by Len Berman
Text copyright © 2005 by Len Berman
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Little, Brown and Company
Author photo by Marquee Photography
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Little Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
First eBook Edition: September 2005
ISBN: 978-0-316-05075-3
The text was set in Galliard, and the display type is space Toaster.
Contents
Introduction
Baseball
Football
Basketball
Hockey
Golf
Tennis
A Mixed Bag
So Let’s Sum Up.
To all those blooper-makers over the years—
thanks for the memories…
and the laughs—L.B.
To Dana and Ryan—K.G.
WHY DO WE LOVE SPORTS SO MUCH?
I mean, if you aren’t a fan, sports are kind of dumb. Take basketball, for instance. People throw a ball into a basket—it’s that simple. And just for doing that, players are paid zillions of dollars while millions of fans scream their lungs out. Crazy!
But people love sports. If you wanted to, you could watch sports twenty-four hours a day on television, or you could talk about it all day and all night on those radio shows where they talk sports, sports, and nothing but sports.
You’ve also probably heard sayings like “Sports is a game of inches” and “That’s the way the ball bounces.” Well, that’s where I come in. Sure, it’s neat when your favorite player hits a home run. But it’s even neater when the ball bounces off the outfielder’s head and then goes over the fence. If you’re like me, first you laugh, then you wonder what the rule is, and then you tell your buddy about it.
I collect sports bloopers and show them on television in a segment I call “Spanning the World.” I show all kinds of wild and wacky, outrageous sports stuff. I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty years and yet I’ve never run out of material.
Did you hear about the dwarf who once played major league baseball? Or another big leaguer who ran around the bases backwards!
An NFL quarterback once passed the ball to himself! And then there was the Football Hall of Fame star who injured himself during the pregame coin toss!
Did you know there was an NBA basketball player who scored for both teams in the same game? Or that there was a basketball game in which the coach ordered one of his players to get down on all fours and bark like a dog?
Have you heard about the NHL hockey game that was canceled because of fog? Or the golfer who hit a tee shot that sliced onto a road, bounced off a car, and landed in the cup for a hole in one?
What about the Australian swimming coach who threw a live crocodile into the pool to make his swimmers go faster? You can’t make this stuff up!
Even the rules in sports are nuts. For example, what’s the deal with lines? In baseball, if a ball hits the foul line it’s a fair ball. But in football, if you step on the line you’re out of bounds. In tennis, if a ball hits the line it’s good. But in basketball, dribble on the line and it’s a turnover. Make up your mind, already!
Sometimes sports can be dumb and sometimes sports can be goofy, but no matter what we still LOVE ‘em! In the following pages, you’ll see why.
BASEBALL
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game!
Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Three strikes, you’re out. Three outs per inning. But in baseball it’s not quite that simple. Anything can happen… and it usually does.
I’ve seen a pitched ball bounce and wind up in the umpire’s shirt pocket. I’ve seen a ground ball bounce down the first baseman’s shirt. And I’ve seen a batted ball hit so hard it got stuck in the fielder’s glove.
I’ve seen a shortstop tag the umpire by mistake at second base. And there was an outfielder who didn’t bother fielding a base hit—when the ball came to him he just kicked it back to the infield!
Foul balls do the craziest things. I’ve seen one go on a fly right into a garbage can in the stands. Another foul ball went into the press box and smashed a television set—the ball wound up inside the TV!
I’ve seen two players catch the same ball at once. And I’ve seen two runners on a base at the same time.
Balls, bats, players, and fans can all take funny bounces. That’s what this chapter is all about. So just pull up a chair, buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, and enjoy.
Play ball!
In May 1993 at the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the Indians’ Carlos Martinez hit a long fly ball to right. Jose Canseco was the right fielder that day for the Texas Rangers. But as he put his glove up to catch the ball it hit him squarely on top of his head and bounced over the wall for a home run!
