No one realized it then, but April 16, 1975 was the last time baseball fans would get to see a baseball giant’s trademark high leg kick and whipsaw delivery. On that day, right-hander Juan Marichal put a cap on his 16-year Hall of Fame career when he appeared in his final game — for his longtime rival Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dominican Dandy, 37, who won all but five of his 243 victories with the San Francisco Giants, had signed with the Dodgers before the start of the 1975 season after a mediocre year with the Red Sox.  It was

Highlights from this day in baseball history: Sweet Lou's honey of a trade, Pujols' hot spring, A-Rod's meh first day, and more ... NO CLUE ABOUT SWEET LOU 1969: After acquiring him from the Indians, new expansion team the Seattle Pilots don’t bother to give 25-year-old minor league outfielder Lou Piniella a shot at the bigs, trading him to fellow expansion club the Kansas City Royals for two marginal players just before the start of the season. Piniella, whose family is from Spain and was dubbed “Sweet Lou” for his fiery temper as well as his smooth right-handed stroke, would

The 2001 Seattle Mariners won a record 116 regular season games that season — and then ran right into the buzzsaw that was the Yankees dynasty of the late 1990s and early 2000s. On this day in béisbol, Oct. 21, 2001, New York took a commanding 3-1 lead in the ALCS against Seattle thanks to some stellar pitching and late-inning heroics at The Stadium. By the top of the 8th inning of a scoreless nail-biter, Yankees starter Roger Clemens had only given up one hit in five innings while reliever Ramiro Mendoza had held the Mariners hitless over two innings

He pitched in the Major Leagues for only five seasons with the hapless Washington Senators of the 1950s, retired with a losing record, and was as derided by opposing hitters for his junkball repertoire as much as he delighted fans with his colorful personality. Yet despite being a baseball history footnote, the death of Conrado “Connie” Marrero on April 23, 2014 was widely covered — the Cuban-born righthander, who died in Havana two days shy of his 103rd birthday, was the oldest living former major leaguer at the time. Standing just 5-feet, 5-inches tall and built like a fire hydrant,

It’s easy to forget Alex Rodriguez was a pretty good shortstop before being traded to the Yankees, but he wasn’t a bad third baseman, either.  On this day in 2010, A-Rod and the rest of New York’s infield made a dazzling play look easy, pulling off a perfect 5-4-3, around-the-horn triple play against the A’s in Oakland. In the bottom of the sixth inning with the A’s leading 4-2 and C.C. Sabathia on the mound, Rodriguez, playing close to the bag with runners on first and second and no outs, fielded a hot-smash grounder, stepped on third for one out

Javier Baez was 23 and a rising star in 2016 when he split time playing second, third and shortstop for the Cubs, making a very good, very young team even better.  On this day in béisbol, Oct. 20, 2016, Chicago was on its way to reversing a World Series drought of more than a century as they battled the Dodgers in the NCLS — and Baez was on his way to his first defining moment in the national spotlight. The native of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, smacked a bases-loaded double in the 8th inning of an eventual 8-4 win in Game 5

On a Red Sox championship team that won 108 games in 2018 and boasted the likes of Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts in the lineup, it was easy to overlook a youngster like Rafael Devers, who was only in his second season and not even 21 years old when he became the regular third baseman. Devers showed flashes of power in ’18 with 21 home runs in just 121 games — a harbinger of his 2019 season, when he blossomed into a star with 32 HR, 115 RBI, 201 hits and a .311 average, and led the majors

Over the past few seasons, the Houston Astros have become the team everyone loves to hate thanks in large part to their on-field arrogance — and a little help from an elaborate cheating system. But love ’em or loathe ’em, they do manage to win every year, with four straight ALCS appearances since 2016 and a championship in 2017. Much of the credit goes to a homegrown core of young stars that include second baseman Jose Altuve, shortstop Carlos Correa, outfielder George Springer and third baseman Alex Bregman, all of whom always seem to turn it up a notch in