The Seagull

In partnership with

Good morning! This Dead Legends. The newsletter that slides into your inbox like Trea Turner.

Smooth as shea butter.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a bizarre incident that resulted in a hall of famer’s arrest for animal cruelty.

And no, it’s not the Big Unit.

It was August 4, 1983 and Yankees were playing the Blue Jays in Toronto.

In the bottom of the fifth, Dave Winfield threw the ball he was warming up with back to the bat boy and accidentally hit a seagull.

The bird died pretty much instantly.

Life went on, the Yankees won that day, and Winfield went 2 for 4 with 2 RBI’s.

But after the game he was arrested for causing “unnecessary suffering of an animal.”

The authorities claimed it was unclear whether or not Winfield intentionally threw at the bird.

Billy Martin seemed to take the situation pretty lightly.

He was quoted saying, “That’s the first time Winfield’s hit the cutoff man all year.”

The people of Toronto were actually on Winfield’s side, calling for the charges to be dropped - mostly because the whole situation was so ridiculous that they feared it would make them the laughing stock of the league.

The day after his arrest - the charges against Dave were dropped.

Apparently, they did an autopsy on the gull and found out that he was already in bad health - which is probably why he didn’t fly away when Winfield chucked the baseball at him in the first place.

The event was declared an accident and Winfield was innocent of any animal endangerment.

When he returned to Toronto, Dave brought a painting of seagulls with him and presented it to the organization as a peace offering.

The painting was auctioned and sold for $32,000.

All the proceeds went to the Easter Seals Society.

Learn AI in 5 minutes a day

This is the easiest way for a busy person wanting to learn AI in as little time as possible:

  1. Sign up for The Rundown AI newsletter

  2. They send you 5-minute email updates on the latest AI news and how to use it

  3. You learn how to become 2x more productive by leveraging AI

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:

“Johnny B” as some of his teammates called him, played in the bigs for 12 years.

He was known for his unorthodox batting stance.

I mean… who hits like this?

As you can imagine, Wockenfuss wasn’t known for his results at the plate, but there was always room for him on the roster for one main reason.

After his playing days were over, Wockenfuss managed in the minor leagues for a bit.