Sportscasters everywhere thought they were clever when they said “It’s about time Canseco used his head!”
In May 1998, in a minor league baseball game in Shreveport, Louisiana, pitcher Randy Phillips was hit in the head by a hard-line drive. He dropped to the pitcher’s mound face first, but the ball popped high into the air and was caught on the fly by the first baseman for an out.
Phillips received fourteen stitches, but he didn’t miss his next start. Now that’s a hardheaded pitcher!
On June 23, 1963, outfielder Jimmy Piersall of the New York Mets hit the 100th home run of his major league career. He celebrated by running around the bases backwards.
The pitcher, Dallas Green of the Philadelphia Phillies, didn’t think it was funny. Nor did the Mets’ manager—he handed Jimmy his walking papers a few days later.
In June 1999, the Yankees were hosting the Mets at Yankee Stadium. Rey Ordonez of the Mets hit the ball hard—right back to the mound. Orlando Hernandez, the Yankee pitcher known as El Duque, made a backhand grab on one bounce. But the ball was hit so hard he couldn’t get it out of his glove.
What did El Duque do? He threw the glove— with the ball still inside it—over to first for the out. And it counted!
Hernandez isn’t the only pitcher with an unusual fielding style. In June 1996 at Shea Stadium, Edgar Renteria of the Florida Marlins hit a come-backer to the mound. Mets pitcher Pete Harnisch stuck out his rear end and “butted” the ball over to his third baseman who threw to first for the out.
Harnisch turned out to be a real buttinsky, huh?
Can a ball hit the bat twice on the same play?
In July 2000, Todd Hollandsworth was batting for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Colorado Rockies. But when he hit the ball his bat shattered, and the ball grounded toward second base while half of the bat flew toward first. Rockies second baseman Todd Walker fielded the ball, but his off-balance throw to first bounced in the dirt. Actually, it didn’t hit the dirt—it bounced off the broken part of the bat and rolled away. Hollandsworth was safe at first!
In April 1992, Kirk Gibson was playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He only appeared in sixteen games that season, but one of them was unique.
The Pirates were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley. Gibson was the base runner at first when his manager called for a hit-and-run. As the pitcher began his delivery, Gibson took off for second, but his batting helmet came off. And wouldn’t you know it… the batted ball, which would have been a single to right, hit Gibson’s helmet that was lying on the ground.
The ball ri
cocheted to Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg. Gibson, thinking the ball was in right field, rounded second and headed for third. He was caught in a rundown and easily tagged out. His batting helmet is what got him out!
Was he the original Wallbanger?
During a May 1991 game at Civic Stadium in Portland, Oregon, outfielder Rodney McCray ran through a plywood fence in right field while trying to catch a fly ball.
McCray was not hurt. In fact, he became famous for this play as newscasts all across the country showed it over and over.
In August 1987, Cleveland fans gathered to watch the Indians’ minor league team, the Williamsport Bills, battle the Reading Phillies.
In the fifth inning, with a Reading runner on third, Bills catcher Dave Bresnahan called timeout. He told the home plate umpire something was wrong with his catcher’s mitt and went to the dugout to retrieve another one. Only … his new mitt contained a potato! After catching the next pitch, Bresnahan rifled the potato over the head of the third baseman into left field. The runner jogged home, thinking the ball was thrown away and he was going to score easily. But Dave had a surprise—he still had the ball, and he tagged the runner out.
The Bills players thought it was funny, but the umpire wasn’t amused. He allowed the run to score. The Bills manager didn’t find it funny either. He removed Dave from the game and fined him fifty dollars. The next day, the team released Bresnahan, and his baseball career was over.
In a July 1999 Texas League baseball game in Midland, Texas, a batter bunted down the first base line. As the ball approached the foul line, catcher Yorvit Torrealba dropped to the ground and blew the baseball foul. And the umps allowed it!
