Strange & Amazing Baseball Stories

by Gutman; Bill

  Just listen to some of the amazing things Satchel Paige did with a baseball. For starters, it's estimated that Paige pitched in more than 2,500 ball games. During that time he threw some 100 no-hitters. Pitching for the renowned Kansas City Monarchs in 1941, he started thirty games in thirty days. His strong right arm never seemed to tire.

  In the fall of 1934, he led an all-black team against an all-star team led by Dizzy Dean, who had just completed a season of winning thirty games for the Cardinals and leading them to a World Series triumph. The game went thirteen innings. Ol' Diz allowed just one run and struck out fifteen batters. But Old Satch did better than that. He allowed no runs and fanned seventeen!

  Satch pitched against many teams of barnstorming major leaguers, beginning in the early 1930s. He pitched against the likes of Babe Ruth and other Hall of Fame players. The reaction was always the same. Satch dazzled them and left them in awe of his immense pitching talents.

  In the fall of 1947, at age forty-one, Satch pitched against fireballer Bob Feller and another team of allstars. He won by an 8-0 score, striking out sixteen, including some of the top major leaguers of the day. That was the same year Jackie Robinson came to the majors, and the following season the Cleveland Indians had a forty-two-year-old rookie named Satchel Paige.

  After more than twenty years in the game, Satch had finally made the majors. He may have been only a shell of his former self, but there was still life in the old arm. Used as both a starter and reliever, Satch threw a 5-0 shutout against the White Sox on August 13, allowing just five hits, and on August 20, he pitched a three-hit, 1-0 masterpiece, again over the White Sox. When the year ended, he had a 6-1 record and had helped the Indians win the pennant.

  Three years later, he produced a 12-10 record for the St. Louis Browns. At season's end he was forty-six years old. But that wasn't all. In 1965, the Kansas City A's brought Satch out of retirement at age fifty-nine to pitch against the Boston Red Sox. Satch went three innings and gave up just one hit, while striking out one. He still had it, if only for a short burst.

  No one will ever know for sure just what Satch's record would have been had he pitched in the big leagues all along. But the man was amazing. And today he is a member of baseball's Hall of Fame.

  Hall of Fame players sometimes put on Hall of Fame performances and still finish second best. Though there hasn't been a .400 hitter in the majors since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, there have been two players in baseball history who batted .400 and didn't win the batting crown.

  In 1911, Shoeless Joe Jackson batted .408 and finished number two. That year the great Ty Cobb compiled a .420 batting average. But Cobb got a taste of the same thing some eleven years later. In 1922, he batted .401 but lost out in the batting race to George Sisler, who had a .420 mark that same year.

  Then there was Ken Johnson, a journeyman pitcher who was toiling for Houston in 1964. Pitching against the Cincinnati Reds on April 23, Johnson had it. Oh boy, did he have it, the best stuff of his career. Through eight innings he hadn't yielded a single hit. One more inning and he'd have every pitcher's dream, a no-hit ball game.

  So Johnson went back to the mound in the ninth and did it. He completed a no-hitter. There was only one slight problem. He lost! You see, Houston didn't have any runs, either, and in the Cincy ninth, Pete Rose reached second when Johnson fielded his bunt and threw over the first baseman's head for an error. Pete moved to third on a ground out, and then scored when second baseman Nellie Fox made another error.

  Meanwhile, Houston was shut out on five hits by veteran Joe Nuxhall. So Ken Johnson became the only pitcher in baseball history to pitch a complete game no-hitter... and lose.

  There would have been few, if any, no-hitters in baseball if a rule made back in 1887 had continued. That year, bases on balls were counted as hits. But there have been many rule changes since the first set was compiled by Alexander Cartwright in 1845. Looking at some of the old rules makes you wonder if baseball was the same game back then. It wasn't. Seeing it played more than a hundred years ago would be a strange experience, indeed.

  Before 1857, for instance, games were decided when one team scored twenty-one runs, or aces, as they were called then. That year, games finally ended after nine innings unless, of course, they were tied.

  In 1858, the pitcher was allowed to take a short run toward the plate before delivering the ball. Called strikes were also started that year.

  In 1880, it took eight balls for a batter to draw a walk. That was modified to six in 1884, then to five in 1887, and finally to four in 1889. In 1893, the pitching distance was lengthened to the present-day sixty feet, six inches. Before that, the mound was only fifty feet from home plate. Wouldn't Nolan Ryan and Dwight Gooden have loved that.

