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20
THINGS YOU
DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT
BASEBALL...
OR MAYBE YOU DID?
1
Florida Marlins pitcher Antonio
Alfonseca has six fingers on each
hand and six toes on each foot. His nickname is "Pulpo,"
Spanish for "octopus."
2
On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh
Pirate Dock Phillips Ellis, Jr.
pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres while tripping
on LSD. "I can only remember bits and pieces of the game,"
he said later.
3
In 1973, Ellis
started wearing hair curlers to the ballpark after Ebony
magazine ran a feature critical of his various hairstyles.
4
When Cincinnati Reds third baseman
Chris Sabo's bat broke during a
home game on July 26, 1996, it exposed loads of cork. Sabo denied
corking his bat. He had hit only three home runs and 16 RBIs that
season and pointed out, "That's hardly an endorsement for
the cork industry."
5
Baseball's original "Babe"
wasn't George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Babe Adams pitched
for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1906 to 1926.
6
After being passed over for the 1976 All-Star game by Boston manager
Darrell Johnson, Baltimore Orioles
pitcher Jim Palmer claimed he was
misquoted for calling Johnson an idiot. "I didn't call Johnson
an idiot. Someone else did, and I just agreed." Palmer said.
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7
Abner Doubleday,
the inventor of baseball, is also credited with firing the first
shot of the Civil War for the Union side.
8
On September 6, 1950, New York
Yankee Phil Rizzuto received a letter
threatening his life if he showed up in uniform to play the Red
Sox in Boston. Rizzuto turned the letter over to the FBI and told
his manager, Casey Stengel. Stengel gave Rizzuto a different uniform
and gave Rizzuto's to then - player and later Yankee manager - Billy
Martin.
9
When Joe Pepitone joined the Chicago
Cubs in 1971, he told manager Leo
Durocher he was fast enough to steal. The first time Pepitone reached
first base, Durocher decided to test him. First coach Peanuts Lowery
flashed the sign to Pepitone, a wink. Pepitone didn't budge. Lowery
winked again. Still, Pepitone stood pat. Lowery winked a third time.
Pepitone finally responded by blowing Lowery a kiss.
10
The longest game
in major league baseball ended in a 1-1 tie after 26 innings. The
1920 game between ther Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers was
called on account of darkness; there were no stadium lights.
11
It costs $66 per minute ($3,960
per hour) to light an average baseball
stadium.
12
The average lifespan
of a major league baseball is seven pitches.
13
Each major league baseball team buys about 18,000
baseballs each year.
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14
As a promotional stunt in 1939,
San Francisco Seals catcher Joe Sprinz tried to catch a baseball
dropped from a blimp at 800 feet. He claimed to have his eye on
the ball the whole way down, but he missed and was hit in the
face, cracking his jaw in 12 places.
15
In 1963, pitcher Gaylord
Perry said,
"They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run."
A few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July
20, 1969, Perry hit the first and only home run of his career.
16
The Louisville Slugger logo
doesn't only appear on bats. The familiar oval was painted on
the first cruise missile fired in the Persian Gulf war by sailors
on the U.S.S. Louisville.
17
On June 26, 1985, at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida,
organist Wilbur Snapp played
"Three Blind Mice" following
a call by home plate umpire Keith O'Connor. The umpire ejected
Snapp from the game.
18
When he pitched for the Seattle
Mariners, Randy Johnson threw a
ball so hard that his body's momentum shook a tooth loose.
19
In March, 2001, while with the Arizona
Diamondbacks, Johnson killed a bird
with a warm-up pitch.
20
After 43 years of losing, Charlie
Brown's team finally won a game
on March 30, 1993.
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