Weird, strange coincidences that sound like fiction but happened in sport

The Game Room
21

While watching the Yankees Oldtimers Ceremony I remembered another improbable story.

In 1997 the Oakland A’s traded the Yankees for pitcher Kenny Rogers for cash and a player to be named later. PTBNL are usually minor leaguers who may have potential or a journeyman who doesn’t have an impact. Sometimes it reverts back to cash considerations. Scott Brosius was the player to be named later. In 1997 he was last in the majors in batting average, on base percentage and slugging. Dead last. He goes to the Yankees in 1998 and becomes an Allstar, hits .300 and is the World Series MVP.

22

At least we’ve all heard of Lou Gehrig. I have no idea who Lou Pus was. Or, for that matter, Anna Phylaxis or Eric Tiledysfunction.

23

Dixie Dean was probably the greatest footballer (soccer) in the 1920s and 30s. He still holds the record for the most goals scored in a seasin in the English League.
In 1980 he returned to the Everton Stadium for the first time in several years to watch a game against City and intense local rivals. He died of a heart attack in the middle of the game aged 73.

24

When the St. Louis Browns sent 3’7" Eddie Gaedel up as a pitch hitter in 1951, the only uniform that would fit was the one worn by the Bat Boy. That boy was Bill DeWitt, Jr., who now owns the St. Louis Cardinals.

25

On week 6 of the 2012 NFL season, New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez started on the 666th broadcast of Monday Night Football. At the time, he had posted the following statistics: Touchdowns: 6. Interceptions: 6. Average yards per pass attempt: 6.6. Longest completion: 66 yards. Quarterback rating: 66.6.

26

Every historically minded baseball fan knows about the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, the worst team in MLB history. They won 20 games and lost 134 as the owner systematically transferred all of their good players to his better sister team.

But still. they didn’t lose every game. What about those 20 wins? It turns out that in three of them they defeated the same pitcher, the long-forgotten Bill Magee. That’s embarrassing for Magee. But here’s the kicker–he lost those three games while pitching for three different teams.

He lost to the Spiders with Louisville on May 2, got sold to Philadelphia and lost to them again on August 1, and then got released and signed by Washington, for whom he lost to the Spiders yet again on September 18. The latter game was the Spiders only win in their last 40 games.

So Magee lost to a team, as a member of three different teams, in the same season. That’s rare. How rare? Well, I don’t know exactly. But I do know that in 2014, Jerome Williams defeated the Oakland A’s while variously pitching for Houston, Texas, and Philadelphia, and it was reported to be the first time that had ever happened in MLB history.

So we can assume that losing to a team as a pitcher on three different times is also very rare, maybe even once-in-100-years rare. And here this poor sap does it against the worst team in MLB history. He accounted for 15% of Cleveland’s wins that year!

27

Jeter’s 3000th hit was on July 9, 2011. His previous homers were when he hit 2 on May 8, 2011.

Here’s one – MLB’s most valuable players of 1994 were both born May 27, 1968 - Frank Thomas of Chicago in AL and Jeff Bagwell of Houston in NL.

28

I was l looking at Cal Ripken Jr stats on B-R and something odd struck me. Given he played in 2632 consecutive games - the equivalent of just over 16 162-game seasons - you’d think he led the league in games played at least a dozen times. Nope. He did so only 9 times and just once in three consecutive seasons. A few times the Orioles did not play a game or there was a one-game playoff between other teams on which a player played more games that season than Ripken.

29

On June 2, 1925, Lou Gehrig started his streak of 2130 consecutive games. Wally Pipp, the Yankees regular first baseman before that, was on the bench to watch him.

On May 2 1939, Gehrig took himself out of the game, ending the streak. In the stands was Wally Pipp, who had decided to go to the game.

Note that there’s some thought that Gehrig did not die of ALS, but rather of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). He suffered quite a few concussions during his career but always got up to play the next day. Concussions could cause ALS, but CTE is more common, and the two can be confused. This article tells about one example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/sports/baseball/29gehrig.html

30

Friday, 12 June, 1970.

Dock Ellis pitches a no hitter dosed to the gills on LSD.

Short intro video

The Pirates were in San Diego to face the Padres in their first West Coast road trip of the season. Arriving a day early, the players had Thursday off to rest up before the series kicked off Friday evening.

Doc, a Los Angeles native, rented a car, dropped a tab of acid and drove to LA, arriving at a friend’s girlfriend’s house “high as a Georgia Pine.” He spent the night drinking and smoking weed with old friends until finally passing out.

Upon awakening from what he thought was a short nap, he dropped another tab of LSD to start his day off. In what must have been one of the harshest buzzkills of all time, a concerned friend showed up, with newspaper in hand showing that it actually was now Friday, with Doc now scheduled to start that evening. In San Diego, just four hours hence.

In an interview later, Dock recounted that moment:

> The next day, which I thought was the next day, she told me, ‘You gotta get up, you gotta go pitch!’ I said, ‘Pitch? I pitch tomorrow. Hell, what are you talking about?’ Cause I got up in the middle of the morning and took some more acid. She grabbed the paper, brought me the sports page and showed me… THUNK. I said, ‘Ah, wow. What happened to yesterday?’ She said, 'I don’t know, but you better get to that airport.

Suitably motivated, Dock caught a cab to the airport, then a mid afternoon flight to San Diego, arriving just in time to make the start — unfortunately, tripping balls and still going up. Later he recounted just how intense things became.

At one point, he thought he was pitching to Jimi Hendrix, who was (naturally) swinging an electric guitar. And apparently for at least part of the game, he became convinced the home plate umpire was actually Richard Nixon. Staring down opposing hitters with an intensity of focus bordering on madness, Dock somehow kept his shit together enough to get in the zone, albeit with some strange tics and the occasional bit of odd behavior.

He walked more (8) than he KO’ed (6) and also hit one batter. Despite his impairment, he fought through three consecutive innings (4,5,6) with runners in scoring position. The pitches were all over the place, with a number of wild pitches and throws in the dirt. Later, Dock talked about his control and trying to hang on for dear life. In a later recollection of the game, he stated

“I was zeroed in on the [catcher’s] glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.”

Despite — or perhaps due to his long history of drug use and experience with psychedelics — Dock got it done, and quite quickly, too: the game only lasted 2h13m, with the Pirates coming away with a 2-0 win.

There’s a great documentary about the man and the game, entitled

NO-NO: A DOCKumentary
(available on Prime, YouTube, Tubi & Fubo)

Official Trailer
NO-NO official trailer

Rotten Tomatoes

NO-NO examines Dock Ellis, the man, and his oft turbulent but never boring career. It explores his drug abuse, addiction and later recovery, while not shying away from the unpleasant realities of racial politics and social turmoil in late 60’s to early 70’s baseball.

While the game and the events around it are the focus of the story, the film also contextualizes and offers insight into Dock Ellis the man, touching upon his youth, his upbringing and his unconditional path to the Big Show.

FUN FACT / SIDEBAR

Ellis refused to play high school baseball due to racist remarks made towards him early on, instead playing semi-pro ball for an unofficial Pirates development team during this time.

After being caught smoking weed and drinking in the bathroom his senior year, Dock was threatened with expulsion unless he agreed to finally play baseball for the school. He did so, and was named All-League despite having played in only four games during his high school career.

31

Wasn’t there a trade where the player was his own PTBNL?

32

It’s happened four times, in fact; the most recent being John McDonald, in 2005.

33

I want to start a gofundme to buy the movie rights, and then just give them to Terry Gilliam.