Baseball Hall of Shame™

by Bruce Nash

  As a backup to the shaman, Houston management brought in Joe Btfsplk—the human version of the bad-luck-attracting character in the “Li’l Abner” comic strip. Joe went out to the bullpen and put a double whammy on Philadelphia starting pitcher Art Mahaffey during his pregame warm-up. Houston also had ex-prizefighter Kid Dugan, who was known for his devastating stare, to put a spell on the Phillies.

  Then, for extra juju, Colt .45 fans were given half off the ticket price if they brought jinx-breakers to the ballpark. People brought four-leaf clovers, rabbits’ feet, horseshoes, lucky old shoes, and black cats. Even the owner of the team, Roy Hofheinz, got into the act. He wore a beaded headpiece from Thailand that was supposed to bring good luck.

  The efforts of the crowd, Dr. Mesabubu, Joe Bftstlk, and Kid Dugan worked like a charm—against the home team. Houston lost both games, 3–2 (a complete game four-hitter by Mahaffey) and 5–3, making the streak 0-17 against the Phillies.

  The next day, with only one shot left to crush the curse, the Colt .45s avoided total humiliation by beating Philadelphia 4–1.

  ATLANTA BRAVES’

  FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION

  July 5, 1985

  The Atlanta Braves’ Independence Day fireworks show lit up more than just the sky. It sparked a blaze of alarm from neighbors who thought they were under attack.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the time. Braves management thoughtlessly set off the booming Fourth of July pyrotechnic display at 4:01 a.m. on July 5.

  In all fairness, the Braves didn’t plan on triggering the fireworks at such a wee hour of the morning. The team had promised the 44,947 fans who arrived at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium a spectacular sky show after the night game with the New York Mets. But, unfortunately, the game went on and on and on.

  It turned into a record-setting marathon featuring an 84-minute rain delay at the start of the game and another 41-minute interruption in the third inning. Making this a long night’s journey into day was the game itself, a 19-inning affair that lasted six hours and 10 minutes before the Mets won 16–13.

  When the game mercifully ended at 3:55 a.m.—the latest finish in Major League history at the time—only about 8,000 hardy souls were still on hand. True to their word, Braves officials went ahead with the fireworks without any regard for the thousands of unsuspecting people who were sleeping peacefully in their homes near the stadium. Rather than give the survivors of the marathon a free ticket to the next night game and shoot off the fireworks at that time, management sent the bombs bursting in air at 4:01 a.m.

  While the fans were oohing and aahing over the boomers, instant terror swept through the minds of the Braves’ rousted neighbors. One startled citizen dialed 911 and shrieked, “We’re being bombed!”

  “Lord, there were a few wild minutes there when we thought we had a mini-panic on our hands,” recalled Captain C.V. Forrester, of the Atlanta Public Safety Department. “The first thing that was heard was this huge explosion that must have knocked everybody out of bed. People were running out into the streets, some were rushing into our precinct office, and others were jamming our phone lines. Most of the neighborhood thought the Civil War had started all over again. I doubt if anyone went back to bed after that.”

  CHICAGO WHITE SOX'S AL SMITH NIGTH

  August 26, 1959

  Al Smith should have played under an assumed name when his team offered free admission—in his honor—to anyone named Smith.

  That’s because Al Smith Night turned into Al Smith Nightmare.

  From the moment Smith donned a White Sox uniform in 1958, the Chicago fans didn’t like him. They were upset over the trade that brought the left fielder from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for their longtime hero Minnie Minoso. It didn’t help matters any that Smith was hampered by a bad ankle and hit only .252 in his first year with the White Sox while Minoso hit .302 for the Indians. During the following year, when Chicago was battling for its first pennant in 40 years, Smith’s average had sunk to .232.

  So team owner Bill Veeck decided to help Smith win over the fans by staging a special Al Smith Night at Comiskey Park. Everyone named Smith was admitted into the left field seats for free, just by showing some kind of identification.

