Baseball Games, Trivia and Fun Facts

Do you know the answer to these questions?



Did You Know.....
The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches

Did You Know.....
Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch!

Did You Know.....

1. Owner of the Chicago Cubs, Bill Veeck, used to have midgets as food vendors at the clubs home ground, because he said that it meant that the paying public didn't have to have their view of the game spoiled!

2. The baseball tradition of spring training came about because in 1885 the Chicago White Stockings went to Hot Springs in Arkansas to prepare for the new season.

We all know where the longest Hockey stick is, so where is the world's longest baseball bat?

The world's largest baseball bat is only 120 feet long weighing in at 68,000 pounds.
It resembles the 34 inch wood bat that the Bambino, Babe Ruth Swung, made by Louisville Slugger.
Want to see it in person it is located at : 800 West Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky at the Louisville Slugger Museum.

Who was the shortest major league baseball player?

It was Edward Carl "Eddie" Gaedel , born in Chicago, Illinois, June 8, 1925.
He was an American dwarf who became famous for participating in a MLB game who secretly signed by the St. Louis Browns.
He was only 3 feet 7 inches (109 cm) tall and weighing 65 pounds (29.5 kg),
his uniform number was 1/8.
He had just one at bat for the Brown's in the second game of a doubleheader on Sunday, August 19, 1951. Gaedel's strike zone measured just an inch and a half. He reached base on four consecutive balls that were all high!Gaedel's autograph now sells for more than Babe Ruth's, he latered passed on June 18, 1961.

Who has the Longest Baseball Throw on record?
*hint (It was a Canadian)

In 1957, after a running start, the ball left his arm at an estimated 120 MPH. He was a Canadian minor leaguer, who had a three year stint in the Majors from 1955 - 1957 still holds the record. The baseball covered a total of 445 feet 10 inches before hitting the ground and breaking the old record of 445 feet 1 inches set in 1956 by Don Grate.
Who Done It? Glen Edward Gorbous, Born on July 8 1930 in Drumheller, Alberta, The man with the canon was 6 foot 2 inches tall and weighted in at a modest 175lbs. SO weight had nothing to do with it. He threw right and batted left.
He Broke into the show just before the 1950 season in an unknown transaction with the Brooklyn Dodgers later to be traded, November 22, 1954 and drafted by the Cincinnati Redlegs in the 1954 rule V draft.

Did You Know?

Prior to the 1930 American League season, and prior to the 1931 National League season, fly balls that bounced over or through the outfield fence were home runs! All batted balls that cleared or went through the fence on the fly or that were hit more than 250 feet in the air and cleared or went through the fence after a bounce in fair territory were counted as home runs. After the rule change the batter was awarded second base and these were called "automatic doubles" (ground-rule doubles are ballpark-specific rules) and are covered by rule 6.09(d)-(h) in the MLB Rule Book.
Babe Ruth reportedly had no "bounce" home runs; Lou Gehrig had a few, so did Rogers Hornsby and many, many other players of that era.

What was the longest baseball game, based on time?

It was between the visiting Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago White Sox.
It happen it May 09, 1984, the game went 25 innings and lasted 8 hours and 6 minutes (not sure on the seconds!)
The game began on May 08 but according to MLB rules an inning cannot begin after 12:59 AM so the players and fans had to come back the next day to watch the Chicago White Sox win 7- 6 on a Harold Baines' home run in the 25th inning.

Who invented the Curveball?

William Cummings,  also known as  "the Father of the Curveball"   said he invented the curveball after seeing a spinning clamshell curve across the water after being skipped on a Brooklyn beach. Some historians debate this but he did master the curve ball well before a lot pitchers. He stood 5 foot 9 inches tall and weighed a colossal 120lbs.
Candy as he was also called was born in Ware, Massachusetts on Nov 18, 1848. 27 years later on April 22, 187, his journey took him to professional baseball where he broke into the Big Leagues with the Hartford Dark Blues.  He lasted 2 years in baseball.

Homeruns that weren't homeruns in the 1900's

Until 1920, in the last of the ninth inning or in the bottom of an extra inning, home runs that drove in the winning run ahead of them were scored only as singles, doubles, or triples, according to how many bases the baserunner needed to advance to score the winning run. For example, if the batter hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning with a teammate on third base and the score tied, the batter was credited with only a single. Under current rules, the batter would be credited with a "walk-off" home run and the home team would win by two runs. In 1918 Babe Ruth hit a "home run" with a teammate on first base in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tied game. Under the rules of the day, Ruth was credited with a triple.
In 1968 the Special Baseball Records Committee voted to restore home runs to players who had lost credit for them because of the above-mentioned pre-1920 rule. But even people in power tinker with baseball's traditions and statistics at great peril. After a hyper-decibel outcry by casual and serious fans, the committee changed its mind in 1969.