg had been weakened by a case of osteomyelitis contracted playing football in his youth, and late in his rookie season, he suffered a serious injury to his right knee that was most likely a torn ACL (which couldn't have been repaired in his day). It should be noted that with all his achievements, the first line on his Monument Park plaque reads "A great teammate", which Mantle was far more proud of than any other accomplishment. He was one of the most beloved of all Yankee greats and one of the few Yankees to be well-liked by fans of other teams.
Ty Cobb, nicknamed "The Georgia Peach," was a superlative player in the early part of the 20th century, leading the American League in batting average twelve times and setting 90 MLB records during his career. His most notable were the all-time record for most career base hits at 4,191 (until Pete Rose broke it; Rose and Cobb remain the only players to have accumulated over 4,000 hits in the MLB), held the record for career stolen bases until Lou Brock (and later Rickey Henderson) broke it, and had a career batting average of .366 and a combined runs scored/RBI total of 4,095; the batting average record stood until MLB fully incorporated Negro Leagues stats into its official database in 2024, and the runs/RBI record still stands. Despite that, he's also one of the most likely players in the game's history to be portrayed as a villainous or outright evil person, due mostly to sportswriter Al Stump and other biographers sensationalizing him as a murderous, racist criminal in the years after his death. His indisputable skill at the game made him Crazy Is Cool at best for several decades, but since the turn of The New '10s his legacy has been subject to reappraisal and most modern evaluations of his character and history claim he suffered from a Historical Villain Upgrade. While he did have extremely thin skin and frequently got into fights with hecklers and others who he felt were treating him poorly, resulting in at least one guilty plea to a charge of assault, his competitive and aggressive nature seems mostly the result of his father constantly hounding him for not being good enough. His reputation for dirty play was also somewhat exaggerated, largely based on him doing things that would be considered dirty today but that were relatively common practices at the time. His reputation for racism is likewise embellished; Cobb routinely attended Negro League games where he would often throw out the first pitch or sit in the dugout with players, spoke favorably of allowing black players into the majors and of racial integration more generally, complimented prominent black players (calling Roy Campanella among the "all-time greatest catchers" and Willie Mays "the only player I'd pay money to see"), and was written of glowingly in obituaries by black newspapers following his death. On the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot in 1936, Cobb received the most votes, more than Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, or Cy Young; his percentage of votes was 98.2%, which remained the highest percentage of votes for any Hall of Fame inductee until Tom Seaver in 1992.
Oscar Charleston, a Negro League center fielder and first baseman from 1915 to 1941, is a candidate for the greatest player of all time, according to sources such as Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner ("I’ve seen all the great players in the many years I’ve been around, and I’ve yet to see anyone greater than Charleston"), Hall of Fame manager John McGraw^note ("If Oscar Charleston isn't the greatest baseball player in the world, then I'm no judge of baseball talent"), and legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice ("It’s impossible for anybody to be a better ballplayer than Oscar Charleston"). Charleston's career batting average, .365,^note is the third-highest in history; his career on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), 1.066, is the fourth-highest in history; and he was the first of only two hitters to win the hitting Triple Crown (leading the league in home runs, batting average, and runs batted in) in two consecutive years (Josh Gibson was the second). In his best season, 1921, in 77 games, he led all major leagues with a .433 batting average, and he led the Negro Leagues in OPS (1.248), home runs (15), runs batted in (91), and runs scored (104). Before moving to center field, he also showed reasonable promise as a pitcher, throwing a three-hit shutout in a semi-professional exhibition against a semi-professional team of white players.
Ted Williams is one of the best hitters in history and was the last person to have a batting average (hits divided by at-bats) of over .400 in a full-length season, batting .406 in 1941.^note (No player since 2000 has hit over .372, and only two players since that time who had enough at-bats to qualify for a league title have had a .400 average at any point after late May.) Well loved in Boston (where he played) and his hometown of San Diego, and there are highways named for him in both cities. After he died in 2002, he received a lot of media attention over the bizarre battle that took place within his surviving family; his son and daughter claimed that the three of them were to be cryogenically frozen together. At Fenway Park, there is a single seat in the right field bleachers painted red to mark the landing spot of one of his home runs, the longest in the park's history. The home run ball hit the guy sitting in the seat while he was taking a nap and broke his straw hat. Hit a home run in the last at-bat of his career. And he had his incredible career while serving his country twice (World War II, The Korean War) as a combat pilot in the United States Marines. He was somewhat of an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy with an almost unhealthy focus on just being the best hitter in history (Mickey Mantle had a story of trying to have an ordinary conversation with Williams, but Williams was only interested in talking about hitting styles), and had a reputation of seemingly not appreciating the fans (he held a serious grudge against them and the local media for booing him and saying less than pleasant things early in his career). He got over it, though, with a truly heartwarming moment at the 1999 All-Star Game where he tipped his cap to the Fenway crowd, an act he had refused to do almost his entire playing career. In his Hall of Fame induction speech, he called for Negro League greats to be inducted into the Hall, heedless of whether they had met the "ten years in the majors" rule since many failed that standard solely because Major League Baseball had been segregated. He managed the Washington Senators and Texas Rangers for a few years after his career ended, but his managerial record wasn't nearly as accomplished as his playing record; by most accounts he was so naturally gifted at hitting that he struggled to explain how he did it to others, and couldn't effectively coach anyone who didn't have his insanely good eyesight or hand-eye coordination.
Stan "The Man" Musial played his entire career for the St. Louis Cardinals and is considered not only the greatest Cardinal of all time, but also one of the greatest men ever to play the game. Not just as a player, but as a person. He was a three-time MVP, three-time World Series Champion, 24-time All-Star, and had a .331 lifetime batting average, 3,630 hits,^note 475 home runs, and 1,951 RBIs, but he also gave away more autographs than any other player and became an iconic civic figure in the city of St. Louis. He was so nice and kind—he cheered up everyone he met (from sick children in hospitals to ordinary adults) and aged into a Cool Old Guy with a harmonica. A proud son of a Polish immigrant father and his American-born Rusyn^note wife from Western Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh), he made trips to Poland to help popularize baseball there, and became good friends with Pope John Paul II in the process; they eventually named a stadium after him and gave him Poland's highest civilian honor. He was just about the best and least-controversial example of a Sacred Cow there ever was. Hank Aaron said, "I didn't just like Stan Musial. I wanted to be like him." Even Ty Cobb said that Stan was the closest there'd be to a perfect player. Oh, and he once found out on a family trip that he had fans in Australia and Tahiti. Stan the Man ranks among the greatest of the greats, but he's not often talked about because he was never a Yankee or a Dodger. In fact, sportswriter Jayson Stark wrote in 2007, "I can't think of any all-time great in any sport who gets left out of more who's-the-greatest conversations than Stan Musial." But when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969, then-Commissioner Ford Frick said, "Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight." Those words were etched into The Man's statue at Busch Stadium, which has been covered in flowers and memorabilia since he passed away on January 19, 2013, at age 92. Before his death, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.'s highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama in December 2011, thanks to a grassroots petition campaign conducted by members of Cardinal Nation.^note
Joe DiMaggio was a graceful center fielder and one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, having recorded at least one hit in 56 consecutive games (bearing in mind that hitters who succeed 33% of the time are phenomenal). He was nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper" (he spent his entire career with the NY Yankees). No one has come close to his record in 60 years; when a hitter reaches about 30 consecutive games he begins to get serious media attention. Also extremely famous for marrying Marilyn Monroe^note and having a nation turn its lonely eyes to him in a Simon & Garfunkel song. And, later, for endorsing Mr. Coffee. Two of his brothers, Dom and Vince DiMaggio, also had successful baseball careers (if not nearly as successful as Joe), both making a few All-Star Games.
Roger Maris was a relatively obscure player who was good for a few years and who most everybody today would have forgotten about, if not for one season when he got really lucky and broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, which stood as the MLB record for 37 years and the American League record for 61 years.^note
Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career home run record and was popularly known as "Hank the Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank" in recognition of his hitting power. Being African-American, he naturally had to deal with quite a bit of intolerance as he approached the record. However, Aaron holds many records such as Total Bases earned, a record he was particularly proud of until his passing in 2021 since he considered it more indicative of how much he contributed to his team. He also holds the career record for runs batted in with 2,297 and had 3,771 total hits. (Anyone who gets close to 3,000 is considered a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.) Aaron was a model of consistency; he never hit 50 homers in a season, but he hit 40 or more eight times, 30 or more 15 times, and had a streak of 19 straight years in which he hit at least 24 homers. Aaron also holds two longevity records relating to the All-Star Game—he was on an All-Star roster in 21 of his 23 seasons (missing only his first and last), and appeared in 25 All-Star Games.^note Finally, he was the last former Negro Leagues player to be on a regular MLB roster.^note He is one of the leading candidates for the title of best baseball player ever. With the Cleveland Indians changing their name to the Guardians, some have suggested the Braves should change their name to the Atlanta Hammers to honor Hank's legacy.
Roberto Clemente was one of the sport's first Latin American stars. He spent his entire 18-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, during which time he was a 15-time All-Star, got exactly 3,000 hits, won the World Series in 1960 and 1971, and became known as one of the best defensive right fielders of all time. Well-respected for his skills at the game, he was also well-respected for his humanitarian deeds, frequently working in charities in Latin American countries. Sadly, he and his career met an untimely end in 1972, when he was in a plane crash on his way to deliver aid to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. After his death, the league named an award after him, which is awarded each year to the player who "best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual's contribution to his team"—generally a player who both plays the game well and gets involved in charities, like Clemente. He was also promptly inducted into the Hall of Fame, setting a precedent that if players die, the five-year retirement period rule does not apply to them.^note Is the subject of two different campaigns advocating him for a) league-wide retirement of the number 21, and b) sainthood.
Frank Robinson (no relation to either Jackie or Brooks) was one of the great outfielders in baseball history, most notable as the first player to be named MVP in both the American and National Leagues (Shohei Ohtani became the second in 2024) and the first black manager in MLB history. A baseball teammate of Curt Flood (below) and basketball teammate of Bill Russell in high school in Oakland, he was signed out of high school by the Cincinnati Reds and made his MLB debut with them in 1956, becoming an All-Star starter (the first of his 14 All-Star selections), setting a rookie home run record that lasted until Mark McGwire came along, and being named NL Rookie of the Year, He didn't stop there, winning his first MVP award on the pennant-winning 1961 Reds. After the 1965 season, the perennial All-Star was traded to Baltimore for three players. In his first season with the Orioles, he won the hitters' Triple Crown, was named AL MVP, and led the O's to a World Series sweep of the Dodgers. Robinson would star on three more Orioles pennant-winning teams (1969–71), with another World Series ring in 1970. The 1971 season was his last in Baltimore; he finished out his playing career with one season with the Dodgers, one-plus with the Angels, and two-plus with the Indians (now Guardians), retiring as a player in 1976. He had openly sought to become MLB's first black manager, leading the Angels to trade him midway through the 1974 season, and shortly before the end of that season, Cleveland named him its new manager. When Robinson retired as a player, he was fourth on the all-time home run list and in the top 10 in total bases, extra-base hits, games played, and runs scored, and he became a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1982. His managing career didn't live up to his playing greatness; in the 16 seasons he spent as manager with the Indians, Giants, Orioles, and Expos/Nationals, he never finished higher than second in his division and never made the postseason. After the end of his managing career, he spent most of the time until his passing in 2019 in various MLB executive positions. His #20 has been retired by the Reds, Orioles, and Guardians.
Curt Flood was a defensive center fielder who played for the St. Louis Cardinals. However, when he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1969, he vehemently did not want to go there, so he refused to report, then wrote a letter to MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn requesting to be made a free agent, in circumvention of the league's Reserve Clause (which said that the team that a player played for keeps his rights, meaning that he could not sign with another team even after his contract expired). When Kuhn refused, Flood sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act for the right to be a free agent. His case went to the Supreme Court, where Flood was denied the right (in an opinion penned by baseball aficionado Justice Harry Blackmun, which opened with a seven-page essay on how awesome baseball is and how many great players had been screwed by the Reserve Clause, but went on to say, in effect, "MLB has gotten some special exceptions under the Sherman Act in the past that apply to the Reserve Clause, and we're not in a position to change them at this time; sorry."^note) Flood's rather ill-advised comparison of the Reserve Clause to slavery probably didn't help. However, Flood's action strengthened the Major League Baseball Players Association such that the MLB owners would voluntarily rescind the reserve clause in 1975,^note creating the "free agency" era in Major League Baseball.
José Canseco, the other half of the "Bash Brothers" (along with Mark McGwire), was for a while one of baseball's most notorious and disliked figures. After his career, he wrote a book called Juiced where he not only admitted that he used steroids during his career but also "outed" several prominent players as steroid users. However, sportswriters and baseball experts regard him as a shameless scandalmonger who merely lobbied blind accusations at players who he suspected might have been "juicing" and by chance happened to be right about a few. (For example, Mark McGwire admits to using steroids but flatly denies Canseco's account of events.) During Canseco's career, he was known for his speed and power; in 1988, the year he won the MVP award, he became the first player to both hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Alfonso Soriano have since accomplished the same feat). On the other hand, he was commonly lampooned for his defense; he once had a ball bounce off his head for a home run, a mainstay of "blooper" reels. In recent years, he has occasionally made headlines for various other reasons, most notably for a few reality show appearances and for accidentally shooting off one of his fingers while cleaning a gun. He wrote a second book, Vindicated, but a third book that he'd teased would reveal a "juicer" already in the Hall of Fame does not seem to have materialized.
Kirby Puckett joins Lou Gehrig and Roberto Clemente in baseball's pantheon of players whose career was cut brutally short. One of the most productive and popular stars in Major League Baseball from 1984 until 1995, Puckett was a stalwart presence in the Twins dugout. Most nationally famous for winning Game Six of the 1991 World Series (the second of his two World Series rings) with a walk-off home run against Charlie Leibrandt. Puckett was one of the few good things going for the Twins from 1992 until 1995. During the preseason of the 1996 baseball season, Puckett woke up without vision in his right eye—he would eventually lose the eye and be forced to retire from baseball. He was a first-ballot inductee into the Hall of Fame in the Class of 2000, shortly before a series of low-level incidents and a bitter divorce, unfortunately, tainted his name in Minnesota and forced him to leave for Arizona to get away from the cloud of media suspicion. Puckett died in 2005 of a hemorrhagic stroke.
Rickey Henderson, as mentioned above, holds the major league record for both career stolen bases and stolen bases in a single season. He also holds the records for career runs scored (2,295) and unintentional walks (2,129), and is among the few players in baseball history to amass 3,000 hits. All of these skills combined to make him not only arguably the best leadoff hitter of all time, but one of the greatest all-around players of all time.^noteOnce asked if he thought Henderson was a future Hall of Famer, statistician Bill James replied, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers." Though he's often cast as a singles hitter like most leadoff hitters, he had a decent amount of power, with nearly 300 home runs in his career, a lot for a leadoff hitter, especially one who played most of his career in the pitchers' era of the 1980s. Speaking of which, Henderson led off games with homers 81 times, an MLB record by a wide margin.^noteSecond place is held by the still-active George Springer, with 60 at the end of the 2025 season. He played for 25 years and for nine teams but is best remembered for his five years with the Yankees and many stints with the Athletics, with whom he won one of his World Series rings in 1989 and his only MVP award in 1990. Even after his passing in 2024, he's known for being extremely eccentric, especially for his Third-Person Person tendencies. He also took an extremely unusual batting stance, crouching low to the ground to enable him to see the ball better and holding the bat at an almost 60° angle to the ground. (This also reduced his strike zone without sacrificing much power, which he knew frustrated pitchers.)
