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The First Pitch: September 10, 2025
The Phillies clobber the Mets, 9-3, extending their lead in the NL East to nine games on a day of personal milestones for both sides. Kyle Schwarber’s 50th home run of the year, a three-run shot in the seventh, puts the game all but out of reach; he’s the second Phillie, after Ryan Howard (with 58 homers in 2006) to collect 50 in a season. Meanwhile for the Mets, Juan Soto becomes the team’s fifth player to amass 30 homers and 30 steals in a season, reaching second with an eighth-inning theft. (Soto’s previous season high for steals was 12.)
Picking up his 12th win for the Phillies is Ranger Suarez, who allows just one hit over six shutout innings while striking out a career-high 12 batters.
Just called up from the minors, Boston pitcher Connolly Early ties a Red Sox record for a pitcher making his big-league debut by striking out 11 A’s in a 6-0 win at Sacramento. Unlike the pitcher he matches—Don Aase, who faced 38 batters in a complete-game effort in 1977—Early will only need to face 21 to collect his 11 K’s; of the other 10 A’s, only one of them reach via hit.
With the win, the Red Sox tie the Yankees (who are stomped at home by the Tigers, 12-2) not just for second in the AL East, but for the top AL wild card seed.
In just his second start after two years on the shelf for Tommy John-related issues, Houston pitcher Luis Garcia is forced to check out in the second inning at Toronto with discomfort in his throwing elbow; his status is unknown, but both teammates and coaches pretty much echo the same sentiment after the game that the near-term outlook for Garcia is not at all promising.
After Garcia’s departure, the Astros hold the Blue Jays hitless into the sixth inning—and hold a 3-1 lead in the ninth when the Jays rally to tie the game against reliver Bryan Abreu, suffering his first blown save since taking over for injured closer Josh Hader. Toronto will then score the winning run in the 10th; its 4-3 victory increases its AL East lead to three games, while reducing the Astros’ advantage in the AL West to a single game over Seattle, 5-3 winners at home against St. Louis.
Congrats, Your Box Score Line Was the Best (Hitters Edition)
4-2-3-2—Teoscar Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers
It’s been a relatively disappointing year for the veteran slugger, but he’s hardly to be written off as his two home runs and single proved in the Dodgers’ 7-2 home win over Colorado. It’s Hernandez’s third multi-homer game this season—and the 21st of his 10-year career. While his OPS remains at a lifetime-low .733, you can’t ignore the 23 homers and 80 RBIs he’s produced.
Congrats, Your Box Score Line Was the Best (Pitchers Edition)
8-4-0-0-0-5—Joey Cantillo, Cleveland
For the second straight day, a member of the Guardians’ rotation completed eight shutout innings. On Monday it was Slade Cecconi, and on Tuesday it was Cantillo, the 25-year-old Honolulu native who recently moved to the rotation and set a career mark for innings thrown as he silenced the Royals in a 2-0 home win. With the victory, Cantillo is now 5-3 with a 3.36 ERA.
It Was Whatever-Something Years Ago Today
1950: Joe DiMaggio becomes the first player to hit three homers in one game at Washington’s voluminous Griffith Stadium, leading the Yankees to an 8-1 victory. DiMaggio’s feat may have been made easier as the fences were brought in from the left field foul pole to center anywhere from 5-15 feet for 1950.
1974: Lou Brock steals two bases at St. Louis against the Phillies. The first breaks Max Carey’s all-time National League career mark of 738. More famously, Brock’s second swipe breaks Maury Wills’ major league season record of 104. The 35-year-old Brock will go on to steal 118 bases, a standard which will be reset eight years later by Rickey Henderson, though today it remains tops in the NL.
2016: The Dodgers’ Rich Hill, after seven innings of perfection at Miami, is pulled despite having thrown just 89 pitches by rookie manager Dave Roberts. Los Angeles will win the game, 5-0, as the Marlins do poke out two hits after Hill’s removal; Roberts will justify Hill’s removal after the game, citing a concern of blisters which had recently bedeviled the pitcher.