On July 31, 1990, Nolan Ryan and the Texas Rangers defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 11–3, for Ryan’s three hundredth career victory. Only twenty-one pitchers in major league history have won that many.
While Ryan was pitching the game in Milwaukee, thousands of his fans gathered in the Rangers stadium in Texas to watch the game on the scoreboard and cheer him on. They were there to watch television. … So why did many of the fans bring their gloves? I’m still trying to figure that out.
At a South Atlantic League minor league game on July 14, 2003, the Charleston RiverDogs in South Carolina staged Silent Night at the ballpark. Everyone came, but nobody cheered. Many fans in the crowd of 2,924 wore duct tape across their mouths and held up signs that read YEAH or BOO, depending on what was happening. And when the home team scored a run, all you heard were teammates clapping in the dugout.
They broke the record for the quietest baseball game in history, set back in 1909 by the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) and the Jersey City Skeeters. Back then, the laws in New Jersey required fans to keep quiet on Sundays.
In 2002, this same Charleston club held Nobody Night, which set the record for lowest attendance in a professional baseball game. How’d they do that? They locked the gates of the ballpark! No fans could get in. Zero.
After the fifth inning, the game was official— the record was theirs!—so they opened the gates and allowed fans to enter for the rest of the game.
Who would come up with such promotions? The owner of the RiverDogs was Mike Veeck—he’s the son of Bill Veeck, the original “P.T. Barnum of baseball” and the man who sent a dwarf up to bat.
On August 19, 1951, the St. Louis Browns were stuck in last place. Attendance was so bad that owner Bill Veeck decided to liven things up. In the bottom of the first inning, the Browns’s manager sent a pinch hitter up to the plate. Eddie Gaedel was only 3 feet 7 inches tall, and he weighed just sixty-five pounds. Wearing the number 1/8 on his uniform, Gaedel crouched low at the plate, giving him a strike zone of less than two inches.
Eddie walked on four pitches and trotted down to first base, where he was replaced by a pinch runner and left the game to a standing ovation. Two days later, the American League barred dwarfs from appearing in any more games.
During the 1980s there was a performer at minor league ballparks known as Captain Dynamite. His act was rather simple—he would place a large box out behind second base and line it with dynamite; then he’d climb inside. The crowd would count down, “10 … 9 … 8 … ” and then the Captain would blow himself up.
Surprisingly, he was never hurt. I once tracked down Captain Dynamite and he was all in one piece. He was a little hard of hearing, though.
In August 1983, the New York Yankees were in Toronto to play the Blue Jays. As outfielders do before each inning, Yankee Dave Winfield was warming up his arm by playing catch with the bat-boy. Unfortunately, one of his throws hit a sea gull and killed it. After the game, Winfield was arrested by the Toronto police and charged with cruelty to animals! The next day the local prosecutor dropped the charges.
In March 2001, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson accidentally killed a low-flying dove that happened to be crossing home plate at the same time as one of his 100 mph fastballs.
In July 1996, the Detroit Tigers were playing in Milwaukee. With a runner on base, Mike Potts of the Brewers threw a curveball to Brad Ausmus of the Tigers. The pitch bounced in front of home plate, but Ausmus swung anyway and hit the ball into right field. A run scored.
Did it count? Absolutely! A bounce-bloop run batted in for Brad Ausmus!
Brad Ausmus wasn’t so lucky the next time he found himself in the middle of a play with a funny bounce.
In July 1998, the White Sox were visiting the Houston Astros. Frank Thomas of the Sox was at the plate, with teammate Ray Durham on third. Butch Henry was on the mound for Houston when his pitch bounced away from catcher Brad Ausmus. Ausmus turned around and around, but he couldn’t find the baseball. That’s because the ball somehow went into the umpire’s shirt pocket! And while Ausmus was still searching for the ball, Durham scampered home.
Actually, Durham would have been entitled to home plate even if Ausmus had found the ball. The rules state that if a ball gets caught in the umpire’s equipment, the runner is allowed to advance one base.
