This is a shout out the SportsPodium friends in the US of A – I figured you and the rest of the world need some light hearted distraction from current affairs and You Know Who.
The one thing I would like a baseball fan based in the US to tell me in the comments is this thing about the Baseball World Championship when we outside of the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free think you are the only nation playing baseball. But moving on, no sports fan can deny that baseball is BIG. Even people living in sh#thole countries know who Tom Brady is. (And not because he married Giselle Bündchen). I religiously watch the SuperBowl and even though I have no idea of the actual rules of the sport, I scream my lungs out on another continent.
With a little help from my friends at Google I unearthed some interesting things about baseball that I don’t think you could make up if you wanted to:
In 1963 Jimmy Pearsall hit his 100th home run and ran the bases backward to celebrate and wow the crowd. And in 1930 and 1931 Babe Ruth earned $80 000. (Adjusted to inflation, that’s, a little over $1.1 million today. Not bad for the depression era.)
The hand grenade was designed by the US Military for WWII according to the exact specs and weight and size of a baseball – 'cause that meant every young American man should be able to throw it properly.
Americans know this, but for the rest of the world, Pitcher Jim Abbot was born without a right hand and in spite of this, or maybe as a result, he had a TEN season baseball career which included throwing a no-hitter for the New York Yankees in a game vs Cleveland.
Famous bank robber John Dillinger was a professional second baseman, but regrettably he never made it into the big league because: bank robbery.
Rush band member Geddy Lee had an astonishing collection of autographed baseballs and donated over 200 of them to a museum in 2008.
There is a team named after The Simpsons. In the tv series, Springfield has Homer’s favourite team called The Springfield Isotopes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Albuquerque Isotopes. An actual minor league team.
Palmyra, New Jersey has a secret location where every MLB Baseball is rubbed in the very fine Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud.
Major league players (and quite a few of them) – including Moises Alou, Jorge Posada and even Kerry Wood admits to peeing on their own hands to “toughen” the grip.
Hoyt Wilhelm of Hall of Fame fame, hit a home run in his first bat as a rookie. And never again throughout his 21-year career.
Dock Ellis admitted to throwing his June 12, 1970 no-hitter during an LSD trip. All I am going to say is yay for Anti-Doping and leave this right here. In his defense, it was the 70’s but man…. still.
George “Doc” Medich – who was a medical student before turning pro player, saved the life of a fan who had a heart attack in the stands during a Texas Rangers vs Baltimore Orioles game.
How many balls can you hold in on hand? Johnny Bench could hold SEVEN baseballs in one hand without letting one slip and fall.
The largest collection of baseball cards is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and has a count of 31 000. Impressive.
Derek Jeter made $269,841 and 27 cents PER bat in 2013.
Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were struck out in succession by a 17yr old girl named Jackie Mitchell – a female pitcher for the AA Chattanooga Lookouts in a Yankees exhibition game.
Bobby Valentine was the New York Mets manager when he was ejected from the game. He simply went back into the club house, put on regular clothes and a fake moustache and returned to the crowd. Only to be fined $5000 for returning after an ejection.
Joel Zumaya missed three games in 2006 after injuring himself playing Guitar Hero.
Jackie Robinson, aside from breaking the race barrier in baseball, was also the first African American Vice-President of a major US corporation when he served as VP for Personnel for Chock Full O’ Nuts.
And finally, here’s one for Elon Musk. A curveball thrown on Mars would become a screwball, and hitters would have the advantage since balls would also travel almost three times as far. So. Get busy Elon, build that colony on Mars. And a baseball field.
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