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The Utility Player
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. We’re the kind of guys that follow the unwritten rules of baseball.
If you need a refresher, here’s an article.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s story is about a publicity stunt that was going amazing, until it wasn’t.
In September of ‘65, Bert Campaneris was playing in his first full big-league season when he did one of the most epic things you can do on a baseball field: play all nine positions in a single game.
He was the first player in AL/NL to do this, and there’s only been four people to accomplish it since.
While it’s an amazing feat, this didn’t happen on accident.
The whole thing was concocted by a promotional mastermind.
That’s right, another Charlie Finley special.
The Kansas City Athletics were in last place, and the California Angels had kissed their playoff hopes goodbye.
In an attempt to draw fans to the ballpark on a Wednesday night, Finley put the word out that Campaneris was going to play all nine positions.
Crazy enough, it worked brilliantly - 21,000 fans showed up that night to watch a game that was otherwise completely insignificant.
BUT, the Angels were pissed off because they felt like what Finley did was bush league; so they were playing with a little extra fire that night.
The first inning, Bert went out and played his usual position at short.
He scored the game’s first run in the bottom half of that inning.
Over the next four innings he proceeded to play second, third, left field, and center.
Nothing much happened until the sixth inning, when Campaneris dropped a routine fly ball with the go-ahead runner on first base while playing right field.
The runner scored and the Angels pulled ahead.
Then two innings later, Campaneris gave up a run on the mound, but when he put on the catcher’s gear to finish off his tour around the diamond, things went off the rails.
Ed Kirkpatrick, a 20-year-old making his debut after being recalled from Triple-A, started the inning with a single, then immediately swiped second.
With two outs, Kirkpatrick attempted to catch Campaneris sleeping again, and attempted to steal home.
Kirkpatrick crashed into Bert trying to knock the ball loose, but Campaneris held on for the final out of the inning.
The collision was bad enough that Bert had to go to the hospital with a shoulder injury.
The game ended with an Angels victory in extra innings, but Campaneris wasn’t even there to see it.
Luckily, it wasn’t too serious and he was in the lineup a week later.
Bert went on to play for 16 more seasons and made it to the all star game six times.
Please Be Seated
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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:
Joseph Chester “Boob” Fowler, played for the Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds back in the 20’s.
Apparently, some people also called him “Gink” - which is slang for “a damn fool.”
The man could hit, but he was pretty terrible in the field.
In today’s game, he probably would’ve been a DH.
Unfortunately, he only got 175 AB’s, which is such a small sample size, we’ll never really know what he would’ve become.
The Dead Legends Archive
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That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!
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