  Foul bunts were not considered strikes until 1894. And before 1908, pitchers could soil a new ball to make it harder to hit. Then in 1920 so-called freak deliveries were outlawed, including the spitball. Each team was allowed up to two "spitball pitchers" for the 1920 season. Thereafter, none was allowed. Pitchers who relied on the spitter were allowed to continue to throw it, but newcomers couldn't. But the spitball rule and rules against doctoring the baseball have been among the more difficult to enforce. Some pitchers today are still accused of "loading up," and the opposition and umpires are hard pressed to catch them at it.

  It was a different game years ago. But some things always remain the same. Pitchers look for every advantage over hitters. Hitters will do anything to get their batting averages up. And managers will do whatever it takes to win. That's baseball.

  One thing baseball has always been known for is its nicknames. Everyone knows the famous ones. Ty Cobb was the Georgia Peach, Babe Ruth the Sultan of Swat or the Bambino, Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, Ted Williams the Splendid Splinter, Stan Musial The Man,

  Willie Mays The Say Hey Kid, Pete Rose is Charlie Hustle, and Rickey Henderson the Man of Steal.

  Reading the pages of the Baseball Encyclopedia, which lists all the players who have participated in major league baseball, there are some unbelievably strange and funny nicknames. Here is a random sampling of some of the more unusual nicknames from the annals of baseball. They include both famous and obscure players. Only the nicknames are listed, and reading a list like this can make you wonder if real people really had these names. But it's a fun way to do it. So begin.

  Ditto, Polo, Snooker, Smiling Jock, Fido, Beauty, Deerfoot, Bald Billy, Cuke, Desperate, Imp, Eagle Eye, Goobers, Buttons, Buckshot, Crab, Oyster, The Mississippi Mudcat, Slewfoot, Goldbrick, Trolley Line, Pongo, Wheels, Crooning Joe, Dut, Cupid, Fidgety Phil, Coaster Joe, Smiling Pete, Scoops, Hooks, Wildfire, Cannonball, Wahoo Sam, Crungy, Squak, Dingle, Tomato Face, Wee Willie, Dauntless Dave.

  Coonskin, Crash, Oats, Bullfrog, Ugly, Pickles, Cozy, Turkey Mike, Swampy, Buttermilk Tommy, Steamboat, Mutz, Cherokee, Suds, Monkey, Gink, The Little Steam Engine, Muscles, Spooks, Moon, Tookie, Piano Legs, Boots, Pumpsie, Highpockets, Stubblebeard, Bad News, Granny, Old Reliable, Shovel, Circus Solly, Bootnose, Herky Jerky, The Meal Ticket, Catfish, Handsome Ransom, Baby, Kangaroo.

  Roadblock, Nippy, Lanky, Pinky, Wagon Tongue, Old Folks, Kickapoo, Little Eva, The Freshest Man on Earth, The Human Eyeball, Peanuts, Footsie, Rabbit, Cuddles, The Wild Horse of the Osage, Stretch, Rubberlegs, The Gause Ghost, The Alabama Blossom, Grandma, Foghorn, Tricky, Peach Pie, Yip, Brains, Gimpy, Tarzan, Dandelion, Jack the Giant Killer, The Vulture, Twitch, Preacher, Braggo.

  Muddy, Rubberarm, Skabotch, Silk Stocking, Cracker, Admiral, Bear Tracks, Weaser, Blab, Durango Kid, Twinkletoes, Tillie, Socks, The Naugatuck Nugget, Hardrock, Squirrel, Bucketfoot Al, The Singer Throwing Machine, Bosco, The Gray Eagle, Sponge, Powder, Dummy, White Wings, Sloppy, Abba Dabba, Sleepy, Milkman, Cotton Top, Arky, Hippo, Tweet, Whale, Runt, Little Poison, Big Poison, Stormy, Satchelfoot, Possum, Icehouse, Squash, Highball, Black Jack, Snake, Cocoa, Dandy, Bunions, Noodles, and The Toy Cannon.

  That's all, folks.

  About the Author


  BILL GUTMAN has been an avid sports fan ever since he can remember. A freelance writer for fourteen years, he has done profiles and bios of many of today's sports heroes. Although Mr. Gutman likes all sports, he has written mostly about baseball and football. Currently, he lives in Poughquag, New York, with his wife, two step-children, seven dogs, and five birds.