The President of the Boston Braves Historical Association recalls Opening Day at Braves Field in 1946, when the players from both teams returned from the military, the fans enjoyed a return to normalcy after World War II, and the paint was so fresh that some fans went home with an unexpected souvenir!
On March 21, 1972, the Boston Red Sox traded relief pitcher Sparky Lyle to the New York Yankees for first baseman Danny Cater. This may not have been the worst transaction in Red Sox history—the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees is the hands-down winner of that award—but it is probably the worst spring training trade in Boston baseball history. Lyle helped t [...]
Former Red Sox pitcher Frank Sullivan spent eleven springs preparing to pitch in the big leagues. Frank looks back on a time when a crowd of 500 was a good turnout for an exhibition game, when teams “barnstormed their way north playing exhibition games along the way, and when players of color had to deal with segregation in the South. Herb Crehan: Did you l [...]
For the past 67 years the Boston Red Sox have trained under the sunny skies of Florida, or from 1959 to 1965, in the desert warmth of Scottsdale, Arizona. But from 1943 through 1945, World War II travel restrictions required the Red Sox to hold their spring training camps north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
In the spring of 1954, when folks watched television through black-and-white picture tubes and many radios were the size of a loaf of Wonder Bread, the Red Sox fan in me went deep and true.