THE SUPERSTITIONS

Author

Matthew Garringer
August 07, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Prince Fielder loves nachos.

Letā€™s dive in.

Todayā€™s story is about one of the biggest oddballs in baseball history.

Not too many people remember Kevin Rhomberg.

People overlooked Kevin because he did a lot of weird shit, but he was actually a pretty good hitter.

Over his three-year career in the big leagues, he only got 47 at-bats, but he hit .383.

Rhomberg also tore it up in the minors, winning a batting title in Double-A.

For some reason though, Cleveland never found a permanent spot for him.

Most people say it was probably because of his antics.

ā€œRhomberg would do things in multiples of four. Four squirts of water at the water cooler before he left the dugout, four taps of the bat on the ground, four taps of the bat on his helmet, four taps of his cleats with his bat, a left turn into the batterā€™s box and four practice swings.ā€

Mike Blake, Author

He was also known for other strange superstitions.

For example, if someone touched him, then he had to tag them back.

Iā€™m sure it was hilarious the first few times, then after a while it just started getting awkward.

Rhomberg also ONLY made left turns.

He said that he developed this habit because there are no right turns in baseball, so he refused to make them.

Kevin only quit doing this because his kids started doing it as well and he didnā€™t want his quirks to affect his family.

In 2010, he quit playing tag with people after trying to chase down Rod Carew.

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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:

Rip Repulski finished fourth in the ROY voting back in ā€˜53.

He had a few solid seasons for the Cardinals including his first-and-only All-Star selection in ā€˜56.

After hitting 20 bombs for the Phillies in ā€˜57, he got traded to the Dodgers and ended up winning a World Series with them.

But mostly, heā€™s remembered for his fantastic name.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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