- As of 2017, the A's named the field at the Oakland Coliseum after him, which goes to show how iconic he is, not just as an Athletic, but as a player in general.
Tony Gwynn was an outfielder who played his entire 20-year career with the San Diego Padres. Known as an intense student of hitting—he was one of the first players to use video to analyze his swing—he became a member of the 3,000 hit club, his career .338 batting average is the highest among players who began their careers after World War II, and his eight NL batting titles are tied with Honus Wagner for the most all-time. Gwynn's .394 batting average in 1994 was the highest of any player in a full-length season since Ted Williams in 1941. Gwynn also played in 15 All-Star Games, won five Gold Gloves, and was elected alongside Ripken to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. In 2003, he became the head baseball coach at his alma mater of San Diego State University (where he had played both baseball and basketball) and served in that role (as well as part-time gigs on the side with ESPN and Yahoo Sports) until dying of cancer in 2014. The National League subsequently named its batting title after him starting in 2016.
Ken Griffey Jr. was one of the best (arguably the best) players of The '90s. Well-marketed (even having his own series of baseball games made by Nintendo for the SNES and the Nintendo 64) and excelling in all facets of the game, he led the previously pathetic Seattle Mariners out of obscurity and enjoyed tremendous popularity. He's also the first of two players in history (Tim Raines Jr. joining him in 2001) to play on the same team with his father (of the same name), who was a successful if not Hall-of-Fame caliber outfielder. After many good years with the Mariners, he requested a move to his hometown Cincinnati Reds,^note where he would mostly spend the next nine years and last years of baseball injuring his hamstring. Still, he became the sixth player to hit 600 home runs, and, some argue, the first since Hank Aaron to do so legitimately, since the fourth (Barry Bonds) and fifth (Sammy Sosa), discussed below, were both linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Elected to the Hall of Fame at his first chance in 2016, getting what was then the highest percentage of votes ever from the writers. He was also the first #1 draft pick inducted into the Hall of Fame. Still, many fans consider there to be an element of What Could Have Been to his career, because for years he seemed destined to break Aaron's all-time home run record, and if not for constant injuries nagging him for those seasons on the Reds he may well have done so. (His time in Seattle may have been part of the problem—the Kingdome, where the M's then played, was infamous for its concrete-hard artificial turf.) May have had the most beautiful swing in history during his prime. Most recently, he became a part-owner of the M's in 2021. One darker and lesser-known fact about Junior is that he has on occasion been an advocate for suicide/depression awareness, himself having attempted suicide (and nearly succeeding) early in his minor league career.
Sammy Sosa was the right fielder for the Chicago Cubs for most of the 90s and early 00s. He was a pretty good player at the start of his career, excelling at most aspects of the game, but then in 1998, he suddenly went from good to otherworldly, becoming one of the best home run hitters in a time filled with them. He and Mark McGwire both chased Maris's home run record that year, and both ultimately broke it, but McGwire broke it first and broke it by more, hitting 70 home runs to Sosa's 66, although Sammy did set a record for the most home runs in a single month with 20 in June. Sosa remained among the best power hitters in the game for the next few years, hitting 292 home runs from 1998 to 2002 (by quite a bit, the highest number in the major leagues over that period) including three 60-home run seasons (making him the only player in history to accomplish that feat three times). His stats declined and his reputation started to sour a bit after that, though: in 2003, he was suspended for using a corked bat, and like most other power hitters of the time, he was long the subject of steroid rumors for his enormous physique and incredible number of home runs. His comments at a congressional hearing in 2005 asking him about steroid use certainly didn't help his cause (he claimed he didn't speak English in response to a question, which, given that he'd spoken it fairly regularly to teammates and reporters over his career, clearly wasn't the case). After he retired, he was reported to have been on a list of players testing positive for PEDs in 2003, and so despite his impressive career and his being one of only nine players to hit 600 home runs, he couldn't get much support for induction to the Hall of Fame before he fell off the ballot.
Barry Bonds, a former San Francisco Giant, considered one of the best all-around players in baseball history. He holds the record for both the single-season and career record for home runs, which is even more impressive when you consider that he also holds the career records for both walks and intentional walks. He has won seven MVP awards, more than any other player (his closest competitor in this department has three). Despite these feats, he failed to gain entry to the Hall of Fame when first eligible, receiving only 34% of the vote, and in his last year on the writers' ballot in 2022, he got only 66%, well short of the needed 75%. Why? Steroids. Bonds was one of the central figures in the performance-enhancing drug scandals that rocked baseball in The '90s and early 00s, going from a wiry rookie as a Pittsburgh Pirate to an imposing hulk in his later years. While PEDs were widely used throughout MLB, even before the "Steroid Era", Bonds has become the face of the scandal, aided by his frigid relationship with the media. Despite his tarnished legacy and the inability of any of his teams to win a World Series, Bonds remains the owner of some of baseball's most cherished records, and simply the most dominant player of his generation.
- Perhaps the most illustrative example of Barry Bonds' general ridiculousness is that he is the only member of the 500–500 club — players with 500+ career home runs and stolen bases. For that matter, he's the only one who even has 400 of both home runs and stolen bases, and one of just six with 300 of one and 400 of the other (his father, Bobby Bonds, himself a great all-around player, is the only other player with 300 homers and 400 stolen bases; the four other players with 400 homers and 300 steals are Alex Rodriguez, Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, and Carlos Beltrán).
- Bonds drew so much attention for his alleged PED use in large part because of the absurd nature of some of his performances; his 2001–2004 seasons are not only regarded as some of the greatest in the history of the game, but Bonds, in some ways, fundamentally altered the game he was playing in. There's an old saying that even the best MLB hitters fail far more often than they succeed; in 2004, Bonds put up a .604 on-base percentage, meaning he successfully reached base in more than 60 percent of his plate appearances.
- After a long absence from baseball, Bonds returned to the sport full-time at the end of 2015, as the hitting coach for the Miami Marlins. He lasted only one season until being let go for unspecified reasons at the end of the 2016 season; he then returned to the Giants in a front-office role, before working as a color commentator for Fox Sports.
Vladimir Guerrero played for 16 years, mostly for the Expos and the Angels. During his prime, he was considered one of the most feared hitters in baseball, usually hitting for both high average and power. He had a 10-year streak in which he hit at least .300 with 27 home runs and a .900 OPS, and at least 100 RBIs in every season except for one that was shortened by injury. He never hit lower than .290. In 2004, his first year with the Angels, he hit .337 with 39 homers and 136 RBIs and won the AL MVP. He also was a decent base-stealer early in his career and came just one home run short of the 40–40 club (40 home runs, 40 steals) in 2002. He was also famed as one of baseball's best "bad-ball hitters"; that is, he frequently swung at and got hits off balls thrown well outside the strike zone—he once even got a hit off a curveball that bounced in the dirt. He narrowly missed out on Hall of Fame election at his first try in 2017, but easily got in the next year. His son, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is currently a first baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays and gained acclaim for his incredible hitting performances in the minor leagues at a very young age, although he didn't quite translate that success to the big leagues until his third season in 2021.
Ichiro Suzuki, an outfielder who was most famous during his time with the Mariners but also played for the Yankees and Marlins, is the first Japanese position player (i.e., non-pitcher) to have a protracted, successful career in the American majors. After many years of being one of the NPB's biggest stars, including three MVP awards, he came to America in 2001, signing a contract with the Mariners. He immediately became one of Major League Baseball's best players, hitting .350 and stealing 56 bases that year, helping the Mariners win a record-tying 116 regular-season games, and winning both the AL Rookie of the Year and MVP Awards. He continued to play at an elite level for the next decade, with a record 10 straight seasons with at least 200 hits from 2001 to 2010. In 2004, his best season, he collected 262 hits, breaking the major league record for hits in a single season. He went into a steady age-related decline from 2011 on, going from perennial all-star to okay player to backup outfielder, but was still good enough to play in the big leagues despite his age. By the end of his playing career, he was the oldest position player in the major leagues by around five years, and he long stated that he wanted to keep playing until at least 50. He rejoined the Mariners in 2018 after spending the previous five and a half years elsewhere but got off to a weak start and moved from the field to the front office in May, though he hadn't yet officially retired. That would come after the second game of the M's 2019 season-opening series in Tokyo. Ichiro had been signed to a minor-league contract and placed on the active roster for the Tokyo series.^note He is well-known for his unusual hitting style–rather than try to always hit the ball as hard as he could, Ichiro preferred to "slap" the ball into gaps where no fielder was standing (even when the ball did go towards an infielder, he would often make it on base anyways, thanks to a combination of sheer speed and his swing being designed to put his body into the perfect position/posture to instantly book it towards first). Despite not appearing in the majors until he was 27, he reached 3,000 MLB hits while playing for the Marlins in 2016, even though by then he was no longer a regular starter due to age-related decline. If you combine the 1200+ hits that he got in Japan with his MLB totals, he has more hits than Pete Rose, leading to an intense debate over whether Ichiro should be considered baseball's hit king instead of Rose. Ichiro was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2025 and was only one vote away from joining Mariano Rivera as a unanimous inductee. He is also an apparent victim of Memetic Mutation.
Manny Ramirez, over the course of his career, had been one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball, but also one of the sport's most unpredictable characters. His frequent mental lapses, both on and off the field, have cost his teams a game or two and have been referred to as "Manny being Manny". Most controversially, in the latter part of his career, he acquired a reputation for playing outstanding baseball his first few months with a new team, but at some point thereafter wearing out his welcome and resorting to childish outbursts and lackadaisical play until he's shipped off somewhere else. He twice tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs; after the second test, he chose to retire rather than face a 100-game suspension. Or not. He requested a reinstatement, and signed with yet another team (the Athletics), then another one (the Rangers), then joined the Cubs' AAA team in 2014 as a player/coach to mentor some of the Cubs' top prospects (and maybe have some chance of getting back to the Major Leagues, where he hasn't played since his 100-game suspension/retirement). He spent 2015 as a hitting consultant for the Cubs. He attempted yet another comeback attempt, with the Kochi Fighting Dogs of the Shikoku Island League Plus, an independent Japanese league, and still isn't willing to hang up his spikes, having signed a one-year deal in August 2020 to serve as a player-coach with the Sydney Blue Sox of the Australian Baseball League.

Catchers

Mickey Cochrane, a star with the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers in the 20s and 30s, was the greatest catcher of his day and among the position's all-time greats. He was called up by the A's in 1925 after only one minor-league season, with owner–manager Connie Mack putting him in the starting lineup in place of Cy Perkins, then considered one of the best catchers. Cochrane validated Mack's assessment by hitting .331 with a .397 OBP. By 1928, when he won his first AL MVP award, he was seen as the best catcher in baseball and was a key to the A's consecutive AL pennants from 1929–31. He was haunted to a degree by the A's loss to the Cardinals in the 1931 World Series, in which he was sometimes blamed for giving up several key stolen bases, though modern historians blame the A's pitchers for being careless about holding runners on first. After the 1933 season, Mack began dismantling his dynastic team for financial reasons, and traded Cochrane to the Tigers, where he became player–manager. Cochrane led the Tigers to 101 wins, then a record for a rookie manager, and the AL pennant, and was also named AL MVP in a season in which Lou Gehrig won the Triple Crown.^note He went one step further the next season by leading the Tigers to their first World Series victory. Cochrane's playing career ended prematurely after being beaned early in the 1937 season; his managing career ended a little more than a year later. His .320 batting average and .419 on-base percentage remained the best for all catchers before MLB incorporated Negro Leagues stats into its official database; he entered Cooperstown in 1947 and passed away in 1962. Cochrane has one other legacy in baseball—he was the favorite player of one Elvin "Mutt" Mantle, who named his son after Cochrane. Yes, that Mantle. Interestingly, Mutt didn't know that Cochrane's real name was Gordon Stanley Cochrane; The Mick would say many times that he would have hated the name Gordon.
Moe Berg, unlike most of the players listed here, wasn't a Hall of Famer, but was one of the most remarkable characters in baseball history, with a legacy far out of proportion to his modest career stats. For starters, he was the Ur-Example of the phrase "good field, no hit", with a scout describing him as such in 1921. Berg was at best an average player, shuffling between five teams in a 15-season MLB career (1923, 1926–39), but was justifiably called "the brainiest guy in baseball", being a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School. His friends joked, "He can speak 10 languages, but he can't hit in any of them." At the same time, he exhibited many cloudcuckoolander traits, leading Casey Stengel (himself widely seen as an eccentric) to call him "the strangest man ever to play baseball." His reputation as an intellectual was bolstered by outstanding performances as a contestant on the then-popular radio quiz show Information Please. Berg may be better known for his service as a US spy during World War II. Most notably, he was assigned to attend a lecture by German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg in Zürich to determine how close the Nazis were to nuclear weapons. Berg had orders to kill Heisenberg if he felt Germany was close to a bomb but determined that Germany's nuclear program was no threat and spared Heisenberg. Despite a well-earned reputation as a ladies' man, he never married, and after the war lived with siblings until his death in 1972.
Josh Gibson was one of the greatest players of all time, and arguably the greatest catcher of all time. Unfortunately, on account of his being black, he never got the chance to play in the majors at all, playing his entire career before the league was integrated in 1947, and tragically dying of a stroke at the age of 35 only a few months before that 1947 season started. His prodigious hitting power led to him being called "The Black Babe Ruth"—although some said (and Ruth himself is reported to have been willing to admit) that Ruth should have been called "the White Josh Gibson". Like Babe Ruth, he hit a huge number of home runs; it's hard to say exactly how many due to the sketchiness of Negro Leagues records and the large number of unofficial games Negro League teams tended to play, but some sources credit him with as many as 800 (most in barnstorming games), which would be more than any Major League player ever hit. With MLB's 2020 decision to incorporate Negro Leagues statistics from 1920 to 1948 into its official stats, followed by the full incorporation of said stats in 2024, he's now passed Ty Cobb for the highest career batting average at .371, and passed Hugh Duffy for the highest single-season BA, at .466 in 1943. He was the subject of numerous tall tales about his power, the most famous being that he once hit a home run in Pittsburgh^note that came down in another city (usually Philadelphia) the following day, in another ballpark, in a game that Gibson was playing against the same team. It was caught by an outfielder, leading the umpire to exclaim, "You're out, yesterday in Pittsburgh!"
Yogi Berra^note was the catcher on the great Yankees teams of the late '40s through the early '60s, with his 10 World Series rings being the most out of any player in history. Despite being one of history's greatest catchers both defensively and offensively (for one thing, he was an excellent "bad-ball hitter" who could hammer even pitches thrown well outside of the zone, making him notoriously difficult to strike out), Berra is mostly remembered today as one of the funniest Cloudcuckoolanders ever. He was once complimented by a female reporter: "You look cool out there, Yogi." "Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself!" He said of a restaurant in his native St. Louis, "Nobody goes to that place anymore. It's too crowded." There are many other examples; however, he also said "I didn't really say everything I said." Yogi also enjoyed some success as a manager, leading the 1964 Yankees and 1973 Mets to the World Series (though both teams lost). Though it may seem obvious that Yogi Bear was named after him, Hanna-Barbera always maintained that the similarity was entirely coincidental. Passed away on September 22, 2015 at the age of 90.