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Happy birthday to:
Miami rookie catcher/DH Agustin Ramirez (24)
Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt (38), slugger of 372 home runs; 2022 NL MVP; top NL hitter in 2013 and 2022; seven-time All-Star; recipient of four Gold Gloves
Neil Walker (40), 2010s second baseman; 1,224 career hits
Joey Votto (42), 17-year first baseman for Reds; 2010 NL MVP; 356 career home runs; seven-time league leader in on-base percentage; all-time franchise leader in walks
Danys Baez (48), reliever of six teams through 2000s; 114 career saves; 2005 All-Star
Randy Johnson (62), Hall-of-Fame ace who grossed 303 wins (against 166 losses) and four ERA titles; five-time Cy Young winner, four of those consecutively for DBacks (1999-2002); second on the all-time list with 4,875 strikeouts, 372 of those in 2001; author of 2004 perfect game; 2001 World Series MVP
Born on this date:
Roger Maris (1934), slugger who famously broke Babe Ruth’s then-season home run record in 1961; two-time AL MVP; four-time All-Star; 275 career home runs
Ted Kluszewski (1924), slugger who wore sleeveless jerseys during 1950s tenure with Reds to show off his biceps; belted 40+ home runs over three straight seasons; five-time collector of 100+ RBIs
George Kelly (1895), Hall-of-Fame first baseman known to many as “High Pockets”; two-time league leader in RBIs, five times knocking in 100+; career .297 batting average
Shameless Link of the Day
Chase Field, home of the Diamondbacks, recently got an extended lease on activity. Here’s the story of the facility that brought major league ball to downtown Phoenix.
Book Review: “Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays”
Edited by Louis H. Schiff and Robert M. Jarvis
One of the things I’ve always loved about baseball literature is its expansive and diverse nature of subjects. For every book that focuses on, say, the storied but familiar history of the New York Yankees, there’s another that digs deeper into the weeds and nudges you with a subject that leaves you thinking, “Huh—I didn’t know that.”
Such a book is Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays. Published by MacFarland Books—the North Carolina-based baseball book factory—this collection of articles overseen by retired judge Louis Schiff and law professor Robert Jarvis is a meticulously researched book that focuses on a fascinating collection of 11 people who played, managed or ran the game of baseball and, at some point in their lives, took up law. Fun fact, as revealed in this book: Eight managers in the history of major league baseball acquired law degrees—and six of them are in the Hall of Fame. All six are profiled in this book.
What makes Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame such an intriguing read is how these 11 people used their law experience to great benefit during their time in baseball. Branch Rickey, almost overqualified for a life in law school, used his lawyerly instincts to trailblaze his way through baseball history, perfecting the art of the farm system, overhauling failing franchises and, of course, shattering baseball’s race barrier by bringing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larry MacPhail, less the law prodigy than Rickey, nevertheless leveraged what he learned into a far more successful calling as a businessman known for turning companies (and major league teams) around. Walter O’Malley fused his knowledge of the law with his father’s past as a corrupt New York City politician to become the man that tactfully stole the Dodgers from Brooklyn. And Tony La Russa, failed major league ballplayer, eagerly pursued a law degree to empower his stature as a rising manager—first in the minors, then at the major league level where he collected more wins than anyone not named Connie Mack.
Some of those featured in the book are not surprising for their inclusion, like O’Malley or Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Federal judge turned baseball’s first commissioner. One unexpected subject is Hughie Jennings, who from past reading always struck me as the whoop-it-up baseball character who would have least thought of a career in law. Less ironic but still surprising is Miller Huggins, manager of the Yankees during the 1920s who, as a child, was encouraged by his working-class father-in-law to get a law degree because of his penchant for arguing—and was fortunate enough to be taught by, among others, future President William Howard Taft. There’s also Jim O’Rourke, the man who struck the first-ever hit in National League history whose lofty use of “five-syllable words”—which would have made even George Will blush—gained him the nickname “Orator,” lending himself all too naturally to a post-baseball career in law.
The 10 writers who contribute to Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame are not lightweights; they’re highly experienced lawyers, professors and judges who know their craft—and they know their baseball, too. This double-barreled knowledge results in a smooth, self-assured narrative, not delving too deep into law linguistics that might wear down the many laymen among us (to which I count myself as one). And while most of the authors play it buttoned up and refrain from overt opinion, Elizabeth Marquez’s write-up on Bowie Kuhn stands out for her critical views of the former commissioner, writing that he “often…turned out to be on the wrong side of history” with his rulings and opinions.
Some readers adverse to long books may feel compelled to back away from the 253 pages offered in Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but nearly half of the content consists of footnotes and addenda, greatly shortening the core writing while being made available as an option for further digestion of the facts. The book can be useful for reference, or simply enjoyed as 11 well-written bios on some of baseball’s most influential men, and how their appetite for the law helped mold their place in the game.
Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame can be purchased from MacFarland Books, Amazon, and other online book sellers.
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