- Dead Legends
- Posts
- THE SEATS
THE SEATS
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Sidd Finch loved the french horn.
Let’s dive in.
You’ve probably heard of Charlie Sheen, he’s known for his iconic roles as Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men and Ricky Vaughn in Major League.
Sheen has always had a passion for baseball.
In High School, he was a reliever with a mid-80s fastball and decent control.
He was actually one of the best players on his team.
Sheen got offered a full-ride scholarship to play ball at the University of Kansas, but ended up pursuing acting instead.
One thing he never gave up on, though, was his dream of catching a home run.
By the time the ‘96 baseball season rolled around, he had the cash to make that dream a reality.
Fan Graphs estimates that your odds of catching a home run or foul ball is about 1 in 1,189, but Wild Thing wasn’t willing to take any chances.
He wanted to catch a ball so badly, that he purchased 2,615 seats at an Angels game for over $6,500 just to make sure he’d get any ball that went into that section.
“I didn’t want to crawl over the paying public. I wanted to avoid the violence.”
Sheen and his crew waited patiently for a home run, but it never came.
Not a single dinger was hit that day, and it proves one thing - money can’t buy everything.
If you’ve ever had the good fortune of snagging a ball, consider yourself among the luckiest fans in the world.
BASEBALL TRIVIA
Find the answer at 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:
Guy Hacker is one of the best players you’ve probably never heard of.
Hell, I only knew about him because I’ve done quite a bit of research on the Louisville Colonels.
Hecker is considered to be one of the best two-way players of the 19th century.
To this day, he is one of two pitchers (alongside Jim Tobin) in baseball history to hit three home runs in a single game, and the ONLY pitcher to win a batting title.
He’s also the only pitcher to ever get six hits in a nine-inning game.
Oh and Hecker also won the pitching version of the triple crown in 1884 by compiling 52 wins, a 1.85 earned run average, and 385 strikeouts.
THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE
If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:
BASEBALL TRIVIA ANSWER: Barry Bonds