Johnny Bench is a Hall of Fame catcher who spent his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds, most notably during the team's Big Red Machine era of the 1970s, and named by ESPN as the greatest ever at that position. He came up to the majors in late 1967; although he got off to a slow offensive start, he impressed everyone with his defense and throwing ability, with none other than Ted Williams predicting he would be "a Hall of Famer for sure!" In his rookie season of 1968, he became the first rookie catcher ever to win an NL Gold Glove, and the first catcher ever to be named NL Rookie of the Year. Two years later, he became the youngest-ever NL MVP, an award he won again in 1972. Bench went on to win 10 consecutive Gold Gloves, make 14 All-Star teams, and hit the most homers ever by a catcher (a record since surpassed by Carlton Fisk and later Mike Piazza). He stopped regularly catching after the 1980 season, playing his last three seasons at first or third until retiring in 1983. Williams' prediction came true, as Bench was easily elected to the Hall of Fame at his first chance in 1989. Bench is also notable for popularizing the hinged catcher's mitt (though he wasn't the first player to use it), which is now standard equipment for the position.
Carlton Fisk is another Hall of Fame catcher, born in the same month as Bench (December 1947). A New England native, "Pudge" had cups of coffee with the Red Sox in 1969 and 1971 before coming up to stay in 1972. In that season, he followed in Bench's footsteps by winning AL Gold Glove and Rookie of the Year honors (though without Bench's added milestones). He suffered a knee injury in 1974 so severe that doctors told him he'd never come back. He proved them wrong, coming back the next year to hit .331 for the pennant-winning BoSox. That season saw Fisk end perhaps the most famous game in World Series history with his iconic "stay fair" walk-off homer in the 12th inning of Game 6… though Bench's Reds took the title in game seven. After seven All-Star appearances with Boston, he had something of a falling-out with the team's general manager and left as a free agent after the 1980 season when the GM missed a deadline to send him a new contract. Fisk joined the White Sox, where he would play for 13 seasons (longer than he did in Boston), making four more All-Star rosters. He ended his career with the most homers ever as a catcher (since surpassed by Piazza) and the most games ever played at the position (a record now held by Iván Rodríguez… also nicknamed "Pudge"). Fisk entered Cooperstown on his second try in 2000.
Mike Piazza is still another Hall of Fame catcher. The longtime backstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, he is generally considered the best offensive player in the history of his position. Piazza was an extremely late-round draft pick^note—even that much only, famously, a favor to his brother's godfather, then-Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda—and had to learn his position on the fly as a professional. His excellent contact rate and opposite field power nonetheless shot him through the Dodgers' system and he debuted in September of 1992, winning rookie of the year honors the next year. His best season came in 1997 with a ridiculous .362/.431/.638 triple slash line, but with his contract due the next season the new Dodgers ownership gave a lowball offer and, on his refusal, dealt him to the then-Florida Marlins in a salary dump. One week later, the notoriously cheap Marlins sent Piazza to the Mets, then in surprise playoff contention, for several prospects. The Piazza-led Mets reached the playoffs in 1999 and 2000 with several near-misses thereafter, while interleague play brought his famous showdowns with then-Yankee Roger Clemens, who by most accounts resorted to just hitting him when pitching failed to work. Late in the 2001 season, Piazza famously hit a dramatic home run to left center in the first major league game played after the September 11 terrorist attacks, remaining the signature hit of his career (the rest of September did not go so well for his team, alas). Although his defensive reputation was a punchline for much of his career as he was historically poor at throwing out base stealers, Piazza's defense has been surprisingly Vindicated by History. Repeated studies of pitch framing—catching a pitch specifically to show it as a strike—showed him as one of the best catchers of his era at the skill. He probably would like you to know that he only dates women.
Iván Rodríguez is another Hall of Fame catcher, who played for six teams in 21 MLB seasons but is most identified with the Texas Rangers, where he played for his first 12 seasons plus a 13th late in his career. Nicknamed "Pudge" as a minor-leaguer because of his short and stocky build, he made his MLB debut with the Rangers in 1991 while still 19. He immediately established himself as one of the top defensive catchers in the game, as well as a very good hitter for the position (though not quite at the level of Piazza or Joe Mauer). Pudge went on to make 14 All-Star rosters, win 13 Gold Gloves in his career, and pick up seven Silver Slugger awards (the latter presented to each league's top hitter at each position), as well as earning a World Series ring in 2003 with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins. Rodríguez played his final MLB game in 2011, officially retiring early in the 2012 season, ending his career with several records for catchers: the most games played as a catcher in MLB history, the most putouts in that position (later surpassed by Yadier Molina), and the most hits of any catcher in MLB history. While he consistently denied ever having used steroids or other PEDs, he was still dogged by PED rumors throughout his career, especially after José Canseco claimed in his controversial book Juiced that he had personally injected Pudge. The rumors didn't keep him from being a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2017.
Joe Mauer retired during the 2018 offseason after spending his entire 15-season MLB career with the Minnesota Twins. He's considered one of the best-hitting catchers in MLB history, having led the American League in batting average three times (2006, 2008, 2009), the most batting titles won by any catcher—in fact, it's just one fewer than the total number of batting titles won by every catcher in history who isn't Joe Mauer. He also won the 2009 AL MVP, a year when he had one of the best seasons any catcher has ever had at the plate, including the highest batting average by any catcher in the modern era (.365).^note He was often thought of as the second-best player in baseball (after Albert Pujols) when he was in his mid-20s. Due to injuries sustained from catching, the Twins moved him to playing full-time first base in 2014; unfortunately, he was a shell of his former self ever since he went down with a concussion in 2013, although he enjoyed something of a resurgence since 2017. However, he missed more than 30 games after another concussion in 2018, and in the end decided to call it a career. The Twins, anticipating his retirement, treated their final game in 2018 (which was at home) as a farewell to Mauer—capped off by moving him to catcher to start the 9th inning (he was subbed out after one pitch). He ended his career as one of only two overall #1 draft picks to hit over .300 for a career, with Chipper Jones as the other, and like Jones made it to Cooperstown on his first try in 2024. Also notable for being something of a hometown hero, as he grew up in the Twin Cities. Was one of the most marketable players in his prime, having been in commercials for Head & Shoulders and Sony's MLB The Show series. Well played, Mauer.
Buster Posey played his entire career for the San Francisco Giants. After having a cup of coffee with the Giants in September 2009, he was called up for good at the end of May 2010, and took off like a rocket, winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award and playing a major part in the Giants' World Series run and victory. His 2011 season was cut abruptly short, however, in a horrific collision at home plate in a game against the Marlins that left him with a broken leg and several torn ankle ligaments. His return to catching—even his ability to ever play at the same level he had played at before—was questioned. He returned to catching in 2012 and seemed to be preforming at a respectable level… until the second half of the season, where he ignited and proceeded to have one of the best seasons ever by a catcher. He finished with the highest batting average in the whole league, making him the first catcher to lead the NL in batting average in 70 years, won the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award, and won the NL MVP Award by a landslide. And the Giants won the World Series… again. Since then, his offense remained consistently excellent for the next several years (though it hadn't been quite as good since 2018), and he continued to be one of the best catchers in the game (winning yet another series with the Giants in 2014). He opted out of playing in the COVID-affected 2020 season, partly because he and his wife were in the process of adopting premature twin girls. After slashing .302/.390/.499 in 2021 and helping the Giants hold off the Dodgers in an epic NL West race, he claimed another NL Comeback Player of the Year award. After the season, even though he had a $22 million club option for the 2022 season that the Giants would have almost certainly exercised, he announced his retirement, citing a wish to spend more time with his family with his health intact. He joined the franchise's ownership group shortly before the end of the 2022 season and became the Giants' president of baseball operations after the 2024 season.
Yadier Molina played his entire career for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2004 to 2022. He was long widely regarded as the best defensive catcher in the game, in part for his great skill at throwing out opposing base-stealers and for his above-average ability to frame pitches. His offense was a bit more inconsistent, though later in his career he developed into a solid offensive player. Even for a catcher, he was a very slow runner—to the point that his speed (or lack thereof) is constantly joked about by fans and sportswriters alike. Though his value as a framer took a sharp dive after the 2013 season (due to both age-related decline and better framers coming into the game), he managed to remain an above-average catcher for the rest of his career. He was named the 2018 Roberto Clemente Award winner for his humanitarian efforts in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated large parts of his homeland of Puerto Rico in 2017. During his final season in 2022, Molina and longtime Cards starting pitcher Adam Wainwright set new MLB records as the most successful battery (pitcher/catcher combination) by wins, and the battery with the most starting appearances.^note He retired with the most putouts ever by a catcher, breaking Pudge Rodríguez' record. While Pudge still has the records for most games caught and most hits by a catcher, Molina holds the single-team records in both categories.

Pitchers

Denton "Cy" Young was a pitcher in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who was so awesome, baseball eventually named their top award for pitchers after him. Holds the records for career wins with 511 and complete games with 749, which are literally in "will never be broken" territory due to differences in the way baseball is played today (Young pitched every third or fourth game or so, which would be unacceptable to today's players).^note
Christy Mathewson was, like Honus Wagner, a Pennsylvania Working-Class Hero who achieved great fame in the early 1900s, although in his case it was as a pitcher with the New York Giants. Also like Wagner, Mathewson was a very kind and polite man off the field, noted for his devoutness (he refused to play on Sundays^note and one of his nicknames was "the Christian Gentleman"). On the field, he was a devastating pitcher, and the first major leaguer to use what is now called the "screwball"—a breaking pitch that breaks the opposite of the pitcher's other breaking pitches (Mathewson himself called it a "fadeaway"; legend has it that he learned it from the Black pitcher Rube Foster, who also called it that). He was one of the first wholesome "all-American" baseball stars, and his appearance in baseball in 1900 was one of several around that time convincing Americans that baseball was no longer the sport of ruffians it had been in the 1890s. Mathewson's pitching carried the Giants to many wins for nearly 20 years, but in World War I he joined the military, where he was a captain in the Chemical Warfare Service (serving, incidentally, alongside Ty Cobb)—and was exposed to poison gas in a training accident. Mathewson had to quit baseball, and although he tried to make himself useful where he could (he served on the team that investigated the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal), the gas got the better of him in the end; his weakened respiratory system was vulnerable to tuberculosis, and he caught the disease, dying of it in 1925. Eleven years later, he was one of the first five men to be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the only one of the five inducted posthumously.
Walter Johnson was a pitcher who spent his entire career with the original Washington Senators during the early 1900s. As this was the dead-ball era, his low-90s fastball, which would be considered average today, made him one of the best power pitchers in the game at the time—or at least, what could be considered "power pitchers" in the dead-ball era. And he certainly had success—his 417 career wins are second only to Cy Young's 511, and his ERA regularly went below 2.00 (his career ERA is 2.17). His major league record of 110 shutouts still stands today and is considered unbreakable. He also was the first (and for a long time, only) pitcher to get at least 3,000 career strikeouts, and he held the major league record with 3,509 until 1983, when it was broken by Nolan Ryan (and, later in the same year, by Steve Carlton and Gaylord Perry). His long list of accomplishments led to him being one of the five players inducted into the Hall of Fame in its first year of existence, although he's since become much more obscure, largely due to the fact that the Senators were generally terrible while he played there (and for the entirety of their 60 years in Washington, for that matter).
Leroy "Satchel" Paige is widely considered one of the greatest pitchers ever. Unfortunately, he was also black, which meant he couldn't play in the Majors until 1948, when he was in his 40s (probably). Officially, he was 42, which makes him to this day the oldest player to debut in either the American League or the National League. Whatever his age, he was still a pretty good pitcher, considering his Cleveland Indians were the first integrated team to win the World Series. Was coaxed out of retirement to pitch one game at 59 (not a misprint, and still a Major League record), in which he went three scoreless innings. One of the Negro Leagues' two biggest stars, Paige was known for being extremely cocky, though he almost never failed to back it up. On barnstorming tours, he would have his infielders sit down behind him and then he would strike out the side. Supposedly, Paige once intentionally walked the bases loaded in a playoff game (records of Negro League games are somewhat sketchy) just to set up a confrontation with the Negro Leagues' other big star, slugger Josh Gibson, and responded by striking Gibson out to clinch the championship. He expressed resentment at the time that Jackie Robinson was the one chosen to break the Majors' color line and not himself, though he later conceded that Robinson was probably the right choice. Well-known for pithy sayings, the most famous being "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." Several players and sportswriters have been quoted as saying that at his prime, Paige threw with more speed and precision than any other pitcher in baseball history.
Bob Feller was a Hall of Fame pitcher who spent his entire career with the Cleveland Indians, interrupted by a three-year stint in the Navy during World War II. He burst onto the national scene as a 17-year-old in 1936, making it to the Indians without ever playing a game in the minors, striking out 15 in his very first start, and a then-record-tying 17 later that season, making him the first pitcher to strike out a number of batters equal to his age in a major league game, a feat which was equaled in 1998 when a 20-year-old Kerry Wood struck out 20 batters. The next season, he made the cover of TIME Magazine, and his high school graduation in Iowa (which he could attend because he was recovering from an injury) was nationally broadcast on radio. In 1938, he set what was then a single-game record with 18 strikeouts, and went on to throw three no-hitters (a record until Sandy Koufax and later Nolan Ryan came along) and 12 one-hitters (still a record, now shared with Ryan) and win 266 games (he would likely have won 300 if not for the war). Probably the hardest thrower of his day and possibly measuring up with later flamethrowers such as Ryan and Aroldis Chapman. After his playing career, he became the first president of the players' union. He entered Cooperstown at his first chance in 1962 and passed away in 2010.
Warren Spahn was a Hall of Fame pitcher who spent almost his entire 21-season MLB career with the Braves, first in Boston and then in Milwaukee. A "thinking man's" pitcher, perhaps his most famous remark about his craft was, "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." He first came up in 1942, but was quickly sent down by manager Casey Stengel, who years later considered that his biggest managing mistake. At the end of that season, he enlisted in the Army, returning to the Braves after the war. The next year he won 20 games, a feat he would accomplish 12 more times, leading the NL in wins eight times. Spahn also led the NL three times in ERA and four times in strikeouts, and appeared in 14 All-Star Games, the most of any 20th-century pitcher. By the end of his career, his longevity had become something of a byword in the game. Ironically, after 20 seasons with the Braves, he would be briefly reunited in 1965 with Stengel, who by that time had become manager of the memetically bad Mets after an epically successful stint with the Yankees; Spahn would say about that, "I'm probably the only guy who played for Casey before and after he was a genius." Moving to the Giants later in that season, he would retire at its end. Spahn's 363 career wins are the most for any left-hander in history and the most among pitchers who spent their entire careers in the post-1920 live-ball era. He also tops all live-ball pitchers in career complete games and shutouts. Was immortalized in a poem written in 1948 by Boston Post editor Gerald V. Hern along with his teammate Johnny Sain (himself a pretty good pitcher in the late '40s), which is often condensed as "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain," referring to their excellent performance as the Braves chased the NL pennant that year, specifically a period in September featuring a couple of rainouts in which Spahn and Sain combined to win eight games in 12 days. The "pray for rain" part of the poem comes from the rest of the Braves' staff at the time being… considerably less good than those two, and the poem is often referenced if a team has two very good starting pitchers at the front of their rotation but not much talent backing them up. Also immortalized in a joke credit in one of the Naked Gun films, with Milwaukee-area natives Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker including him with the disclaimer "He's not in the film, but he's still our all-time favorite left-hand pitcher."
