In this article it is revealed that
I have heard of non-football players being recruited as kickers but this is new.
A couple of years ago Brett Lee, the fastest bowler in cricket at the moment, was given a ‘secret’ trial as pitcher for US baseball team Arizona Diamondbacks. The pitching coach involved was most enthusiastic because Lee’s control was good and he threw at 90mph without really having any training or fault corrections.
Ian Chappell seemed to pour cold water on the whole idea in this article.
I know nothing about baseball. However, I thought it would be nice to mention I have heard stories of a hick in the crowd (it’s always a stereotypical country bumpkin) get asked to bat, to substitute for a downed player, playing an amazing game, and getting recruited. I recall having heard it before, then having read of it in the depressing, but excellent graphic novel, The Golem’s Mighty Swing. I think it was suppose to take place 1930.
Well, this isn’t EXACTLY the same thing, but back in the 1970’s, the Oakland A’s signed a track star, a sprinter named Herb Washington, as a “designated runner.” He had no real background in baseball. He was hired SOLELY as a pinch runner, because he was so fast.
In pro football, the same thing has been tried numerous times. Guys like Bob Hayes come to mind. Hayes had no experience in football that I know of, but the Dallas Cowboys thought his speed made him a natural wide receiver. Several other sprinters have been recruited as receivers over the years (Willie Gault and Renaldo Nehemeiah, for instance), but none have been as successful as Hayes.
Finally… it didn’t work out, but reporter Paul Zimmerman says that Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders, once looked into hiring Japanese sumo wrestlers as offensive linemen! He gave up on the idea, because he found that:
Successful sumo wrestlers in Japan made a lot of money- more than he wanted to pay to offensive guards or tackles.
Sumo wrestlers train for short, intense matches- which means a good sumo wrestler would make a great offensivelineman for a series or two, but might not be up to doing the job for 3 hours.
August 19, 1951 –
The shortest batter ever comes to the plate - Eddie Gaedel, at 3 feet, 7 inches. It was a promotional stunt by Bill Veeck, owner of the St. Louis Browns, but Gaedel is in the record books.
I wonder if Gilchrist is somehow related to Sidd Finch.
I remember years ago the Toronto Argos of the Canadian football league gave a tryout to Lou Ferrigno. (Body builder/Incredible Hulk guy). Although he had no experience in football they figured his huge size and strength might make it worth a shot.
Strangely enough the tryout was short-lived because it became apparent that Lou’s deafness was a problem. He couldn’t hear the snap count and jumped offside all the time. But man, wouldn’t it be cool to have a guy on your team who turned green and busted out of this uniform? Talk about intimidation.
It’s not unprecedented for players to make the NFL without having played in college. Stephen Neal, the Patriots right guard, was an All-America wrestler in college who saw that the only way he was going to get paid was to switch sports. It took a couple of years to learn how, but it worked. Wade Manning, the former Cowboys kick returner, played baseball at Ohio State, IIRC. There have been a few players who, through the vicissitudes of life, went into the work force out of high school while playing semi-pro ball as a hobby, but got good enough to get NFL camp invitations.
But baseball pitching is so different from cricket bowling that it’s hard to see anyone making the switch successfully at the age of 33. Batting skills are highly dissimilar, too.
If you go back to the early days of baseball (i.e., 1870s and 1880s), you got a lot of ex-cricket players in the game. Hall of Famer Harry Wright, who organized the Cincinnati Red Stockings (the first all-professional team), is the best example.
If the OP’s question is whetehr it’s unusual for Major League Baseball teams to recruit players from cricket, then the answer is yes. However, unusual does not mean it never happens. The Cincinnati Reds had an outfielder named Rolando Roomes who was a cricket player from Jamaica. Roomes also palyed with the Chicago Cubs and Montreal Expos.
It’s not that common because despite the similarities, the playing skills are very different.
What’s much mroe common is for track stars or soccer players to find their way onto American football teams, because those skills can be directly applied.
In the early days of baseball, it was much more similar to cricket. Some of the early clubs, made up of English immigrants in New York in the 1840’s and 50’s, actually played both games.
The Ottawa Roughriders gave a tryout to Ben Johnson as a punt returner in the mid 90s. The scouting report? “Good speed, no hands”.
Infielder Andre Rodgers had an eleven-year major league career with the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates, including three years as a starter for the Cubs, in the 1950s and 1960s. Rodgers was born and grew up in Nassau, Bahamas (and died there just last December, at the age of 70). He was only 20 when he signed as a free agent with the Giants, so presumably he hadn’t had a long and successful career as a cricketer before switching to baseball, but I recall having a copy of one of his baseball cards from the late '50s that mentioned he’d played cricket in the Bahamas, and made much of the fact that he was at the time the only British subject in the major leagues. He even rates his own Wikipedia article, which claims he was “a talented cricket player” before signing with the Giants.
Nitpick – Bob Hayes was a football star at Florida A&M.