Jim Koenigsberger

When Bob Gibson showed up in Columbus, he couldn’t dine or room with his teammates. He had to stay at the local YMCA, eat on the Black side of town. Gibson said he was followed wherever he went: Back and forth from the ballpark. Out to dinner, Even to the barbershop. Bob Gibson left Columbus, not for the Cardinals, but for the Harlem Globetrotters. He’d had it with baseball. Bob Gibson said he always considered basketball his best sport and: "The one least likely to discriminate against me." 1956.

"No one has won 30 games since Denny McLain did it. No other pitcher has drunk as many Pepsi-Colas, broken as many team rules, or played the organ as famously as he did. And there has never been another World Series in which both starting pitchers had won the Cy Young and MVP." Bob Gibson.

"BUT ONCE, WILLIE WAS NOT 36 AND ILL." "Cubs Ferguson Jenkins knocked Mays down with a fast ball tight to his chin. Willie jumped up and glared menacingly at the young pitcher, and dug in to get a firmer stance. There had been a time when everyone knew what was going to happen next. But now, when Jenkins threw again, Willie Mays backed away, like a Little Leaguer bailing out the first time he sees a curve ball. The pitch was across the outside corner. Willie Mays swung and missed. He stepped over the plate and walked head down to the Giant dugout." Mike Mulvoy, 1967. Jenkins on the mound!!

"No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton's laws of motion. Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently." Lawrence M. Krauss. Harry Lyons with Trainer, Billy Tailer. Philadelphia Quakers.

“Even in the major leagues, players are conscious that there are a few who are involved in a different game, whose skill level is unattainable to most others. Kaline was one of these.” George Cantor, Detroit Free Press. Al Kaline was also part of the, "Lincoln-Mercury Sports Panel", appearing at auto shows and autographing postcards.

"It was like watching someone drown. If it's true that you learn from adversity, then I must be the smartest son of a bitch in the world." Gene Mauch, managing the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies during their historic collapse from a 6.5-game lead with 12 games left. Jim Bunning started on September 13, 16, 20, 24, 27 and 30 and October 4. Four games down the stretch that he started on just 2 days' rest, and 2 on 3 days' rest. Jim Bunning went 19-8 with 2.63 ERA. 1964 Pennant Race. "Gene Mauch confused us. All season, he screamed, yelled and hollered and threw things around the clubhouse, then during the losing streak, he never had a tirade. We were all waiting for the volcano to erupt, and it never did. Maybe we were waiting for him to save the season." "The Mouth That Roared." Dallas Green. Mauch twice started his two best pitchers, Jim Bunning and Chris Short, on two day’s rest. "Gene Mauch was known as a sharp tactician who loved the sacrifice bunt and the pinch hitter. His detractors faulted him for over managing and for giving more signs than the Coast Guard." Norman L. Macht. Gene Mauch and Jim Bunning.

“Old Days”It doesn’t get any better than Phil Rizzuto at the microphone and Steve Hamilton throwing the “Folly Floater”to Tony Horton during a 1970 Indians-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium.#Yankees #NYC #Indians #Cleveland #1970s #TV #WPIX

New Feature Fan Favorites From the Past #Mets #Phillies #MLB #nostalgia

As we celebrate the 2026 #AllStarGame in Philadelphia, I connected with 2 x WS champion, 3 x All-Star, and Pirates’ HOF’er, @TheRealSangy35. He shared his “Dream Team” lineup of legendary, MLB players who were selected to play in an unprecedented, 142 All-Star games. WOW!!!

I've had a lifetime of ups, downs, and sideways. Baseball. Failure. Faith. Rock bottom. Redemption. And the one lesson that ties all of it together? You don't become better by avoiding hard. You become better by embracing it... I'm a broken, flawed man and I've made mistakes I'm not proud of. I've let people down...not by choice, but I let them down. But how I reacted to those moments? That's where the growth lived. Here's what a lifetime of hard actually taught me. Lesson #1: Life is going to be hard. That's not a warning, that's a promise. People are going to be messy. You're going to make mistakes. The speed of life doesn't slow down for any of us. What you control: • Whether you embrace hard or run from it • Whether you get better or just get bitter • What your first thought is when your feet hit the floor in the morning There's so much more value in pushing through hard times and coming out the other side. Lesson #2: You can't outrun what you're supposed to grow through. I numbed failure instead of walking through it. I told myself it was working. It wasn't. Eventually, the hard you've been running from catches up. And when it does you either let it break you or let it build you. I've walked through all the challenges, all the ups, all the downs, all the sideways. And I think every single one of them put me in a position I was handpicked for. Hard doesn't disqualify you. It prepares you for what's next. Lesson #3: Be Steadfast. Be Persistent. Be Resilient. Those aren't traits you're born with. They're what's left after hard things do their work on you. They didn't come from the easy stretches They came from character that wasn't there before Empathy I couldn't have had without the hard Today is the only one we're promised. Don't waste it running from hard. Embrace it. I share these lessons every time I speak because every room has people in the middle of their own hard. Want to bring this conversation to your team? Tap the link in my bio to learn more. @Pirates

"Senator John McCain asked Ted Williams about how his extraordinary vision. It was said only 1 in 100,000 could match him, It enabled him to see exactly where he hit the baseball spinning furiously towards him. "Can you really see the laces on the ball?'" "Shit, no. You're readin' all these sportswriters. Jesus. Listen, that ball looked like a pea to me comin' in there once in a while. Hell, no, I couldn't see the laces." Ted Williams.

"I've never seen so many damned idiots as the owners in sport. Baseball's headed for extinction. Defence dominates everything. Pitching is 75% of the game and that is why it's so dull. Have you seen fan napping in the middle of a football or basketball game?" Charlie Finley.