  The idea was grand, but the results weren’t. Sure, Veeck had the fans behind Smith, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were for him. Throughout the game, most of the 27,750 spectators, including 5,253 Smiths who got in free, booed Smith unmercifully. The besieged left fielder could have silenced the crowd and maybe even have won them over if only he had played well. Alas, he didn’t.

  In the game, pitting the first-place White Sox against the seventh-place Boston Red Sox, Smith grounded into a force play with a runner on second in the second inning, singled in the fourth, and struck out with a runner on first in the sixth.

  In the top of the seventh inning with Chicago clinging to a 2–1 lead, Boston had the tying run on second with no outs when Vic Wertz drove the ball to deep left-center field. Smith caught up with the ball—then dropped it for an error, right in front of all the Smiths. His flub paved the way for a four-run outburst, including two unearned runs, that vaulted the Red Sox ahead 5–2.

  To cap off Al Smith Night, Smith came to bat in the bottom of the eighth inning with two on and one out. He had the perfect opportunity to atone for his less than acceptable play and turn the jeers into cheers. But it was not to be. He popped out to the third baseman, and the White Sox went on to lose 7–6.

  Smith later said he had a premonition that the night might not go the way he had hoped. Before the game, he went out to the lower left field stands to sign autographs for fans named Smith. “I saw my milkman that night,” Smith recalled. “He was a Polish fellow. So I said, ‘How the hell did you get out here?’ He said he got hold of somebody’s tax bill that had the name of Smith on it. I told him, ‘Well, you be my bodyguard out here tonight. I might need one.’”

  ADDING INSULT

  TO INJURY

  For the Most Bizarre Diamond Mishaps of All Time, The Baseball Hall of Shame™ Inducts:

  GLENALLEN HILL

  Outfielder · Toronto, AL · July 6, 1990

  Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Glenallen Hill sleepwalked his way right onto the disabled list—after a horrific nightmare about spiders.

  Hill, who suffered from arachnophobia (an extreme fear of spiders), went to bed at his home only to have a frighteningly realistic nightmare that huge, poisonous spiders were attacking him. While still in his sleep, Hill bolted out of bed to fight off the spiders that were crawling everywhere in his mind—on the walls, the ceiling, the floors, and on him. Panic-stricken, Hill fled toward the stairway and crashed into two glass coffee tables, smashing one of them.

  So desperate was he to escape the spiders that Hill crawled on all fours right over sharp, broken shards of glass. When he finally woke up, he was relieved to discover that it was just a terrible dream. But he was also shocked to see that he was bleeding from head to toe.

  The broken glass lacerated his feet, arms, and elbows. His face was bruised and bleeding because he had smacked his head on a table during his blind rush to get away from the creepy crawlies.

  The severe cuts on his feet forced Hill to use crutches for a couple of days. In fact, he was so sliced up that the Blue Jays put him on the 15-day disabled list.

  He managed to recover nicely from his sleepwalking injuries. But it took him a little longer to get over the ribbing he received from teammates and bench jockeys who kept calling him “Spider-Man.”

  JOEL ZUMAYA

  Pitcher · Detroit, AL · October 10, 2006

  Detroit Tigers’ flame-throwing relief pitcher Joel Zumaya struck the wrong chord when he had to sit out the 2006 American League Championship Series because of an injury to his pitching hand—from playing too much of the popular video game Guitar Hero.r />
  At the end of the regular season, the 22-year-old rookie right-hander was suffering from inflammation in his right wrist and forearm. When he went to the Tigers training staff about the injury, they were perplexed because the cause of the pain wasn’t consistent with his powerful throwing motion.

  After making him recall everything he did on and off the field in the previous days that might have led to the discomfort, the staff discovered that Zumaya was all but addicted to Guitar Hero. The PlayStation 2 video game came with a guitar-shaped controller modeled after a black Gibson SG guitar. Zumaya would simulate playing an electric guitar while performing popular songs by rock stars from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Ozzy Osbourne. Zumaya admitted that he sometimes got carried away, spending hours riffing on his virtual guitar.

