Phantom Players

There's a neat bit written by Greg Ross over at Futility Closet regarding the presence of "phantom players" in the record books:

You can’t always rely on baseball’s record books — they’re haunted by “phantom” players. According to one box score, a player named Lou Proctor walked as a pinch hitter for the St. Louis Browns against the Boston Red Sox on May 13, 1912. It turns out that Lou Proctor was really a Cleveland telegraph operator who had inserted his own name in place of Pete Compton’s. More than two dozen such errors have been uncovered; this one wasn’t found until the mid-1980s.

There's a small collection of these players listed at Wikipedia.

Good Grief!

Charlie Brown’s baseball team has a win-loss record of 2-930.

Hit By Pitch

August 16, 1920 is a day that would go down in baseball infamy. Late that afternoon at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, Cleveland Indians' shortstop Ray Chapman stepped into the batter’s box for what would be the very last time in his life. And no, he wasn't retiring from baseball.

During the at bat, Chapman squared up, ready to bunt, but New York Yankees' pitcher Carl Mays threw a submariner that got away. The ball struck Chapman right on the temple, with the resulting hit being so loud that Mays actually fielded the ball and threw to first, thinking that perhaps Chapman had made contact with his bat.

In fact, Chapman never regained consciousness and died next day, the only major-league player ever to have suffered fatal injuries in a game.

The Lost Art Of The Autograph

Baseball and autographs go hand in hand. If you've been fortunate enough to have gotten a ball signed the last time you were at the park, you may have also asked the player to write down their number on it. Chances are, if you haven't, other people may have a hard time distinguishing whose autograph that actually belong to. Case in point, this autograph:

Figured it out yet?






This Johnny Hancock belongs to none other than former Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants. It would be hard for almost anyone who wasn't familiar with his style of signature to be able to say it belonged to him. He isn't alone. As players today are asked more and more often to sign autographs for fans, baseball card companies, and other promotions, they are forced to make a decision: With the small amount of time allotted for autographs, should I sign less autographs, or should I modify my signature to something quicker to sign, in order to increase the amount of things I can sign? Most players these days choose the latter.

It wasn't always this. Feast your eyes on these two autographs and see if you have better luck figuring out who they belonged to:

That was a lot easier, right? Up top, you have the dean of the dignified autograph, former Minnesota Twins great Harmon Killebrew. At the bottom? I really hope I don't have to tell you that that belongs to the Great Bambino, Babe Ruth.

For more reading, check out this recent New York Times article.