Bob Gibson was one of the most dominant pitchers of all time. A nine-time All-Star and first-ballot Hall of Famer, Gibson won nine Gold Gloves, two Cy Young Awards, pitched one no-hitter, set records with 35 strikeouts in a World Series and 17 K's in one World Series game, threw 255 complete games, and holds the single-season record for ERA with a 1.12 mark set in 1968.^note In fact, Gibson's 1968 performance (combined with other dominant pitching performances that year) changed the game of baseball, by leading Major League Baseball to lower the mound by five inches and reduce the size of the strike zone. Gibson was also famous for his fierce intensity on the mound and earned a reputation for knocking down and hitting batters (102), although he was close to the average rate of hit batters (per nine innings) among Hall of Fame pitchers. In addition to his pitching, Gibson also possessed great skill with the bat and is one of only two pitchers since WWII with a career line of a .200+ batting average, 20 or more home runs, and over 100 runs batted in.^note He also played for the Harlem Globetrotters before turning to baseball full-time. Gibson passed away in 2020.
Sanford "Sandy" Koufax is widely held to be one of the finest pitchers in the history of the game, despite having serious control difficulties in his early career. He was far more interested in basketball than he ever was in his own sport, and had it not been for the fact that he could throw a 100-mile-an-hour fastball, might have ended up in that sport than baseball. He is said to have studied the "art and science" of pitching, to the point that he became one of the finest technicians in that position in the game. Mickey Mantle once pointed out that Koufax always signaled his pitches before his windup. "If Koufax was going to throw you a fast ball, his elbows would be out away from his body; if it was gonna be a curve, his elbows would be in close to his body. Every batter who ever faced Koufax knew precisely what he was about to get, but it didn't matter because the pitches were so good you couldn't hit them anyways." He was the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award three times—and did so in an era when there was only one Cy Young winner for all of MLB.^note Koufax was also the first to pitch four no-hitters and the eighth pitcher in MLB to pitch a perfect game. He had a higher career strikeout total than a career innings-pitched total, the first starting pitcher to accomplish that feat with a minimum of 1000 innings pitched. (Among players who played most of their career before the 2010s, the only other starters to achieve that are Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martínez. Many relief pitchers have done this over short periods, but the only ones to do that while meeting the 1000-inning minimum are Trevor Hoffman and Kerry Wood. In recent years, with the rise of strikeout rates, the feat has become much more commonplace.) He left the game when he was only 30 due to arthritis in his throwing left elbow and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame five years later (becoming the youngest player ever so honored).
Tommy John pitched for numerous teams for a long time, achieving his greatest success with the Dodgers and Yankees. Though he's somewhat remembered for his pitching, he's far better remembered for the elbow surgery now named after him that he was the first patient of. In the middle of the 1974 season, he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm, making pitching effectively impossible; at the time, the injury was considered career-ending. Not willing to let his career end like this, he spent the next few months working with one of the Dodgers' team doctors, Frank Jobe, attempting a comeback. After exhausting several other options, they decided to replace the ligament with a tendon from his other arm, the procedure that would later be known as "Tommy John surgery". At the time, Jobe thought that the odds of a comeback were about 1 in 100, but it worked great; far better than he could have ever expected, in fact. John was able to return to pitching in 1976, and would continue pitching until 1989, never being bothered by the elbow again.^note His career numbers from both before and after the surgery include having won 288 games and having pitched for twenty-six seasons—a major league record until Nolan Ryan broke it a few years later. Now, the surgery is fairly commonplace, in both baseball and other sports, but especially for baseball and even more so for pitchers; about a quarter of currently active pitchers have had the surgery at least once, a few more than once.
Bert Blyleven is a Hall of Fame pitcher born in The Netherlands^noteBorn Rik Aalbert Blijleven; his family changed the spelling of their last name after they moved to Canada, later settling in California. but raised in Southern California, known for his devastating breaking ball and long, productive career. A member of the 3000 Strikeout Club, his career spanned over two decades and included two World Series rings (with the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and the 1987 Minnesota Twins). He was an inveterate dugout prankster (teammate Kirby Puckett noted that he would crawl under the bench to light somebody's shoelaces on fire—and this BEFORE Major League Baseball banned chewing tobacco) and overall loose cannon. Currently the color commentator for the Twins.
- Blyleven's post-playing career is notable in part for the path the pitcher took to Cooperstown. He received precious little Hall of Fame support in his first several years on the ballot. Internet baseball fans took up his cause and relentlessly, tirelessly advocated on his behalf, writing countless blog posts and emails to voters. This, along with the facts that many more recent pitchers being under a cloud of suspicion for alleged or admitted use of steroids and HGH and new approaches to statistical analysis steadily revealing that Blyleven had a much more dominating career than he had been given credit for, made the tide turn in Bert's favor. Blyleven's eventual election is almost certainly the first in baseball history attributable largely to the Internet.
Nolan Ryan, aka "The Ryan Express", was a pitcher who played for four different teams. One of the first pitchers to be documented throwing at 100 miles an hour, he first became famous for putting up ridiculous strikeout numbers and later became famous for having been around forever, as he played for a record 27 seasons.^note He holds numerous pitching records (most famously, strikeouts in a career, strikeouts in a season, no-hit games in a career) that are widely considered to be in "will never be broken" territory, as well as others (bases on balls, hit batters, wild pitches) that he probably wishes would be broken. He had some control problems and is often regarded by detractors as a flashy .500 pitcher. He is also famous for beating up Robin Ventura when the latter charged the mound. (Ryan was age 46 at the time.) He became president of the Texas Rangers in 2008 and part-owner in 2010; he committed himself to making the team a contender, and did a pretty good job of it.^note He had something of a falling out with other members of the Rangers' leadership in 2013 and sold his stake in the team, jumping ship to the Astros; the Rangers ended up completely collapsing on account of a ridiculous number of injuries in his absence. Off the field, he's noted as a Nice Guy; more than 20 of his former teammates named a son after him, and when one former teammate was asked what the world would be like if everybody was like Ryan, he replied, "Everyone would love each other, and no one would get a hit." Speaking of his pitching velocity, perhaps his most impressive feat was delivering an 85-mph fastball when throwing the ceremonial first pitch at a Rangers game in 2010. At age 63.
Roger Clemens pioneered the modern concept of the "power pitcher" with the Red Sox in the 1980s. Nicknamed "The Rocket", Clemens threw harder than almost anyone else at the time, and had a dominant, macho personality that intimidated hitters and made him almost synonymous with Boston at the time. Clemens set a then-record in 1986 by striking out 20 batters in one game and very nearly won Boston the infamous "Game Six" of the World Series that year. Clemens has won a total of seven Cy Young Awards in his career, a record for any pitcher. Unfortunately, his personality translated into a long, long, long record of bad behavior over the years that increasingly tarnished the public's perception of his career. Split acrimoniously from the Red Sox in 1996 (but not before tying his own single-game strikeout record—which still stands, though it's been tied twice more since) and went on to play for the Blue Jays, Yankees and Astros, winning two World Series with the Yankees. Opinions vary of the man, but these days he is almost universally despised in Boston. Although acquitted of charges of lying under oath to Congress about using illegal performance-enhancing drugs, he is still widely believed to have used them.
Dennis Eckersley was one of the first pitchers to be a closer in the current sense of the word, and more than any other was the one who defined the position as a ninth-inning specialist. He was a good but generally unspectacular starter for the first half of his career, highlighted by getting two All-Star selections and throwing a no-hitter in 1977. He was switched to being a closer when he joined the Oakland A's in 1987 and had several ridiculous years during the A's dominant run in the late 80s and early 90s. His best year was probably 1990, when he had an ERA of 0.61, a ridiculously low ERA (even for a relief pitcher) that would go unmatched until Rays closer Fernando Rodney finished the 2012 season with an ERA of 0.60 (a record that lasted only four years—in 2016, Orioles closer Zach Britton did even better, with an ERA of just 0.54). In 1992, he became one of the few relief pitchers to ever win both the Cy Young and the MVP Award. Though he's a Hall of Famer and generally considered an all-time great, his skills fell off a bit after 1992, and he was never nearly that good again. His most (in)famous moment is probably being the pitcher who gave up a walk-off home run to Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series; fortunately for him, the Athletics would return to the World Series the next year, where Eckersley himself made the final play to finish their 4–0 sweep of the Giants. He's also one of only two pitchers with both 20-win and 50-save seasons in his career, the other being fellow Hall of Famer John Smoltz.
Pedro Martínez pitched for five teams in his major league career but was best known for his time with the Boston Red Sox. In the '90s, he was on everyone's short list of "greatest ever", as he was putting up ridiculous, video game-esque pitching numbers at a time when the trend was toward ridiculous, video game-esque hitting numbers. He was controversially cheated out of an MVP award in 1999 because two writers refused to list pitchers, even though one of them had done so the year before. He was also one of the central characters of the recent Red Sox–Yankees rivalry. In the 2000s, his performance began tailing off. He was clearly still a talented pitcher, but in the latter part of the decade had a great deal of trouble staying healthy (he threw the ball very hard and had a slight frame, not an ideal combination), causing most teams to shy away from him. Voted into the Hall alongside Randy Johnson in 2015.
Greg Maddux: Also known as "Mad Dog" or "The Professor", Maddux pitched for the Cubs, Braves, Padres, and Dodgers. He was discovered at a young age when scouts went to see his brother Mike, and his father said "You'll be back later for the little one". Most scouts were turned off by the scrawny kid who had no velocity on his fastball, but Chicago Cubs scout Doug Mapson saw past it, saying, "I really believe this boy would be the number one player in the country if only he looked a bit more physical". In 1987, his first full year in the majors, Maddux had a 6–14 record and 5.61 ERA, with several people saying "We told you so, he won't make it. Too scrawny and not enough juice on the ball." Then, in 1988 it started (finishing 18–8 with a 3.18 ERA). Gregory Alan Maddux cut a swath of devastation not seen in major league history, going SEVENTEEN seasons with at least fifteen (15) wins. During this time Maddux would often have an ERA lower than his batting average, Gold Gloves (a record 18 in his career), and Cy Young Awards (four). To give an indication of his dominance during this period; "On July 22, 1997, Maddux threw a complete game with just 76 pitches, against the Cubs. Three weeks earlier, he had shut out the defending champion New York Yankees on 84 pitches, and five days before that, he'd beaten the Phillies with a 90-pitch complete game. Maddux allowed just 20 bases on balls in 1997, including six intentional walks. Ignoring those six intentional walks, Maddux only went to a 3–0 count on one batter in all of 1997." He eventually joined the 3000-strikeout club and passed Clemens in career wins. Maddux's 355 career victories are the most of any pitcher whose career began after World War II, and the second-most (behind Warren Spahn) of any pitcher whose career began after 1920. His mind and ability to read players was uncanny; he once intentionally gave up a homer to Jeff Bagwell so later in the season Bagwell would look for that pitch again. On another occasion, while sitting on the bench, Maddux once told everyone "Watch this, we might need to call an ambulance for the first base coach." The batter then drove the next pitch into the chest of the Dodgers' first base coach. There are several other stories about Greg Maddux, and no one should argue his credentials as one of the greatest of all time. Maddux was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2014, along with his longtime Braves teammate Tom Glavine; a third member of the Braves rotation of that era, John Smoltz, would be elected the next year. Maddux received a record 555 votes.
Randy Johnson, a.k.a. "The Big Unit" (he's 6'10"/2.08 meters tall), is one of the hardest-throwing, most intimidating pitchers in recent history and is often regarded as the greatest left-handed pitcher ever. He spent most of his career playing with the Mariners or the Diamondbacks, plus a few short stints with the Expos, Astros, Yankees, and Giants. He retired with over 300 victories and the second-most strikeouts in baseball history, behind only Nolan Ryan. He is also one of only 23 pitchers to throw a perfect game. He also formed one half of the pitching duo that ended up winning the Diamondbacks their first World Series in 2001 and won them co-MVP honors that year. Also notable for inadvertently killing a dove with a pitch◊ during a preseason game, which he would later reference as the logo for his post-retirement photography company. One of three pitchers voted into the Hall of Fame in 2015 in their first year of eligibility. He also unofficially tied Clemens' single-game strikeout record—"unofficially" because while he did strike out 20 batters in nine innings pitched, it was not actually a "nine-inning game" as the game went into extra innings with Johnson having been pulled for a relief pitcher.
Trevor Hoffman was a relief pitcher who spent most of his career with the San Diego Padres. He came up with the Florida Marlins but was traded to the Padres halfway through his rookie season. He became the Padres' closer shortly after joining them, and, somewhat unusually for a closer, held onto it for the next decade and a half (the volatile nature of relief pitching means that most closers tend to flame out fairly quickly), making a few all-star appearances and generally being consistently able to lock down games for the Padres. As he came into the league right around the same time as Dennis Eckersley codified the current role of the closer as the guy who got all the saves, he got a lot of saves pretty much every year in his career, and because closers with this type of role weren't as common prior to Eckersley's dominant run in the early 90s (especially ones who were closers for almost their entire careers), he managed to destroy the all-time career saves record with 601. Shortly after he retired, a similar longtime great closer, Mariano Rivera, broke that record. That Hoffman's career largely overlapped with Rivera's caused him to generally be Overshadowed by Awesome, as Rivera was always considered the slightly better closer and was far more popular. Still, Hoffman was undeniably a great closer, and his 601 saves and 9.36 strikeouts/nine innings pitched ratio (the latter is the highest of any reliever with at least 1000 innings pitched), among other stats, eventually got him into the Hall of Fame on his third try in 2018. He became just the sixth pitcher elected who was primarily a reliever,^note and just the second pitcher elected who never started a game, following Bruce Sutter. Throughout pretty much his entire career, he had the song "Hells Bells" played as his entrance music, which would end up inspiring the Yankees' staff to play "Enter Sandman" whenever Mariano Rivera entered games (in keeping with Rivera's larger popularity, "Enter Sandman" would become far more iconic for Rivera than "Hells Bells" ever was for Hoffman).
Kerry Wood was a starting pitcher turned reliever for the Chicago Cubs, where he pitched one of the greatest games of all time, yielding just one hit and no walks while striking out a record-tying 20 batters… at age 20, making him one of only two pitchers in MLB history to strike out the same number of players as their age (the other being Bob Feller). He, along with Cubs teammate Mark Prior, are among the poster children for promising careers derailed by injuries (which are believed to have been exacerbated by overwork).