  Detroit management ordered him to quit playing the game. After sitting out the ALCS, in which the Tigers swept the Oakland Athletics in four games, Zumaya recovered from his injury. In the World Series, which the St. Louis Cardinals won four games to one, Zumaya pitched pain-free in three games, giving up one hit and one run in three innings.

  Although he curtailed his Guitar Hero playing, Zumaya didn’t lose his love for good guitar rock. His entrance music the following season was Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child.”

  RON LUCIANO

  Umpire, AL · June 1, 1971

  Ron Luciano looked more like Hulk Hogan than an umpire when he flattened New York Yankees shortstop Gene Michael and put him out of action for several days.

  Luciano, one of the most flamboyant arbiters to ever don the blue, was umpiring at second base in a game between the visiting Oakland Athletics and the Yankees. In the top of the ninth inning with the A’s ahead 5–2, Oakland’s Joe Rudi singled and got the sign to steal.

  On the pitch, Rudi took off for second, Michael ran over to cover the base, and Luciano rambled into position to make the call. However, catcher Thurman Munson’s peg was wide toward the first base side of the bag.

  Michael, Rudi, the ball, and 220 pounds of charging umpire arrived at second at about the same time. Michael caught the throw as Rudi slid safely beneath him. In his own inimitable style, Luciano gave a Broadway performance as he theatrically spread his hands signaling safe. But one man was out—Gene Michael.

  The shortstop sailed through the air just as the ump was giving the safe sign. Luciano’s battering-ram forearm and elbow slammed into Michael’s head and laid him out flat. “One minute Gene flashed by me, and the next minute he was out for the count,” recalled Luciano. “I mean, I nailed him good.”

  When Michael was revived several minutes later, he was too woozy to stand and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Michael was rushed by ambulance to the hospital where he was treated for mouth lacerations and a severe case of whiplash. He was fitted with a neck brace and ordered to sit out for a few days.

  Luciano, a big hit in more ways than one© Bettman/CORBIS

  “I didn’t know what happened,” Michael recalled. “I got hit, then my head started hurting. I couldn’t figure it out.”

  When he returned to the Yankees lineup, Michael saw that Luciano was once again the second base umpire. So Michael took up his position at deep short—as far away as he could get from Ron “The Hit Man” Luciano.

  FREDDIE FITZSIMMONS

  Pitcher · New York, NL · March 26, 1927

  During spring training in Miami, chubby Freddie Fitzsimmons had survived the oppressive heat, the wind sprints, and the exercise workouts. But in 1927, there was one thing that got the better of the New York Giants pitching star—his rocking chair.

  One balmy evening after eating a big meal, Fitzsimmons settled into a rocking chair on the front porch of the club’s hotel and chatted with teammates Rogers Hornsby and Bill Terry. During a lull in the conversation, Fitzsimmons dozed off, prompting Terry and Hornsby to chuckle at the sight of the snoring, rotund pitcher still rocking in his sleep.

  Suddenly, Fitzsimmons awoke with a bloodcurdling yell. His companions thought he was reacting to a nightmare, but when they saw him grimace in pain and hold his pitching hand, they knew what had happened. While Fitzsimmons was asleep, his right hand had slipped off his lap and got caught underneath the low-seated rocker. His fingers were flattened under the weight of his 190-pound body.

  Although his fingers weren’t broken, they were so injured that he couldn’t get a proper grip on the baseball and missed several April starts for the Giants. It was a crucial injury because he had been the team’s best pitcher the year before with a 14-10 record and an impressive 2.88 ERA. Although he pitched well once he returned to the starting rotation, the Giants couldn’t overcome his early-season absence. They finished third, only two games out.

  “When he rocked on his hand, we laughed at first,” recalled Terry. “But there weren’t many of us laughing about it when the season was over.”

  CHRIS COGHLAN

  Left Fielder · Florida, NL · July 25, 2010

  A congratulatory shaving cream pie in the face of the day’s hero left a bad taste for the Florida Marlins and put their young star outfielder, Chris Coghlan, on the disabled list.

  What made it so bizarre was that Coghlan wasn’t getting the pie, he was delivering it.

