THE BOY'S HERO

September 15, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Tommy Lasorda hated Kurt Bevacqua.

Let's dive in.

Today's story is about a foul ball that nearly killed a boy, and a ballplayer that went beyond the call of duty.

You've probably heard of Jim Rice.

He's a hall of famer that had a 16-year career with the Boston Red Sox.

The man used to drop bombs.

But Rice's greatest accomplishment has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

Let's take it back to August 7, 1982.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and Tom Keane was enjoying a day at the ballpark with his two sons.

David Stapleton was up to bat, and he hit a frozen rope foul over the first base dugout.

With no time to react, Keane heard the loud thud of the baseball colliding with another object, initially thinking it had hit the dugout.

He looked over, completely horrified at what he saw.

The ball had drilled his four-year-old, Jonathan, and knocked the boy unconscious.

Jonathan was bleeding badly from his head, and the severity of the situation set in quickly.

Fans yelled out for help in panic.

Just then, Jim Rice made his way into the crowd and took Jonathan down to the field where he received medical attention within seconds.

Within three minutes, Jonathan was placed into an ambulance and driven to Boston Children's Hospital for an emergency surgery.

Rice's quick thinking gave Keane the opportunity to get seen much sooner than if he had been forced to wait for an EMT in the stands.

Jim finished his job that day and went 1-4 with two RBI's; the Sox won.

More importantly, Jonathan's surgery was a success.

The doctors said Rice might've saved the boy's life, and at the very least, prevented him from having permanent brain damage.

Jim visited Jonathan in the hospital.

After realizing his family's financial situation, Rice stopped by the business office on his way out and directed the hospital to send all medical bills to him.

The next season, Boston invited Jonathan to throw out the first pitch in the Sox's home opener.

Keane has no recollection of that day, but other than the memory loss, he walked away with nothing but a scar.

He graduated from the Poole College of Management in 2000 with a degree in business management.

Today he is the CEO of CustomerHD, which operates call centers in Raleigh and Belize City, for more than 20 international clients.

He considers Jim Rice a hero.

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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:

As you might imagine, Slim was a tall drink of water; 6-foot 7.5-inches and 195 pounds soaking wet.

At the time he broke into the big leagues, Love was the tallest pitcher in MLB history.

Basically, he was the OG Big Unit.

He also had a special pitch known as the "aeroplane bomb" which was probably just a fastball with a good downward angle.

Even though he only spent six season in the bigs, Slim played pro ball in various leagues for about 20 years.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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