Curt Schilling during his playing career was known for not only being an outstanding pitcher (helping the Philadelphia Phillies enter the 1993 World Series, as well as forming the other half of the co-MVP pitching duo that won the Diamondbacks the 2001 World Series), but one of the gutsiest competitors you'll ever find. While pitching for the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS against the New York Yankees, he tore a ligament in his ankle yet managed to pitch again in the series thanks to a brand new experimental surgical procedure, albeit one which did not prevent him from bleeding. The Red Sox came back from a 3–0 deficit to win that series, and Schilling's bloody sock became an iconic image of the team's first World Championship in 86 years. Later in his career and after his retirement, Schilling became known for his outspoken political views. He's a hardcore Republican who has openly supported several prominent Republican candidates for public office, notably actively campaigning for John McCain during his 2008 Presidential run and Donald Trump during his 2016 run. Rumors have long abounded that Schilling would run for public office himself, and he announced intentions to run for one of Massachusetts' Senate seats in 2018, though that run never materialized. He's also known as a fairly hardcore gamer who plays MMORPGs (once another player that hit a home run off him claimed it was to avenge an EverQuest character Schilling had betrayed) and started his own game studio, 38 Studios, after his jersey number. 38 Studios released only one game, the 2012 RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which was well liked by critics, but ultimately failed sales-wise. This led to a major scandal after the company defaulted on its loan to the state of Rhode Island, leaving the company bankrupt and Schilling's reputation in ruins. Worked as an ESPN analyst, while battling cancer, until being fired in 2016 for posting comments critical of pro-transgender bathroom policies on his personal Facebook page. Though he has a Hall of Fame-worthy career, he struggled to get support from the Hall's voters, likely in part because of his political views—in the 2017 round of balloting (the one right after he'd supported Donald Trump's presidential campaign and made his comments about transgender bathroom policies, in addition to some other controversial political comments—in particular, his sharing of a tweet joking about lynching journalists probably didn't endear him to greatly to the HoF voters, a group made entirely of journalists), he was one of just two players who got fewer votes than he'd gotten the previous year (and the other player, Billy Wagner, lost only one vote from the 2016 balloting—Schilling lost over 30). Schilling's Hall of Fame aspirations probably haven't been helped by him being on the advisory board of the "We Build the Wall" crowdfunding campaign, which was revealed in 2020 to have been a fraud scheme (the same one that got former Trump advisor Steve Bannon arrested). Shortly after the votes were due in January 2021, his second-to-last year on the BBWAA ballot, he made multiple tweets in support of the January 6th Capitol rioters, earning him yet more backlash and prompting multiple Hall of Fame voters to ask that their votes for Schilling be rescinded; the Hall didn't do so, but Schilling fell a few votes short of induction anyway, leading to him angrily lashing out at the BBWAA and requesting his own removal from the ballot the following year, a request the Hall also didn't comply with, and predictably, he lost significant support, either because of his support for the rioters or because the voters were generally sick of his stunts and figured they'd honor his request to be removed from the ballot by not voting for him, and he fell off the ballot well short of having enough votes to get into the Hall.
Mariano Rivera, a pitcher who spent his entire career with the New York Yankees, most of it as their closer, is baseball's all-time saves leader with 652 saves and believed by many to be the best relief pitcher in baseball history. He is particularly known for his many clutch postseason performances, often working up to two innings for a save. (Saves lasting more than one inning had become extremely rare by the time Rivera began pitching.)^note Just to give you an idea of his postseason dominance, more men have walked on the moon than scored an earned run on him in the playoffs.^note His signature pitch, the cut fastball or "cutter" (a fastball thrown with a slightly off-center grip to give it extra lateral movement), has been compared by opposing batters to a chainsaw, because its late, fast movement breaks bats off in batters' hands. A torn ACL early in the 2012 season could have brought his career to an end, but he said that he didn't want his career to end like this and would try his best to recover in time for the 2013 season. He then announced he would retire at the end of the 2013 season and came back as if he hadn't had a day off, much less a year. In his final All-Star Game appearance in 2013, he was named MVP. As noted above, he is also the last player ever to wear jersey number No. 42 in MLB and universally considered to have been a strikingly apropos player to hold that distinction. Unquestionably his greatest accolade came when he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019—Rivera became the first (and, as of 2025, only) player ever to be unanimously elected by the writers.
Jamie Moyer was the oldest active player in baseball (turned 50 in November 2012) at the time of his retirement in 2013—and had been the oldest active player in baseball for several years by that point. He started in the majors in 1986. He holds the distinction of having allowed more home runs than any other pitcher in history, though when you consider how long he had to pitch to reach that mark, it isn't that embarrassing an accomplishment at all. Moyer played for eight teams across his long career, most notably Seattle, where he made the All-Star team in 2003. He also became the oldest pitcher ever to win a game in 2012, and weeks later became the oldest player ever to collect an RBI.
Roy Halladay, who last played for the Philadelphia Phillies, was arguably the best pitcher in the game in the late 2000s and early 2010s. He began his career with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1998, but in 2000 became so bad that he was demoted all the way down to the Blue Jays' Single-A team to relearn how to pitch. It worked: he had a breakout season in 2002 and won the AL Cy Young Award in 2003. In December 2009, he was traded to the Phillies, giving him a shot at pitching in the postseason.^note During his first season with the Phillies, he threw a perfect game against the Florida Marlins, and in his first-ever postseason appearance, he threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds—only the second postseason no-hitter in baseball history, following Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Halladay won the NL Cy Young in 2010, one of only six pitchers to do so in both leagues (the others are Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martínez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Max Scherzer). Sadly, injuries over the next few years severely impacted his ability to pitch and ultimately forced him to retire after the 2013 season after signing a ceremonial contract with the Jays. In an even bigger Downer Ending, he only got to enjoy a few years of retirement, dying when the plane he was flying crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near his Florida home in November 2017. In 2019, he was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame.
RA Dickey was one of the last knuckleballers in recent times. He was drafted in the first round of 1996 for the Texas Rangers before a medical exam discovered his throwing arm completely lacked an ulnar collateral ligament (he was either born without one, or it was weak enough to have withered away in his youth).^note This mystified doctors, who said he should be experiencing intense pain from merely turning a doorknob, let alone pitching a baseball. In the end, the Rangers still signed him, but at a drastically reduced price ($75,000 instead of $810,000). Their expectation was that he would quickly suffer an injury and retire. That didn't happen, but he had an underwhelming early career until he decided in 2005 the only way to stay competitive was to develop into a knuckleball pitcher. It took years for him to perfect the pitch, during which he was passed around various teams, including the occasional stay in the minors, but he ended his first full season for the New York Mets in 2011 with an ERA of 3.28, which was 12th best in the entire National League. His performance peaked in 2012, when he became the first and only knuckleball pitcher to win the Cy Young Award and finished the year with an ERA of 2.73. After this, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, where his performance sort of leveled off from spectacular "ace"-level numbers to an ERA averaging around 4.00, resulting in him signing with the rebuilding Braves for the 2017 season. While he was active, he was notable as one of only two pitchers in the major leagues to use a knuckleball as their primary pitch (the other being Steven Wright of the Boston Red Sox). He is very much One of Us, and uses either the Imperial March or the opening to Game of Thrones as his warm-up music. At age 40, he became the oldest player to make a postseason debut when he pitched as a starter for the Toronto Blue Jays in the fourth game of the 2015 American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers.
Stephen Strasburg made his debut for the Washington Nationals in 2010. He was on his way to an impressive rookie year when damage to his elbow forced him to undergo surgical repair. He briefly returned at the end of 2011, then returned in full force in 2012 and was impressive again. However, due to concerns about overtaxing his surgically repaired elbow so soon after the surgery, management ended his season early. This was controversial among the press and the fans, especially after the Nationals were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. However, time will tell if this will have been something that helped him in the long run; he had two solid seasons after that (despite a brief stint on the DL in 2013), but his career hit something of a nadir in the first half of 2015. Former Tigers star Max Scherzer was brought into D.C. on a long, lucrative contract, causing many to question whether the signing signaled a lack of faith in Strasburg to be the staff ace going forward.^note Strasburg initially didn't do much to assuage those questions, with him spending large chunks of the season on the DL and woefully ineffective when he did pitch. This caused many to seriously begin questioning whether Strasburg would ever be able to reach and maintain the elite level expected of him when he was first drafted. However, he returned from his second 2015 DL stint having taken a noticeable level in badass. In May 2016 (his contract year), he somewhat shockingly signed a seven-year contract to stay in Washington. Strasburg had his best season to date in 2017, with a career-best ERA, and he ended up with a third-place Cy Young Award finish, behind Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. He went on to become World Series MVP in 2019 with the champion Nats. He exercised an opt-out in his contract after the World Series, then resigned with the Nationals, with a larger seven-year deal than his previous deal, which hasn't turned out very well for the Nationals so far—Strasburg almost immediately started having issues with his shoulder, and has started only eight games in the three years since signing the new contract.
David Price was another of the best starting pitchers in the game during his heyday. He started his career with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, pitching a few games for them late in the season and in the playoffs. He showed great promise in the 2008 ACLS, where he won the deciding game from the bullpen and helped the Rays reach their first World Series by defeating the Boston Red Sox, but they ended up losing the series to the Philadelphia Phillies. He became a full-time starter in 2009. Over the next four years, David Price cemented himself as the Rays' best pitcher, quickly taking over that title from "Big Game" James Shields, the best starter on the Rays staff in 2007–09. In 2010, he was in the running for a Cy Young Award with CC Sabathia and Félix Hernández. As mentioned above, Hernández ended up winning despite a poor win–loss record caused by the Mariners' historically awful hitters, which the voters didn't blame him for. Price had a solid but not quite Cy Young-caliber year in 2011 and surrendered Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit. In 2012, David Price had his most dominant year. He won 20 games, becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to do so, and had the lowest ERA of the American League with 2.54. He finally won the Cy Young Award at the end of the year, beating Justin Verlander by one vote. He continued to be dominant over the next few years, and the small-revenue Rays started to have difficulty affording his contract, leading to frequent trade rumors surrounding him. He ultimately was traded to the Tigers in 2014, giving the Tigers a starting rotation with three Cy Young winners (Price, Justin Verlander, and Max Scherzer; Scherzer has since left for the Nationals, while Price, despite still being good, was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays just before the 2015 deadline). After the 2015 season, the Red Sox signed him to a seven-year, $217 million contract, the largest for a pitcher in MLB history. His time in Boston has gone a bit less well than hoped, though, with Price struggling to live up to expectations, getting into occasional spats with the Boston media, and having some elbow problems. Despite the setbacks, David Price ultimately proved to be worth the money for Boston Red Sox in 2018. He made up for his mediocre postseason performances over the years by winning thre straight postseason starts with good pitching, ending with him being the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the World Series by outpitching Clayton Kershaw to seal the championship. During the 2019–20 offseason, he was part of a major trade, with Price and Mookie Betts (in the "Outfielders" folder above) going to the Dodgers in exchange for three players, with the BoSox also paying the Dodgers to take on part of his and Betts' salaries. Price decided to opt out of the shortened 2020 season, then returned in 2021 and has pitched mainly as a reliever for the Dodgers since then.
Corey Kluber was a two-time AL Cy Young Award winner (2014 and 2017) as the ace of the Cleveland Indians. The right-hander had a rather prolonged path to the majors, first going undrafted in 2004 out of high school (after overuse-related injuries), and then after three solid college years at Stetson having a mediocre three years in the Padres' system. He was traded to the Indians during the 2010 season, initially being assigned to Double-A. Kluber had a cup of coffee with the Tribe in 2011, pitching three games in relief at the end of the season, and then while in Triple-A the following year, mastered a two-seam sinking fastball, which proved to be his ticket to The Show. He was called back to Cleveland in 2012, this time as a starting pitcher, but didn't pitch particularly well and ended up spending the first few weeks of 2013 in the minor leagues before being called up again in mid-April, this time for good. He was a decent but not spectacular pitcher in 2013, but then he had a breakout season and established himself in 2014 as one of the AL's best pitchers, narrowly winning the Cy Young Award over Félix Hernández.^note Kluber went on to finish third in Cy Young voting in 2016, win the award again in 2017, and win 20 games in 2018. However, he got off to a very slow start in 2019 before suffering a pair of injuries that caused him to miss most of the season, after which he was dealt to the Rangers in a move that smacked of a salary dump. Kluber slid further toward Glass Cannon status in 2020, when he tore a muscle in his throwing shoulder in the first inning of his debut with the Rangers, missing the rest of the (COVID-shortened) season. He then signed a relatively cheap free-agent deal with the Yankees for 2021, and looked to be bouncing back, including throwing a no-hitter that May… until suffering a different injury to his throwing shoulder during said no-hitter, costing him a minimum of two months. Known for stoicism on the mound, he's a power pitcher whose best pitches are the two-seamer and a breaking ball that variously resembles a slider and curve.
Clayton Kershaw, who spent his entire MLB career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, was considered by many to be the best pitcher in the game for most of the 2010s. And the statistics appear to back up this claim: He leads all starting pitchers active in 2025 with a career ERA of 2.52, has more career strikeouts than innings pitched (more than 2,700 Ks in less than 2,600 innings), more than four times as many career strikeouts as career walks, and he won the pitching Triple Crown and Cy Young Award in 2011. To be fair, he does pitch a lot of games in the pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium, but even accounting for that, no other active starter comes close to his numbers. His curveball, dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" by Vin Scully, is so good that it became a minor story when he allowed a home run off it in May 2014, since he hadn't allowed a home run off it in almost five years. At the time, he was still pretty young and seemed to be getting even better; He followed his Cy Young season by leading the National League in ERA again in 2012 and 2013, winning a second Cy Young in 2013 thanks largely to an amazing 1.83 ERA. He did even better than that in 2014, leading the NL in ERA for the fourth year in a row and winning the Cy Young and the MVP—even though he was injured for the first month of the season! Signed a seven-year, $215 million deal in January 2014, making him the highest-paid player in the game on a per-season basis. He threw one of the best-pitched games in baseball history against the Rockies on June 18, 2014, striking out 15 batters in a no-hitter that would have been a perfect game if not for an error by Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramírez. In 2015, he became the first pitcher with 300 strikeouts in a season since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling both reached the mark in 2002, although his four-year streak of leading the entire MLB in ERA was broken, as he finished third to Zack Greinke and Jake Arrieta. He seemed like he was getting even better for the first few months of 2016, for a while looking like he'd break the single-season record for strikeouts per walk, but then he missed two months with a back injury. He had some injury issues again in 2017 and was caught up in the home run spike that afflicted pitchers all over the MLB that year, and set (by quite a bit) a career high in home runs allowed despite pitching fewer innings than were typical for him; despite that, he still had an overall good season and still managed to finish second place in the Cy Young Award balloting. His injury problems continued into 2018 and led to him missing time on the injured list every year since then, though he was generally still a very good pitcher when healthy. He finally got his long-awaited World Series ring in 2020 with the Dodgers. In 2022, controversy ensued when was removed by manager Dave Roberts removed Kershaw after pitching seven perfect innings versus the Twins. Later in the year, Kershaw again pitched seven perfect innings versus the Angels. This time he stayed in the game, though he allowed a leadoff hit to Luis Rengifo in the eighth. Kershaw announced he would retire at the end of the 2025 season, and he went out a winner, with the Dodgers winning the World Series in each of his last two seasons.