  In a home game against the Atlanta Braves, Florida’s Wes Helms smacked a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 11th inning for a thrilling 5–4 victory. It was the fourth walk-off hit for the Marlins during their 10-game homestand.

  As was the custom on the team, every time there was a walk-off hit, the hero would get nailed with a full plate of shaving cream in the face, usually while being interviewed on live television. So Coghlan, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year, took it upon himself to deliver the celebratory pie to Helms, who at 35 was the oldest Marlin on the roster.

  Grabbing a can of shaving cream that was kept behind the Marlins dugout just for this purpose, Coghlan loaded up a towel and crept up behind Helms, who was being interviewed live on TV near the on-deck circle. After he leaped up on Helms’s back to deliver the pie in the face, Coghlan landed awkwardly on his left leg. An MRI the following day revealed that he had a torn meniscus in his left knee that required season-­ending surgery.

  Florida manager Edwin Rodriguez banned any more pie celebrations. “If you ever get injured, you want to do it while you’re out there competing, not when you’re celebrating,” Coghlan told reporters at the time. “Emotions get the best of you, you’re excited. There’s nothing wrong with that but be a little smarter when you’re celebrating a win.”

  Helms told the Palm Beach Post that pie celebrations were getting out of hand. “You hate for this to be the cancellation of the celebration, but you can’t take celebrations too far. Each time you celebrate, it seems like it gets more and more exciting and guys get more and more into it.”

  Despite sitting out the rest of the season from his injury, Coghlan told the New York Times the following year that he still wanted his teammates to celebrate. “You don’t want to just walk around like a robot and act like you don’t care,” he said. “‘Oh, we hit a walk-off and came from behind. I guess that’s a good job. Let’s high-five each other.’ There’s a lot of emotion, a lot of passion in this game. You have to let those play out and be smart.”

  As for the ban on pie celebrations, he vowed, “I’ll pie everybody if we win the World Series.”

  DENNY HOCKING

  Infielder-Outfielder · Minnesota, AL

  September 2, 2001, and October 6, 2002

  It was agonizingly obvious that Minnesota Twins utility player Denny Hocking didn’t know how to celebrate big wins without getting hurt.

  During a tie game in 2001 against the visiting Anaheim Angels, Hocking was called on to pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth inning. He responded by going deep in a walk-off that vaulted the Twins to a 5–4 victory. As he re
ached home plate, Hocking was mobbed by his joyous teammates, who pounded him on the head. During the celebration, someone accidentally slammed the bill of Hocking’s batting helmet smack in Hocking’s face, breaking his nose. Just two months earlier, he had cracked his nose in Oakland while breaking up a double play.

  After the game, Hocking—whose nostrils were plugged with cotton—said he didn’t know who had busted his schnozz, “but I’m gonna look at the tape and [mess] somebody up!”

  Hocking, who was grinning over the first walk-off homer of his career, added, “I just hope my nose doesn’t stay crooked. Hopefully I can do this again, get mobbed and get my nose pushed back the other way. But if the price of hitting a game-winning home run and winning a series is getting my nose re-broken, I’ll take it.”

  If Hocking didn’t fully appreciate how hazardous celebrations could be, he definitely learned it the following year.

  In the fifth and deciding game of the 2002 American League Division Series, the visiting Twins beat the Oakland Athletics 5–4. Hocking got two hits, drove in a run, and caught the ball for the final out to help send the Twins into the American League Championship Series against the Angels, a team he cheered for as a teenager.

  Moments after beating Oakland, Hocking joined his teammates in a celebratory pileup near the mound. While Hocking was somewhere near the bottom of the raucous heap, an overly enthusiastic teammate who was jumping up and down stepped on Hocking’s right hand. The player’s metal spikes split the nail on Hocking’s middle finger. The injury to his hand was serious enough to knock him out of the entire ALCS, which the Twins lost.

  “I’m not good at celebrating,” Hocking said. “I like the whole celebration concept. I just haven’t perfected it.”

  SHERRY MAGEE

  Left Fielder · Philadelphia, NL · September 13, 1908