The Last Home Runs Ever Hit at Ebbets Field
On September 22, 1957, Duke Snider hit 2 home runs off Robin Roberts at Ebbets Field. They were the last ever hit there. Two days later the Dodgers played their final game in Brooklyn.
Baseball
On This Date: Denny McLain Wins No. 31 — and Grooves One to Mickey Mantle (Sept. 19, 1968)
Sept. 19, 1968: McLain beat the Yankees for his 31st win, the last 30-win season in baseball, in front of 9,063 people — and deliberately grooved a pitch to Mickey Mantle for career home run No. 535.
On This Date: The Last Game at the Polo Grounds — and the 1,752 People Who Showed Up (Sept. 18, 1963)
Sept. 18, 1963: the Phillies beat the Mets 5-1 in the last major league game at the Polo Grounds, in front of 1,752 people. The Daily News called it a wake. New York had already held the funeral once.
The 5 Greatest Donruss Rated Rookie Classes, Ranked — and the Hall of Famers They Somehow Missed
Donruss hired a newspaper writer to pick twenty rookies a year and printed his guesses on cards. Forty years of that record, ranked — plus five things about Rated Rookies the hobby has wrong.
The 10 Greatest Topps All-Star Rookie Classes, Ranked by the Little Gold Cup
Ranking every Topps All-Star Rookie Team by what the cups became — only counting years the trophy was printed on the card. Seaver and Carew, Pujols and Ichiro, Lynn and Rice, and the 1979-86 rookies who never got one.
On This Date: Steve Carlton Strikes Out 19 Mets, Sets the Record, and Loses (Sept. 15, 1969)
On Sept. 15, 1969, a feverish Steve Carlton struck out 19 Miracle Mets, the first pitcher ever to reach 19 in nine innings, and lost 4-3 on two two-strike homers by Ron Swoboda.
The 10 Greatest Error Cards of All Time — and the Two Famous Stories About Them That Aren't True
Every card collector has a mental museum of mistakes. The batboy who got a big-league card. The obscenity that made it through Fleer's quality control. The rookie whose name fell off. Errors are the hobby's folklore: they're the cards people tell stories about,