Designated Hitters

Edgar Martínez was the longtime designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners and a steady presence in their Troperiffic ad campaigns. A slick-fielding third baseman in his early career, Martínez was effective as a part time player in 1987 and 1988. Given the starting job in 1989, Martinez struggled offensively and returned to the minor leagues. He broke out in 1990 with a .302/.397/.433 line, establishing him as the best hitter on a team carrying no less than Ken Griffey Jr. and Jay Buhner. Still manning the third base position, Martínez won the 1992 batting title at .343/.404/.544 for the struggling Mariners, but injury-plagued 1993 and 1994 seasons relegated Martinez to permanent DH duties. His best season, which came in 1995, won him a second batting title with a spectacular .356/.479/.628 line. Following a rare tiebreaker, Seattle's first round series that year culminated in Edgar's walk-off double against the Yankees which, due to a convoluted political situation involving the Mariners' collapsing stadium, determined the continued existence of the franchise (at least in Seattle). Continuing in the designated hitter role well into the next decade, Martínez maintained his elite bat-to-ball skills—a .320 batting average every season for the following five years—and plate discipline despite a strabismus diagnosis which made batting at all, let alone against major league pitching, a remarkable feat of determination. Even as his prime faded, Martínez co-starred for the 116-win 2001 team as a Cool Old Guy, continued to play himself as a Gadgeteer Genius with themed bats on TV, and remained The Reliable One for the team in an era of roster turmoil. Injuries finally sapped his effectiveness in the second half of 2003, and after taking a curtain call at his old third base spot, Martínez retired at the end of the 2004 season. Bud Selig (see below) renamed Major League Baseball's award for outstanding designated hitter in his honor during that final season, leaving Martínez' Hall of Fame candidacy as something of a test case for whether a career DH would ever be allowed in. David Ortiz' career milestones—see immediately below—along with active campaigning from former teammates, opponents, sabermetrics experts, Mariners social media staff, and Ortiz himself, paved the way for his 2019 induction.
David Ortiz (also known by his nickname "Big Papi") was a first baseman and designated hitter, first with the Minnesota Twins from 1997–2002 and most notably with the Boston Red Sox from 2003 until his retirement at the end of the 2016 season. While he wasn't always the BoSox' best statistical player in any given season, he was certainly their most recognizable and famous player throughout his time in Boston, like Derek Jeter being The Heart of the Yankees. He's somewhat of a rarity among designated hitters in that he almost never played in the field—most American League teams, if they even employ a single full-time DH rather than rotating the position among several different players, will have them also play plenty of games (at least 20–30ish) as a non-DH. And most other full-time DHs hardly ever play in the field either because they're old, have suffered injuries that robbed their fielding ability but not their hitting, or both (Jim Thome, for example). While Ortiz retired just before turning 41, he never even played a substantial number of games in the field even when he was younger (generally just no-DH games in National League stadiums), simply because he's an epically terrible fielder. Still, he was an amazing hitter, and his 50-homer season in 2006 remains the only 50-HR season by a Designated Hitter. In 2013, Ortiz won the World Series MVP Award for his excellent play during the championship games and the postseason as whole, including hitting a clutch grand slam during the eighth inning of Game 2 against the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS. Big Papi went out in 2016 with a big bang, by several statistical measures having the most productive swan song for a hitter since at least Ted Williams' last season of 1960 and setting new records for the most homers and RBI by a player in his final season. Unlike Edgar Martínez, who had to wait until his very last chance (at least with the writers) to get into the Hall of Fame, Big Papi got in on his first chance in 2022.^note

Managers, Owners, & Other Executives

Cornelius McGillicuddy, better known as Connie Mack,^note was the longest-serving manager in MLB history, having managed the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1890s before becoming the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics for their first 50 seasons of play. The son of Irish immigrants, he was a catcher in the majors who had an undistinguished playing career but was noted for his sharp baseball mind. In 1901, he became manager and part-owner of the A's, and achieved numerous milestones—first manager to win three World Series; the first and still only one to win consecutive World Series more than once (1910–1911, 1929–1930); and the most wins, losses, and games managed in MLB history, with his win total being nearly 1,000 greater than that of second-place Tony La Russa. Of course, the fact that he owned the team was a major factor in his long managing tenure.^note While he enjoyed periods of great success, he also struggled with finances, exacerbated by the fact that he had virtually no income outside of baseball. This led to the breakup of all of his best teams, and the legacy that had put him in Cooperstown in the second induction class of 1937 was somewhat tarnished by the A's increasing lack of competitiveness, leading to his retirement, subsequent sale of the team, and its relocation to Kansas City in 1955, the year before his passing. To American political junkies, he's better known as the ancestor of two recent US Congressmen from Florida—former Representative and Senator Connie III, and former Representative and nominee for Senator Connie IV.^note
John McGraw, Mack's great rival and also the son of an Irish immigrant (just his father in his case), had a quite successful major-league playing career, the majority of it in Baltimore with two different Orioles teams (one in the National League, now defunct, and the other now known as the New York Yankees), but is more remembered as one of the greatest managers of all time, mostly with the New York Giants. As a player, he was a solid hitter but best known for his strong leadership and penchant for gamesmanship and shady tactics. He first managed in 1899 while also playing for the NL Orioles; he went on to become player–manager for the AL Orioles in 1901. The following year, he pulled off a Xanatos Gambit to move to the Giants in midseason, a move that nearly led to the demise of the American League but ended in a peace agreement between the AL and NL that created what we now know as MLB. In 1905, while still playing, he led the Giants to a World Series win; he retired as a player after the 1906 season but continued to manage the Giants until 1932. McGraw went on to win 10 pennants as a manager, a still-standing record (now shared with Casey Stengel below), and led the Giants to two more World Series wins in 1921 and 1922. One writer who evaluated historically great managers felt that McGraw's closest modern counterpart was college basketball coaching legend Bob Knight, as both were highly temperamental though extremely successful, and both produced many fine players but very few true superstars, preferring to use players who fit their systems. McGraw ended his managing career with the most wins in MLB history, though Mack would surpass him the following year; he remained second in overall wins until Tony La Russa passed him in 2021 and still has the most managing wins in NL history. He retired due to poor health, which turned out to be due to the prostate cancer that would claim his life in 1934, though he was able to manage the NL in the first All-Star Game in 1933, with Mack managing the AL. Both Mack and McGraw entered the Hall of Fame in 1937.
Joe McCarthy, not to be confused with the notorious Red-baiter, was another son of Irish immigrants who went on to become an all-time great manager. He was one of a handful of successful MLB managers who never made it to The Show as players,^note spending 15 years in the minors, during which he started transitioning to managing. McCarthy led the Louisville Colonels of the American Association to two pennants before getting his first MLB managing gig with the Cubs in 1926. He led them to the 1929 NL pennant but was fired at the end of the 1930 season. He wasn't unemployed long, joining the Yankees in 1931. Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert gave him an ultimatum to win a World Series in three years. It took him two seasons. McCarthy's continued success led sportswriters to call him "Marse Joe", a Southern US English variant of "Master Joe". He lived up to the nickname—during his tenure with the Yankees from 1931–46, he led the Yankees to seven World Series titles, including four in a row from 1936–39. Casey Stengel (below) is the only other manager with that many World Series wins. McCarthy is also the first manager to win pennants in both leagues (though it wasn't until 1984 that a manager won World Series in both leagues). He had to leave the Yankees stint early in the 1946 season because he was The Alcoholic. After a short time out of the game, he became Red Sox manager in 1948, serving until resigning during the 1950 season. McCarthy's winning percentage of .615 in the regular season is the highest in MLB history among managers with completed careers,^note and his .698 in the postseason (which in his day was strictly the World Series) remains the highest in MLB history. "Marse Joe" never managed a team to a losing record in his MLB career. He made the Hall of Fame in 1957 and passed away in 1978.
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel was one of the great characters of baseball history. He started out in the majors as a right fielder in 1912 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, having a solid but not spectacular career that also included stops with the Boston Braves (twice), Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, and New York Giants, learning much from McGraw while with the Giants. He would also be known for on-field and in-dugout pranks. Stengel then went into managing, first in the minors and then with the Dodgers and Braves, with little success (as noted above, he sent a young Warren Spahn down to the minors while in Boston). He went back to the minors with more success—enough to pique the interest of the Yankees, who hired him shortly after the end of the 1948 season. He immediately led the Yankees to an unprecedented five straight World Series wins and became famous for his humorous and sometimes disjointed speech (much like one of his stars in New York, Yogi Berra). Despite 10 pennants and seven World Series wins in 12 years, the Yankees ownership eventually saw him as old and out of touch with the players, and fired the 70-year-old Stengel after the team's loss in the 1960 World Series.^note But he wasn't done yet. In 1962, he became the first manager of the New York Mets, where he was arguably more of an attraction than his players, given that the team was historically bad in its first years.^note He finally retired in 1965 after breaking a hip, entering the Hall of Fame the next year, and spent his last years until his passing in 1975 as an ambassador for the game. The Mets and Yankees both retired his number 37. Also of note: Stengel is the only person to have worn the uniform of all four teams that played in New York City in the 20th century (Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Mets).
Walter O'Malley broke Brooklyn's heart and brought major league baseball to the West Coast. He took control of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950, forcing out Branch Rickey and naming himself president. Brooklyn's Ebbets Field was small and cramped, constrained on all sides and unable to expand or provide parking, although attendance was still above the median for MLB (ranging between 13,000 and 16,000 average per game) as the Dodgers finally won their first World Series in 1955 after seven losses. O'Malley had Buckminster Fuller design a domed stadium to replace it in another part of Brooklyn,^note but New York City's de facto "master builder", Robert Moses, didn't like O'Malley or baseball. Moses wanted the Dodgers moved to a site in Queens that would eventually become Shea Stadium (and still later Citi Field). With no chance of a new stadium in Brooklyn, O'Malley decided to leave New York City entirely, moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles for the 1958 season and earning the undying enmity of Brooklyn residents; asked to list the worst individuals of the 20th century, two Brooklyn reporters both started their lists with: "Hitler, Stalin, O'Malley". He convinced crosstown rivals the New York Giants (who had been considering a move to Minnesota) to move to San Francisco at the same time, turning their rivalry into a cross-state one and lowering travel costs for visiting teams. After the move to Los Angeles, the Dodgers won three more World Series while he was president, in 1959, 1963, and 1965. In 1970, he handed over control to his son Peter, who was team president until it was sold to News Corporation in 1998.
George Steinbrenner was the longtime owner of the New York Yankees. His deep pockets were historically an asset to the team; his meddling nature and tendency to fire managers was not. He was suspended from the game twice—in 1974 after he was convicted of illegally contributing to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, and again in 1990 for hiring a small-time gambler to dig up dirt on Yankees star Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner passed away in 2010; during his time as owner of the Yankees, he would famously add a rule (taken directly from the Cincinnati Reds) that players who either played for or wish to sign with the Yankees would be forced to cut their long hair and facial hair to keep the Yankees tradition of looking professional and wholesome stemming from his history in the United States Air Force (he would however allow them to grow mustaches and would reimburse Oscar Gamble for having his iconic afro cut due to his deal with Afro Sheen^note and Goose Gossage, who agreed to have his iconic goatee shaved on the condition he kept his long mustache), the team won seven World Series championships. In his final years, he had passed the reins to his children; his son Hank had run day-to-day operations in 2007 and 2008, but was replaced by younger son Hal, who's run the team ever since. Both sons (now only Hal, since Hank died in 2020) have turned out much like their father. A fictionalized version of George Steinbrenner was George Costanza's boss on Seinfeld.
Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin was the hard-nosed second baseman for the great New York Yankee teams of the 1950s. After his retirement, he became a successful major league manager known for his ability to turn losing teams into winning ones. However, Martin's abrasive and blunt nature also caused him to perpetually feud with upper management, leading to him being frequently fired despite his success on the field. He served five different stints as manager of the Yankees, in addition to stints in Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, and Oakland; all but Texas reached the postseason at least once under his leadership, and he at least took them from last place to second in the span of a year. He was preparing to become Yankee manager for the sixth time when he died in a car crash on Christmas Day 1989.
- Martin was also well-known for being willing to back up his words with his fists. He sucker-punched Cubs pitcher Jim Brewer during an on-field altercation in 1960 (Brewer required reconstructive surgery), fought two of his own players as manager of the Minnesota Twins in 1969, and in 1979 decked a marshmallow salesman after a heated argument.
- Despite his tempestuous relationship with Steinbrenner, he had George Jetson Job Security in spades. He was fired five times from the Yankees and yet was never taken off the team's payroll.
Earl Weaver was the manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1968–1982 and 1985–1986, during which time he led them to six division titles, four American League Championships, and a World Series Victory in 1970. He was notable for many innovative and unusual tactics, many of which were similar in principle to sabermetrics, which had not yet been invented when he was managing. For example, he hated plays like bunts, base-stealing, and hit-and-runs that he viewed as giving up outs—two of his philosophies were "On offense, your most precious possessions are your 27 outs" and "If you play for one run, that's all you'll get," preferring fighting it out and waiting for big innings to playing small-ball to get maybe one run. He had many other quotable mottos, the most remembered being "Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers." Weaver was also known for his very animated and drawn-out arguments with umpires for which he'd often be ejected.^note One famous example was caught on tape thanks to umpire Bill Haller being mic'd up for a documentary on umpiring. Weaver would often turn the bill of his cap around when he came out to argue so that he could get right in the umpires' faces. His uniform featured a tell-tale budge in the chest thanks to a custom pocket which held his cigarettes. This feature was included on a statue erected in his honor. The computer game that bears his name, for which he was consulted regarding managerial intelligence, helped pave the way for the EA Sports brand. Died during a Caribbean cruise on January 19, 2013, the same day that Stan Musial died.
George Lee "Sparky" Anderson was the first manager to have won World Series in both leagues, having managed the Cincinnati Reds' "Big Red Machine" to titles in 1975 and 1976, plus the "Bless You Boys" Detroit Tigers in 1984. A longtime minor-league second baseman who had one unsuccessful big-league season in 1959 with the Philadelphia Phillies, he started his managing career in the minors, notably managing pennant winners in four different leagues in consecutive seasons (1965–1968). Anderson became third-base coach of the San Diego Padres in their first season in 1969 and was hired after that season for the then-California Angels' coaching staff, but was tabbed for the Reds' managing vacancy within days. He immediately led the Reds to a 100-win season in 1970, followed by a World Series loss to Earl Weaver's Orioles. The Reds again won the NL pennant in 1972 but lost to the A's. They finally broke through in 1975, dominating baseball for the next two years until their aging lineup caught up with them after their second World Series win. Anderson was fired after the 1978 season, but wasn't out of a job for long, taking over the youthful Tigers in the middle of the 1979 season. He immediately made the Tigers a winning team, but they didn't emerge as contenders until 1983. The next year, they became the first team since the 1927 Yankees to lead a league wire-to-wire, never trailing in the standings during the regular season, nor ever falling behind in wins during the ALCS or the World Series. While the Tigers couldn’t match the success of that season, Anderson soldiered on until retiring at the end of the 1995 season. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000, and the Reds and Tigers retired his numbers (respectively #10 and #11). Anderson passed away in 2010.
Tommy Lasorda managed the Dodgers from 1976–1996, during which the Dodgers won eight division titles, four NL pennants, and two World Series (1981, 1988). A very good minor-league pitcher who had a very short MLB playing career (notably throwing a record three wild pitches in an inning in his first MLB outing), he became a scout for the Dodgers in 1960, later becoming a manager in their minor-league organization before becoming third-base coach in 1973. Lasorda was promoted to manager when Walter Alston retired with less than a week left in the 1976 season and was famous not only as an outstanding manager who was fiercely loyal to his players, but also one of the game's largest hams (which earned him many TV cameo roles). He retired from managing after suffering a heart attack in the middle of the 1996 season and entered the Hall of Fame at his first opportunity in 1997, the same year in which the Dodgers retired his #2. Lasorda then spent the next few years in the Dodgers' front office before completely retiring, eventually passing away in 2021. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't the godfather of Mike Piazza; that story was incorrectly spread multiple times. He was, however, the godfather and namesake of Mike's younger brother Thomas.
