THE BITE

Author

Matthew Garringer
October 28, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Greg Maddux loves pranks.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a bizarre injury involving fake teeth.

Injuries can happen anywhere, any time.

We’ve covered guys who’ve hurt themselves doing their laundry, popping wheelies, and even one dude who died drinking sea water.

But this is arguably one of the weirdest injuries in baseball history.

Not many people remember Clarence Blethen, after all, he did only play seven games in the big leagues.

Some people referred to him as “The Christy Mathewson of the minor leagues” and he also had an incredible nickname.

They called him “Climax.”

Seriously though, that was his actual nickname.

Anyways, in 1933, long after his days in the Major Leagues, Blethen was playing ball in Tennessee for the Knoxville Smokies.

By then, his tobacco habit had caused him to lose his teeth, so he wore removable molars.

When Clarence needed to run the bases, he’d put his chompers in his back pocket for safe keeping, and that’s exactly what he did when he reached base during this particular game.

Turns out, this makes sliding pretty dangerous.

When Blethen slid into second, his fake teeth clamped down and took a chunk out of his ass; it was a pretty rough day for him after that.

The Smokies won 7-3 though, so it was totally worth it.

BASEBALL TRIVIA

Find the answer in the bottom of this email!

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Joseph “Cyclone” Miller didn’t play in the big leagues for very long, but he had a pretty good arm.

More important than anything Miller did on the field, he played a role in setting up Old Hoss Radbourn to achieve one of the most unbreakable records in baseball.

If it wasn’t for him, Radbourn might’ve never won 59 games in a season.

That’s a story for another day though.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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