In June 2000, the Detroit Tigers were hosting the New York Yankees. In the bottom of the first, there was a foul ball down the right field line, and a fan reached over the railing and gloved the ball. Later in that same inning, it happened again—the same fan caught another foul ball to right. Then in the eighth inning, Chuck Knoblauch of the Yankees lifted a foul ball and—you guessed it— this same fan caught it on the fly.
Can you believe one guy was able to catch three foul balls in one game? Maybe it’s because he brought three kids to the game!
In September 1992, David Hulse of the Texas Rangers was batting against the California Angels. Hulse hit a line drive foul directly into the Angels dugout. Then he did it a second time. And a third time. So all the Angels moved down to one side of the dugout, huddling together for safety. Some of them even waved white towels as if to say, “We surrender.”
On the next pitch, Hulse fouled it right into the part of the dugout where all the Angels had just been seated. Too bad Hulse didn’t have the same accuracy when it came to hitting the ball fair. He grounded out to shortstop.
Baseball has supermen just like comic books. On July 20, 1973, knuckleballer Wilbur Wood pitched both games of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees.… But he also lost both, 12–2 and 7–0.
On July 10, 1932, a thirty-four year old pitcher named Ed Rommel tossed the game of his life. Having already pitched the two previous days, Rommel threw batting practice. But when the starting pitcher was knocked out after the first inning, Rommel came in and pitched seventeen innings of relief. That’s almost two full games! And even though Rommel gave up 33 hits, 8 walks, and 14 runs, his Philadelphia Athletics eventually won the game!
On September 9,1965, Bert Campaneris played all nine positions in the field for the Kansas City Athletics. Usually the shortstop,Bert played one inning at each position, including the full eighth inning as a pitcher, where he gave up just one run.
Cesar Tovar of the Minnesota Twins matched this feat
on September 22, 1968. He began by pitching a scoreless first inning—by coincidence retiring Bert Campaneris as the first batter!
Joel Youngblood is the only major league baseball player to get two hits for two different teams on the same day—and he did it in two cities!
When he woke up on August 2, 1982, Youngblood was an outfielder for the New York Mets. In an afternoon game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley he had a two-run single in the third inning. But in the fourth the Mets told him he had been traded to the Montreal Expos. So Joel packed his bags and headed to Philadelphia, where the Expos were playing that night. He arrived during the third inning, donned his new uniform, and got a hit in that game as well!
The Trenton Thunder, a New York Yankees minor league baseball club in Trenton, New Jersey, has a bat dog who runs out to home plate and retrieves the bats left by Trenton hitters. Chase, a golden retriever, also carries a basket filled with bottles of chilled water. He delivers them to the umpires before the sixth inning.
I guess bat dogs are a lot cheaper than bat boys—they get paid with a pat on the head or a yummy treat!
At San Quentin State Prison in California they have a baseball team made up of inmates. When outside teams come to play, fellow inmates fill the stands. For obvious reasons, the San Quentin team doesn’t get to play any “away” games.
In May 1997, Bip Roberts of the Kansas City Royals became a human rain delay. He stood at the plate facing Detroit Tigers pitcher Felipe Lira and fouled off pitch after pitch after pitch—fourteen fouls in all. You’d have thought they would run out of balls.
Roberts batted for a major league record— fourteen minutes. This at bat included a called strike, two pitchouts, and nine throws to first to hold the runner. Was it worth the wait? Roberts eventually grounded out to second base.
Seven years later, Alex Cora of the Los Angeles Dodgers outdid Roberts. In a game at Dodger stadium in May 2004, Cora had a 2–2 count against Chicago Cubs pitcher Matt Clement. And the count stayed the same for almost twelve minutes as Cora fouled off pitch after pitch. On the eighteenth pitch, thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds after his at bat began, Cora finally hit the ball in fair territory—for a two-run homer! Guess he was waiting for his pitch.
