THE TARP

November 03, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as George Costanza loved giving hitting advice.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a freak accident that caused a star player to miss the World Series.

In 1985, Vince Coleman was the man.

He won Rookie of the Year and had 110 stolen bases, which is still the second most of any rookie in baseball history.

Plus, he was on a winning team.

The Cardinals were playing the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS and while they were down 2-1 in the series, they were coming off a win in Game 3.

Before the game, it started to rain.

Back in these days, they used to have machines that would unroll the tarp.

Sounds genius, but this incident is probably why they don’t have them anymore.

It’s basically a 1200 lb cylindrical death machine if left unattended.

As the players were gathering their equipment and getting off the field, the grounds crew fired up the electronic tarp.

Coleman turned to throw his glove to someone who was heading back to the dugout and didn’t realize the tarp machine was creeping up on him.

It rolled over his leg and sent Vince into panic mode.

Some even thought it might be a career-ending injury.

Luckily, when the initial x-rays were done, they showed no serious damage - Dick Enberg even reported that Vince might play Game 5.

But that turned out to be a lie.

Vince sat out the next several games, and the Cardinals went on to win the NLCS without him, but when the World Series came around he was still unable to play.

Upon reexamining the injury, doctors found that a tiny piece of bone flake had broken off of Coleman’s leg.

It wasn’t a career-ending injury, but it would keep him out of World Series.

As we know, the Cardinals went on to get screwed by one of the worst calls of all time, and the 1985 season ended in heartbreak for St. Louis.

Vince had a few more great seasons on the base paths, but he never got back to the World Series.

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:

“Skinny” and his dad were both ballplayers, and they did great in semi-pro ball.

When Graham got to the big leagues, he only played in 21 games in two seasons, and his results weren’t too stellar.

After playing with the Red Sox, he continued the rest of his career in the minors.

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BASEBALL TRIVIA ANSWER: Honus Wagner