THE MOON SHOT

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Today’s story is about two miracles that happened in the same night.

Gaylord Perry was always somewhat of a cowboy.

He even described himself as a "baseball outlaw."

One could argue, he is the forefather of foreign substance mastery on the mound.

Early on in his career, he mastered the spitball, and later on, he invented the puffball.

He also had a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing.

Even though Perry was a beast on the mound, he was pretty much an automatic out at the plate.

His lifetime average was .131 over his 22-year career.

In a conversation with a sports writer back in ‘64, Perry’s manager, Alvin Dark, said they would put a man on the moon before Gaylord went yard.

So let’s rewind.

The date is July 20, 1969, and all eyes were on Apollo 13 as the USA closed in on the first ever moon landing.

The Giants and the Dodgers faced off at Candlestick Park that night.

Up to this point, Perry was homerless over the first eight years of his career.

Not. A. Single. Dinger.

In the 3rd inning, the entire stadium had a moment of silence as they announced that Neil Armstrong and the boys had landed on the moon.

In the bottom of the 3rd, a second miracle happened.

Gaylord went yard.

There's no video of the homer itself, but the whole situation gives us serious Bartolo Colon vibes.

He went on to crush five more homers over the remainder of his 22 years in the bigs, but Perry looked back on that night in '69 as one of the more memorable stories in his career.

And ultimately, Alvin Dark was right, but not by much.

ONE QUICK QUESTION

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:

Veach got his nickname while playing first base for Kansas City in 1884.

He had set up timing plays to pick runners off through the use of signals that Veach would have to wait and look for.

Players had caught on to this trick and began calling him Peek-A-Boo because he would be looking around for signals.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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