Maris: “I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.” Mantle: “I don’t know, Rog. I mean, I’ve been living with you most of the season and I don’t know nothing about you.” Maris: “Well, I was raised in Fargo. I played baseball, basketball, football. I married my high school sweetheart. Chose baseball. I played in the minors, came up with Cleveland, traded to Kansas City and then I came here.” Mantle: “You’re right, don’t talk to them.” Roger Maris was concerned the New York writers were turning on him!

"My first thought was, 'No chance' because he had a suntan. He's just a fella who they're taking a look at. He spends his time at the beach. And that'll be that and I'll probably never see him again." Vin Scully watching Koufax's first tryout with the Dodgers

"It was a sunny afternoon and 1000's around me were cheering a paunchy middle-aged man in what looked like pyjamas on bright green, manicured field below. He acknowledged applause by waving his cap back at us.This has something to do with America" "Chicago Side" Recent Russian imagrant Dmitry Samarov. In 1957, Carl Yastrzemski became the first Suffolk County public school basketball player to score 1,000 points in his career. That year Yastrzemski also set a Long Island high school record for most points in a season, 628.

"Gaylord Perry’s big right hand started to move and people started to boo. First he touched his cap, sliding his fingers across the visor, bringing them down along the right side of his head, stopping behind his ear. Then the hand went across his uniform, touching his chest, his neck. Was all this to cre­ate a diversionary action?Was he simply having fun?" Gerald Eskenazi, New York Times. "When Rod Carew was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, Panamanian flags waved. When Ferguson Jenkins was inducted, Canadian flags were flown. When Gaylord Perry was inducted, it began to rain." George Owens, Utica Observer-Dispatch. During the 1971 MLB playoffs between the Giants and the Pirates, a television reporter asked Gaylord Perry's five-year-old daughter Allison, if her father threw the greaseball. "It's a hard slider", Alison responded.

"Ernie Banks saved me a fortune. I got tossed out of the game and almost threw the entire bat rack on field. Ernie stopped me. I tossed 5 bats. I'm glad he did, I ended up getting fined $250/per bat by Bowie Kuhn." Ferguson Jenkins.

"I still remember the time when one of our strongest men, Gene Conley, decided to fight Wilt Chamberlain for the ball. He grabbed it and hung on and Chamberlain just lifted him and ball right up towards the rim." Bill Russell. Gene Conley pitching for Braves was 14-9, runner up for ROY to Wally Moon. In 1955, his record was 11-3 before the All Star Game break. The ONLY athlete to win dual-sport Championships in MLB and the NBA. Played 12 major-league seasons in six years with not a day off between those seasons. "Don’t bring up Gene Conley with me! As a starting pitcher, he only works every fourth or fifth day, and he’s only a backup NBA center in basketball. You are a regular player in both baseball and basketball. I think you should realize that eventually you won’t justify your salary in either sport." Branch Rickey to Dick Groat. Gene Conley hit by pitch in 9-1 blowout. Mgr. Gene Mauch charged the mound and smashed pitcher Raul Sanchez face. Brawls erupted all over the field, most notably between Gene Conley and Reds second baseman Billy Martin! Billy Martin left the field with a broken jaw. "Gene told me he was sorry. He didn’t know why he did it and had no actual reason for doing it." Gene Conley walked off the Red Sox team bus in a NYC traffic jam, and was later spotted at Idlewild Airport trying to board a plane for Israel with no passports or luggage. His wife, Katie Conley related that a baseball fan told Gene Conley that Gene was too good to be drinking and that he (the fan) did not like to see him that way. Gene later said: "TThat was it. I haven’t had a drink since." Gene Conley. "The Wandering Pitcher!"

First BBWAA election, 1936. Ty Cobb, 98.23 % of the vote. Babe Ruth, 95.13 %. Honus Wagner, 95.13% . Christy Mathewson, 90.70%. Walter Johnson, 83.62%. 226 writers cast ballots. 37 didn`t vote for Walter Johnson. Did they even see "The Big Train" play?

"Charley Somers, who owned the Indians, was the most generous club owner I have ever seen. We couldn't play Sunday ball in Washington then, and when we were playing the Senators over a weekend, we'd make a jump back to Cleveland for a Sunday game, then back to Washington Sunday night. There never was a time we made that jump that Charley Somers didn't come down the aisle of the train, and give all the players $20 gold pieces. He was a generous man when it came to contracts, too. The first year I came up to Cleveland, in 1910, I led the league unofficially in hitting. When I went to talk contract with him for 1911, I told him I wanted $10,000. He wasn't figuring on giving me more than $6,000, and he wouldn't listen to me. "I'll make a deal with you," I told him. "If I hit .400 you give me $10,000. If I don't, you don't give me a cent." It was a deal, I signed the contract, and I hit .408. But I still didn't win the American League batting title. That was the year Ty Cobb hit .420. I was hitting .420 about three weeks before the season was over and Mr. Somers called me in to pay off, told me I could sit it out the rest of the season. I told him to wait until the season was ended and I wasn't quitting. I wrote my own contract the rest of the time I was in Cleveland. Babe Ruth used to say that he copied my batting stance, and I felt right complimented. I was a left-handed hitter, and I did have an unusual stance. I used to draw a line three inches out from the plate every time I went to bat. I drew a right-angle line at the end next to the catcher and put my left foot on it exactly three inches from the plate. I kept both feet together, then took a long stride into the ball." "Shoeless Joe" Jackson. Joe Jackson while he was with Savannah warming up before a game in New Orleans, 1909. In my HOF!!!!