Bobby Cox, another Hall of Fame manager, is best known for his long second stint as manager of the Atlanta Braves (1990–2010). A third baseman who made it to The Show for a couple of late-1960s seasons with the Yankees, he started his post-playing career as a minor-league coach and manager in the Yankees system, also managing in the Venezuelan Winter League. He returned to MLB in 1977 as first-base coach for the World Series-winning Yankees before getting his first MLB managing job with the Braves. He inherited a team that had compiled a worse 1977 record than the first-year Seattle Mariners and brought them to respectability. Even though the Braves' then-owner Ted Turner fired him after the 1981 season, Turner admitted immediately after the firing that "We need someone like him around here." Cox immediately became manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, eventually bringing him to their first AL East title in 1985 and earning AL Manager of the Year honors. Cox then returned to the Braves, this time as general manager. After going through two managers in under five seasons, with disastrous results in attendance and outlook, he fired the Braves' manager in the middle of the 1990 season and named himself to the position. At the end of the season, he handed the GM role to John Schuerholz, who had just been hired away from the same position with the Kansas City Royals. Cox's first full season saw the Braves go from last to first in their division and make the World Series, only to lose an epic seven-game series to the Minnesota Twins (also a last-to-first team); he became the first manager to claim Manager of the Year in both leagues, and would earn that honor two more times in Atlanta. Cox would manage the Braves to 14 divisional titles in 15 seasons (NL West, 1991–1993; NL East, 1995–2005), though the team also earned a reputation for Every Year They Fizzle Out, winning the World Series only in 1995. Cox retired after the 2010 season with several significant MLB managing records—most Manager of the Year awards (four, shared with Tony La Russa; Buck Showalter later joined them), most 100-win seasons (six, shared with Joe McCarthy, discussed above), most postseason appearances (16), and most ejections (158 regular-season, plus 3 postseason). Interestingly, he wasn't noted for a hot temper; most of his ejections were tactical (much like many of those of Earl Weaver above). In 2011 the Braves retired #6 for Cox and in 2014 he entered Cooperstown.
Joe Torre was a very good player, starring as a catcher, third baseman, and first baseman for three teams, but had even more impact as a manager. The Brooklyn native's MLB journey began in 1960 as a late-season call-up by the then-Milwaukee Braves, staying with the team through its move to Atlanta, later moving to the Cardinals (1969–1974) and Mets (1975–1977). He was a nine-time All-Star, with his playing peak coming in 1971 when he was named NL MVP after leading MLB in batting average and RBI. During his final season as a player, he became the Mets' manager, serving in that role until 1981 with little success. Torre wasn't unemployed for long, taking over the Braves in 1982 and immediately leading them to a record-setting 13–0 start on their way to a division title. He was named NL Manager of the Year, becoming the first person ever to be a league MVP and MOY. However, they soon slipped to mediocrity, and he was fired after the 1984 season. Torre then headed to the broadcast booth, working color commentary for both the Angels and NBC. Late in the 1990 season, he returned to managing with the Cardinals; while they didn't make the playoffs during his run, they had winning records in each of his three full seasons. He was fired during the first post-strike season of 1995 during a rebuild. After that season, the Yankees hired him away, where he made his true mark in the game. The Yankees made the postseason in all 12 of his seasons in The Bronx, including four World Series wins in five years (1996, 1998–2000), and he was named AL Manager of the Year in 1996 and 1998. He also was the manager responsible for the Yankees' record 14 straight World Series game wins from 1996 to 2000. At the end of the 2007 season, Torre left the Yankees after receiving a contract offer that most media considered an insult, and was almost immediately hired by the Dodgers, where he made the playoffs in 2008 and 2009 (losing in the NLCS both times) before retiring in 2010. He has worked in the MLB Commissioner's office since leaving the Dodgers (with a 10-Minute Retirement in 2012) and made the Hall of Fame as a manager in 2014. The Braves and Cardinals also inducted him into their team Halls of Fame; the Yankees retired his #6 and gave him a plaque in Monument Park.
Tony La Russa was another undistinguished player who became an all-time great as a manager. A former utility infielder who bounced between the majors and minors from 1963 to 1973, mostly in the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics system, he began his managing career in the White Sox farm system in 1978, moving to the Sox coaching staff in the middle of that season and becoming the manager in the last half of the 1979 season; at the time, he was the youngest manager in MLB at age 34. He was named AL Manager of the Year in 1983 when he led the ChiSox to the AL West title but was fired after a poor start to the 1986 season. (In later years, ChiSox owner Jerry Reinsdorf regretted the firing.) Within weeks, he was hired to manage the A's, proceeding to lead them to three straight AL pennants (1988–1990) and a 1989 World Series win, and earning Manager of the Year honors in 1988 and 1992. After the A's were sold following the 1995 season, La Russa left to become manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, where he enjoyed even more success, winning eight division titles, 2002 NL Manager of the Year honors, and the 2006 and 2011 World Series. In the process, he became only the second manager to win the World Series in both the AL and NL, after Sparky Anderson. La Russa retired shortly after the Cards' second World Series win, going on to serve as a disciplinary advisor to MLB and an executive with the Diamondbacks, Red Sox, and Angels, during which time he entered the Hall of Fame at his first opportunity in 2014. Shortly after the 2020 season, he came out of retirement, returning to the ChiSox as MLB's oldest manager (76 at the time), also becoming the first Hall of Fame manager to return to that role after his induction. The Sox won the AL Central title in 2021, but the 2022 season was mostly an injury-riddled disappointment, and La Russa stepped away due to health issues in late August and later announced that he would not return in 2023. La Russa is second to Connie Mack in both games managed and wins as a manager.
Johnnie "Dusty" Baker was most recently manager of the Houston Astros. Baker enjoyed a long and quite successful MLB playing career as an outfielder for four teams, but most notably with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he was a two-time All-Star and collected a World Series ring in 1981. He's also noted for reportedly playing a part in the origin of the high five. After retiring from play in 1987, he took a job as a stockbroker but soon left it to join the San Francisco Giants coaching staff. After the 1992 season, he became manager and immediately led the Giants (who had just picked up Barry Bonds) to 103 wins, becoming the first rookie manager to do so since Sparky Anderson in 1970. Unfortunately, it was also a season in which the Atlanta Braves won 104 games… and the last season before MLB adopted its current three-division setup with wild cards, which also made the Giants the last team to date to miss the playoffs with a 100-win season. Baker was nonetheless NL Manager of the Year. He would lead the Giants to division titles in 1997 and 2000, winning MOY honors both times, and the NL pennant in 2002, but couldn't seal the deal with a World Series win. Even an NL pennant didn't heal the increasing tension between Baker and the Giants' ownership, and his contract wasn't renewed. Baker immediately became manager of the Chicago Cubs, leading them to the NL Central title in his first season, only to see the Cubs' hopes for the World Series go up in smoke in an NLCS that's most (in)famous for the Steve Bartman incident. After three less successful years, the Cubs didn't renew his contract after the 2006 season, and Baker left managing for a year before returning with the Cincinnati Reds. While not immediately successful, he eventually led the Reds to two division titles and a wild card appearance. However, the wild card season (2013) was marked by a late-season collapse and a loss in the wild card game, which led the Reds to let him go. After a couple of years out of baseball, he was hired by the Washington Nationals, where his pattern of regular-season success followed by playoff disappointment continued—two NL East titles, two Division Series losses. The final game of the 2017 NLDS was the 10th time one of his teams had lost a game that would have advanced them to the next postseason round, which led the Nats to dismiss him. Baker would get another chance to flip the script on his managing career in 2020, when he became manager of the Astros after their sign-stealing scandal; he became only the third manager in MLB history to be hired by a team after turning 70. In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he became the first manager to lead five different teams to the postseason, and the next year became the first to lead five different teams to division titles. But guess what happened in 2021… another World Series loss. And then came 2022, when the Astros again won the AL West, and this time finally sealed the deal, giving Baker his first World Series title as a manager. Having turned 73 during that season, he became the oldest manager/head coach to win a title in the four traditional major US pro sports leagues. Also of note, Baker has the most wins among African-American managers. He would retire at the end of the 2023 season.
Kim Ng, GM of the Marlins from 2020–2023, is the first woman ever to hold said position in any of the traditional major leagues of North American sports. A Chinese American born in Indianapolis and raised in various parts of the New York City area, she played softball at the University of Chicago before starting her career in the White Sox front office. While there, she was the first woman to present (and win) a team salary arbitration case. Ng then moved to the American League offices in 1997 before moving on to the Yankees the next year and the Dodgers in 2001. She remained in LA for the next decade, serving as assistant GM for much of that period. In 2011, she left for the MLB offices, serving in baseball operations under former Yankees and Dodgers manager Joe Torre. After interviewing five times for GM vacancies during her career, she hit paydirt when she was named the Marlins GM. The Marlins had an overall losing record during her tenure, but Ng ended it on a high, putting together a 2023 roster that made the playoffs for the first time since the team won the 2003 World Series. Even though the team exercised an option to keep her on as GM at the end of the 2023 season, Ng declined her own option to stay on, amid rumors that she was a candidate for higher-profile GM openings. Ng later hinted that she left because the owners indicated that they would have the GM report to a new president of baseball operations.
William Nathaniel "Buck" Showalter was a former minor league player for New York Yankee-affiliated teams, and since the early '90s, a manager for the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, and New York Mets, and baseball analyst for ESPN for stretches in between his managerial stints. As his coming to the Orioles was during the O's Audience-Alienating Era (an age where fans were abandoning the team and holding the "Free the Birds" walkout movements to protest Peter Angelos' poor ownership of the team), he had a rather large task in front of him. He immediately got to work as he coached the worst team in the league at the time and finished their season with 34 wins of 57 games played under him. Additionally, he made it clear to the team and fans, consistent under performance would have you on the bus to the AAA Norfolk Minor League team until your skills improved. His first full season with the O's in 2011 was another rebuilding year, capping it off with the now famous "Game 162", on September 28, 2011, "The Best Night of Baseball" where the last place in division O's knocked their rivals the Boston Red Sox out of the playoffs on their last game of the season. This fired up both the team and fan base for the next season. And it showed as in 2012, the Dork Age officially ended, with the O's securing a Wildcard playoff, knocking out the Texas Rangers, before losing to the Yankees in the playoffs. In 2013 the Orioles went above .500 again, and in 2014 Showalter managed the team to a dominating 96–66 win-loss record as the AL East champions, preventing the playoff regular Yankees from even making it to the playoffs and receiving the American League Manager of the Year award. However, a new Dork Age, including a disastrous 2018 season that saw the O's lose a franchise-record 115 games (yes, more than in any of their seasons as the St. Louis Browns!), ended with both Showalter and GM Dan Duquette being shown the door. Showalter would return to managing in 2022 with the Mets, immediately leading them to a 101-win season, though losing the NL East in a tiebreaker to the Braves and the Wild Card series to the Padres. Nonetheless, he was named NL Manager of the Year—his fourth such nod, having also earned the honor in the AL with the 1994 Yankees, 2004 Rangers, and 2014 O's. This tied him with Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa for most MOY awards and made him the first manager ever to win that award with four different teams. If you need any further proof of how popular and successful he's been, fans regularly cheer him on just as much as the players, with chants and signs of "The BUCK stops here!" and "BUCKle Up!"

Broadcasters

Walter "Red" Barber was a pioneering broadcaster who started out calling Cincinnati Reds games on the radio in 1934 before beginning a legendary stint as the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939. "The Ol' Redhead", as he called himself, became widely known for his soft Southern accent, detailed play-by-play, and colorful catchphrases such as "sitting in the catbird seat" (out in front), "tearing up the pea patch" (playing well), "in a rhubarb" (having a big argument or fight), and "the bases are F.O.B." (full of Brooklyns, i.e., Dodger runners). In 1954 he went over to the Yankees, where he shared announcing duties with his former rival Mel Allen and (eventually) retired shortstop Phil Rizzuto. After getting fired following the 1966 season—allegedly for commenting on the air about the team's poor attendance, something management had told him not to do—Barber never regularly called big-league ball again, although during the '80s he settled into a comfortable niche on NPR's Morning Edition, doing weekly Friday-morning chats with host Bob Edwards until his death in 1992.
Mel Allen was a well-known broadcaster who served as the voice of the New York Yankees from 1939 to 1964, a period that coincided with what was arguably the team's golden age: during his years behind the mike, the Yankees won 19 American League pennants and 13 World Series championships, and fielded such legendary players as Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Phil Rizzuto (who himself became a popular and long-tenured broadcaster for the team after he retired as a player). Allen also called numerous World Series and All-Star Games on both radio and television, and served as a narrator for Fox Movietone newsreels, making his distinctive Alabama drawl (and on-air catchphrase, "How about that!") well-known to fans throughout the country. He was unceremoniously fired from the Yankees in 1964 but re-emerged in the late '70s as host and narrator of the popular syndicated highlights series This Week in Baseball, a role he held until his passing in 1996. Allen, along with his Brooklyn Dodgers counterpart, frequent World Series broadcast partner, and eventual Yankees colleague Red Barber, was the joint first recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting from the Hall of Fame in 1978.
Harry Caray is pretty much regarded as one of the most colorful Large Ham Announcers of all time. He's best remembered for calling Chicago Cubs games on WGN-TV in the 1980s and '90s, although the first and longest part of his career was spent broadcasting for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1945 to 1969, and he worked for the St. Louis Browns, Oakland Athletics, and Chicago White Sox at various points too. Caray, who brought a boisterous, fanlike enthusiasm into the booth with him, remains highly quotable to this day, with his signature calls of "Holy Cow!" and "It might be… it could be… it is! A home run!" He received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989 and continued to call Cubs games right up until his death just prior to spring training in 1998. Apparently, his talent was In the Blood, as shown by both his son (longtime Atlanta Braves broadcaster Skip Caray, now also deceased), his grandsons (Cubs/Braves broadcaster Chip Caray and AAA Braves broadcaster Josh Caray), and great-grandson Chris. Younger fans may be most familiar with him from Will Ferrell's impressions of him on Saturday Night Live.
Ernie Harwell was a Georgia native who began his play-by-play career with the minor-league Atlanta Crackers in 1943. Five years later he was "traded" to the Brooklyn Dodgers for catcher Cliff Dapper (the first and thus far only announcer-for-player swap in baseball history), so that he could fill in for an ailing Red Barber on Dodgers broadcasts. Following stints with the New York Giants and Baltimore Orioles, Harwell in 1960 became the voice of the Detroit Tigers, whose games he would continue to call on radio and/or TV for decades. The Tigers' decision not to renew his contract after the 1991 season prompted an outcry across the entire state of Michigan, and after one year of part-time work with the then-California Angels he was back in the Tigers' booth in 1993, remaining with the team until his retirement following the 2002 season. One of the most highly regarded broadcasters in the sport, Harwell was well-known for such signature phrases as "He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by" (for a called third strike), "And a fan from [town near the home team's ballpark] will take that one home" (for a ball fouled into the stands), and "Loooong gone!" (for a home run). He also spent some years calling games nationally for CBS Radio, including the Saturday Game of the Week and numerous AL playoff series. He received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983 and passed away in 2010.
