THE TURKEY

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as Mauricio Dubón loves Derek Jeter.

This is so awesome. Watching professional athletes meet their childhood idols never gets old.
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano)
12:35 AM • Oct 21, 2023

By the way, the answer to last night’s trivia question was Bob Gibson - sorry we missed that!

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about one of the most degrading and outrageous trades of all time.

There’s been all kinds of strange trades over the years — players have been exchanged for cash, clothes, and even property.

But we’ve never covered a deal where a player got traded for an animal.

Unfortunately, Johnny “Binky” Jones is the only person that that’s ever happened to.

Jones didn’t really have much of a career - he made it to the Big Leagues, but only played 10 games.

He also played for one of the greatest showman of all time: Joe Engel.

This guy would do just about anything to sell out a baseball stadium.

One game, he drew 24,000 fans by giving away a new house with a car in the garage.

He had a child put on a blindfold and crawl into a box of raffle tickets in order to choose the winner.

This was also the same guy that hired Jackie Mitchell, a female pitcher, to face off against Babe Ruth and Lou Gherig; she struck them both out.

But before all of that, he traded Johnny Jones for a turkey.

At the time, Joe was getting a lot of backlash from reporters about Jones’ performance.

Engel was ready to get rid of Johnny, but he wanted to do it in the most spectacular way possible.

In the winter of ‘31, he sent Jones to the Charlotte Hornets (not the basketball team), and all he asked for in return was a 25 pound turkey.

His only request was that it arrive in time for February 22nd, the Southern Baseball Writers' Association's first meeting of the year.

Once the writers got there, dinner was served.

The turkey was laid out on the table, and there was a note in the middle that read: “Through the courtesy of Johnny Jones.”

Engel reportedly said to the writers, “You’ve been giving me the bird, so now have one on me.”

After the trade, Jones never played another game.

There’s nothing better than being traded for a live animal to signal that it’s time to hang ‘em up.

TAKE A SHOT

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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:

Gus played at the University of Miami and got drafted in the third round.

He never really panned out and, despite making it to the show, he only stuck around for 16 games.

In less than 20 innings of work, Gus managed to give up two bombs and 12 earned runs.

And when you put up numbers like that…

Gus never played in the Major Leagues again.

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