Vin Scully, a TV/radio announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers for more than sixty seasons (going back to their last few years as the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he started out as Red Barber's protégé before taking the lead play-by-play role), is widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball announcers ever, if not the greatest. A 1982 recipient of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, Scully was revered in California (where he was named state Sportscaster of the Year an unmatched 33 times) and was listed as the greatest sports announcer ever by the American Sportswriters Association. But, more importantly, he was regarded as the soul of the Dodgers (at least to English-speaking fans), much like the similarly long-tenured Chick Hearn was for basketball's Los Angeles Lakers and Scully's longtime Spanish-language counterpart Jaime Jarrín was to Latino Dodgers fans. In the '80s Scully was the lead baseball announcer for NBC television, making his warm, friendly voice familiar to a nationwide audience; between that network and CBS Radio he also called 22 World Series overall. Some of his most iconic calls include Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Sandy Koufax's perfect game in 1965, Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run in 1974, Bill Buckner's notorious error in the 1986 World Series, and Kirk Gibson's game-winning home run off Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series. After 67 straight seasons and more than 9,000 games, Scully called his last Dodgers broadcast on October 2, 2016; fittingly, it was a game against their archrivals the Giants, who had been Scully's favorite team in his New York City boyhood. He passed away at the age of 94 on August 2, 2022 (coincidentally enough, a date when the Dodgers and Giants were once again playing each other). Dana Scully was named for him.
Jaime Jarrín was the most famous baseball broadcaster you never heard of… unless you speak Spanish. Born in Ecuador, he came to the US shortly before his 20th birthday having never seen a baseball game. He soon rose to become news and sports director for a Spanish-language station in Los Angeles, just in time for the Dodgers to arrive in 1958 and his station to pick up the team's Spanish radio rights. Jarrín joined the Spanish broadcast team the next year, became the lead Spanish announcer in 1973, and remained with the Dodgers until his retirement in 2022 after 64 seasons. Like his late English-language counterpart Scully, he is a Ford C. Frick Award recipient. He was paired with his son Jorge in the broadcast booth for several years, but Jorge decided to retire following the 2020 season. (That's right, his career outlasted that of his own kid.)
Harry Kalas started out as an announcer with the Houston Astros in the 1960s. In 1971, he became an announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies, with whom he remained until his passing in April of 2009. Kalas's deep, baritone voice was well known not only among Phillies fans but also to the rest of the country due to his voiceover work for NFL Films, after the passing of their original voiceover artist John Facenda. Kalas was known for his signature home run call ("Swing, and a long drive, this ball is… outta here!"). He was the 2002 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jacques Doucet: The most famous baseball broadcaster you've never heard of… unless you speak French. The Montrealer began his career in print journalism but moved to radio in 1969 as a part-time color commentator for the newly launched Montreal Expos. He became the Expos' full-time French-language radio play-by-play man in 1972, notably creating much of the modern-day French lexicon of baseball (along with his longtime broadcast partner Claude Raymond).^note Doucet remained the voice of the Expos until the team left for Washington, DC after the 2004 season. He was out of broadcasting for a year before returning with a minor-league team in Quebec City. In 2011, he returned to MLB broadcasting as the French voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, a position he held until his retirement in 2022.
Bob Uecker: A former big-league catcher,^note Uecker was the Milwaukee Brewers' primary radio play-by-play broadcaster from their inception in 1971 until his passing in January 2025. Dubbed "Mr. Baseball" by Johnny Carson, he was well known for his self-deprecating jokes and anecdotes regarding his rather mediocre playing career. He also did some national MLB broadcasting with ABC and NBC, starred in the sitcom Mr. Belvedere as George Owens and in the Major League movies as Harry Doyle, and made guest appearances as himself on Futurama and in well-remembered TV commercials for Miller Lite beer. Uecker was a 2003 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Dave Niehaus called California Angels games in the '70s (teaming with future NBC and CBS sportscaster Dick Enberg) before serving as the lead play-by-play announcer for the Seattle Mariners from their creation in 1977 up until his death following the 2010 season. Niehaus' enthusiasm and bombastic announcing for a team that was almost universally mediocre until the 1995 season was one of the bright spots that kept many Mariners fans engaged despite the team's losing record (1991 was their first winning season). He had several catchphrases which were instantly recognizable among Mariners fans (and were always delivered at top volume), including "My, oh my!" and "I don't believe it!" (after remarkable plays), "Swung on and belted!" (for well-hit long balls), "It will fly away!" (for home runs), and, in the event of a grand slam: "Get out the rye bread and the mustard, Grandma! It is a grand salami!" Niehaus is commemorated with a statue at the Mariners' ballpark, was inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2000 (the second person to ever be inducted), and one of the streets outside was renamed Niehaus Way. He also originated "A-Rod" as the nickname for Alex Rodriguez (who played with the Mariners in their breakout 1995 season before he became a free agent and moved on to the Texas Rangers and then the New York Yankees). He was the 2008 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Joe Castiglione: A radio play-by play broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox from 1983 to 2024 (following earlier TV stints with the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers), Castiglione received the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting during his final season before retiring. Not to be confused with the Oklahoma Sooners athletic director.
John Sterling: Another Large-Ham Announcer, Sterling began his play-by-play career with a single season for the NBA's Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) before moving to New York to call games for the NHL's Islanders and NBA's Nets in the '70s. He then moved to Atlanta, covering both the Braves and the NBA's Hawks in the '80s, before returning to New York in 1989 to become the radio broadcaster for the Yankees, a role he held for the next 34 seasons. Well-known for his distinct manner of calling Yankees wins (which became even more drawn out whenever they clinched postseason series; the deeper into the postseason, the longer it was held), as well as giving each Yankee a personalized home run call containing at least one pun and sometimes as many as three. He has also put his Pungeon Master skills to great use as a play-by-play announcer for the annual Kitten Bowl on Hallmark Channel. Sterling retired from the Yankees’ booth in April 2024, approximately a month into the season; however, he returned to call one last postseason run for the team that October.
Jerry Remy was a television color commentator for the Boston Red Sox from 1988 until just before his death in 2021. A former All-Star second baseman for the Red Sox and a native New Englander, Remy's local ties and his warm, jocular commentary style endeared him to Red Sox fans, who elected him president of the team's fan club in 2007. He's probably best known outside of New England for giving Red Sox star David Ortiz his "Big Papi" nickname, and for a 2007 incident where Remy and his broadcasting partner Don Orsillo laughed themselves silly over a fan throwing a slice of pizza at another fan who'd tried to grab a foul ball. After twice beating lung cancer, Remy stepped away from the booth in the middle of the 2021 season after being diagnosed a third time. He threw out the first pitch of the AL Wild Card series later that year but died just a few weeks later.
Joe Buck served as the primary play-by-play commentator for Fox Sports' national television coverage of both MLB baseball and NFL football from the mid-1990s (1994 for the NFL, 1996 for MLB) through 2021, after which he moved over to ESPN to become their new play-by-play voice for Monday Night Football. With Fox having held the exclusive US TV rights to the World Series since 2000, this means that Buck is probably the one sportscaster who almost every baseball fan has heard, having covered every World Series in the 21st century through 2021 (as well as in 1996 and 1998). He has not always been the most well-liked broadcaster, however, with fans of both baseball and football criticizing him for his seeming lack of excitement during big moments and for what they perceive as bias in favor of certain teams (leaning into this, Buck's Twitter bio once started with "I love all teams EXCEPT yours"). The son of the late Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck (who also spent several years calling MLB and NFL games for a national audience on CBS radio and TV), Joe has proved that broadcasting runs in his family. His often-used catchphrase of "We'll see you tomorrow night",^note in response to a Game 6 outcome forcing a Game 7 to decide a seven-game series, was a regular feature of October play.

Others

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the first commissioner of baseball, brought in by the club owners in 1920 in the wake of the "Black Sox" scandal to help clean up the image of the game and serving until his passing in 1944. A US federal judge,^note Landis was the one who banished "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the other "Black Sox" from baseball for life. He cracked down on gambling (banishing 18 players over his tenure), helped lay out the rules for how major league teams could work with minor league ones, and was a proponent of the All-Star Game. But he was also responsible for enforcing the rigid "color line" that kept African-American players out of the leagues, even maneuvering to prevent the sale of the Philadelphia Phillies to Bill Veeck in 1942 when Veeck made it known he would sign several Negro League stars.
Branch Rickey, a Hall of Fame executive for multiple teams, arguably had more impact on the game than anyone this side of Babe Ruth. After an undistinguished playing career in professional football and baseball, he eventually found his calling in the front office. After a few mediocre years with the St. Louis Browns (though with a highlight of signing Hall of Famer George Sisler to his first big-league contract), he jumped ship across town to the Cardinals. Rickey started out as manager and president but gave up the presidency to a new owner. After some mediocre years as manager, he was fired—but the owner wanted him to stay on in the front office. One big reason was that he had invested in several minor-league clubs, soon forging them into an actual farm system that made the Redbirds a National League powerhouse. Landis tried to keep Rickey from creating a farm system, releasing well over 100 minor leaguers whose contracts the Cards had controlled, but in this, he failed. The Rickey-created farm system continued to thrive and was soon copied by the rest of MLB; ironically, it saved the minor leagues by keeping them a necessary part of the game after the dawn of the television age. Rickey remained with the Cardinals through the 1942 season, after which he moved on to become general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Under his tenure, Brooklyn became the first MLB team with a full-time spring training facility; popularized the use of now-common tools such as batting cages, pitching machines, and batting helmets;^note pioneered the use of what would become known in later decades as sabermetrics; and most famously signed Jackie Robinson to break baseball's color line. But he wasn't done. In 1951, he went to the Pirates, helping to build the team that would win the 1960 World Series (though he was long gone by then). Rickey also championed the Continental League, a potential third major league that was planned to launch in 1961 but never got off the ground after MLB offered expansion franchises to several of the league's owners. He came back to the Cardinals for a final front-office stint, but it ended in 1964 after conflict with the ownership, and he died a little more than a year later. Nonetheless, his titanic legacy was intact, and he would enter Cooperstown in 1967. Harrison Ford played him in 42, despite their obvious physical differences.
Albert "Happy" Chandler succeeded Landis as commissioner in 1945, following the latter's death. A Kentucky politico^note best known for approving Jackie Robinson's contract with the Dodgers, having made it clear that he would support integration even it cost him his job. He also established MLB's first pension fund. Chandler's support of integration didn't stop with his effective firing as commissioner in 1951; he enforced the integration of Kentucky's public schools in his second stint as the state's governor. Chandler passed away in 1991.
Bowie Kuhn^noteYes, that was his actual first name. served as commissioner from 1969 to 1984. His tenure could best be described as a mixed bag, with huge increases in attendance and TV revenue juxtaposed with labor unrest (most notably a players' strike in 1981) and, by the end of his tenure, owner disenchantment. He battled outfielder Curt Flood (see "Outfielders" above) over the reserve clause, winning that battle but eventually losing the war, as an arbitrator invalidated the clause in 1975, leading to the modern free agency era. Kuhn was also known for his rigid anti-drug stance, suspending numerous players for drug-related episodes. He also famously banned Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from MLB for taking jobs in casino promotion, even though neither was involved in gambling; his successor Peter Ueberroth (below) lifted their bans shortly after taking office. Kuhn also had high-profile conflicts with team owners Charlie Finley and Ted Turner. Kuhn was also responsible for the first World Series night games, a practice which is now standard, and embarrassed the Hall of Fame into inducting Negro Leagues figures as full members. Kuhn passed away in 2007.
Jim Bouton is mostly an obscure pitcher who had a couple of good years for the Yankees. He is famous, however, for writing the 1970 book Ball Four, a controversial "tell-all" book about the "behind the scenes" life of the sport while he was playing for the Seattle Pilots for their only season (the next season they moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers). He was blacklisted for this, and Kuhn tried to get him to disown the book. He, future filmmaker Todd Field, and fellow ballplayer Rob Nelson also co-created Big League Chew bubble gum, a less harmful alternative to chewing tobacco, while they were associated with the independent Portland Mavericks (Field was the Mavericks' bat boy at the time). Passed away in 2019.
Peter Ueberroth succeeded Kuhn as commissioner. A businessman who made his fortune in the travel industry, he entered the spotlight as head of the organizing committee for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which arguably saved the Olympic movement by being a solid moneymaker at a time when the Olympics were already notorious for rampant cost overruns. He officially succeeded Kuhn shortly after the Games ended and was immediately faced with a threatened umpire strike during the postseason. Ueberroth quickly hammered out an agreement for the umpires to return and the next year quietly worked to limit a midseason players' strike to one day. As mentioned above, he reinstated Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays after Kuhn had banned them—though he also became noted for his anti-drug policies, suspending many players for cocaine use. He also negotiated a big national TV deal with CBS, expanded the League Championship Series from best-of-five to best-of-seven, persuaded the Cubs to install lights in Wrigley Field, and found a new source of revenue for MLB by introducing corporate sponsorships, specifically persuading major corporations to pay for the privilege of calling one of their products "the official X of Major League Baseball". The teams' financial pictures also improved greatly; when he took office, 21 of the 26 teams at that time were losing money, but all were at worst breaking even by the time he left. Despite these successes, Ueberroth's tenure was still a mixed bag, much like his predecessor's, because he facilitated collusion among the owners to limit player free agency, violating the labor agreement between the owners and players. The players' union filed three separate suits against the owners, winning all three. Later commissioner Fay Vincent blamed him for the labor unrest that plagued baseball in the first half of the 1990s, most infamously the strike that scuttled the 1994 postseason. He also initiated the investigation into Pete Rose's baseball betting habits, which would fall in the lap of…
A. Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti—the commissioner who brought Pete Rose down. An English professor at Yale University who went on to become the school's president, he had long been a diehard baseball fan. When he was first rumored to be a candidate for the Yale presidency, he said, "The only thing I ever wanted to be president of was the American League" (he came from Boston and naturally rooted for the Red Sox all his life). After leaving Yale, he instead became president of the National League, where he focused on improving the fan experience and pushing for teams to hire more minorities in key roles. Giamatti became MLB commissioner in April 1989, during the Rose investigation.^note It wound up getting enough on Rose that Giamatti persuaded him to accept a lifetime ban from the game. Only five months after becoming commissioner and eight days after banning Rose, Giamatti died of a massive heart attack at his vacation home on Martha's Vineyard. (Fun fact: actors Marcus Giamatti and Paul Giamatti are his sons.)
Allan "Bud" Selig was the MLB commissioner, officially and unofficially, from 1992–2014. Prior to that, he owned the Milwaukee Brewers. During his tenure he made a number of changes to Major League Baseball's format, which risked alienating the sport's traditionalist fanbase but since have proven very successful, such as interleague play (before 1997, American and National league teams did not play each other except in the World Series), the introduction of the new three-round playoff format, and the institution of "instant replay" review in his final year as commissioner. His most important achievement would probably be the addition of the wild card (and later, the second wild card), which increases overall fan interest by keeping many more teams relevant much later into the season than they normally would be. On the other hand, however, it was his misfortune to be commissioner during the 1994–95 player strike, which wiped out the 1994 postseason and became the longest work stoppage in the sport's history. It was also Selig who took most of the blame for the performance-enhancing drug scandals which happened on his watch, a fact that has caused him to be portrayed as inept and bumbling.
Roger Angell was a longtime writer for The New Yorker magazine, whose reverently erudite essays on baseball (published sporadically beginning in 1962, and subsequently collected in several books) have led many to deem him the game's unofficial "poet laureate". In 2014 the Hall of Fame presented him with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award (now the BBWAA Career Excellence Award), the highest honor of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, making Angell the first non-beat writer (and first non-member of the BBWAA) to receive the honor.^note He was still working right up until his death in 2022 at age 101. (Fun fact: E. B. White was his stepfather.)

Historical People to Know in MLB

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