Four Pitches, Four Balls
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Cesareo Suarezz Naranjo, via Facebook
Seventy-five years ago this week, on Sunday, August 19, 1951, Bill Veeck owed the crowd at Sportsman's Park a surprise. He had promised a festival of them. The between-games bit, a papier-mache cake with a man popping out of it, had landed with a thud. The Falstaff Brewery people who paid for the afternoon were not impressed. Veeck apologized meekly and said nothing about what he had planned for the second game.
Browns manager Zack Taylor sent up a pinch-hitter for leadoff man Frank Saucier. Out came Eddie Gaedel, 26 years old, 3 feet 7 inches, 65 pounds, wearing number 1/8 and a pair of elf slippers. Umpire Ed Hurley started yelling. Taylor calmly produced a valid contract, already filed with the American League office. Fifteen minutes and one phone call to Chicago later, Hurley waved him into the box.
Hope your target in the future is better than mine in 1951.
Bob Cain of the Tigers tried two real pitches, gave up, and lobbed the last two over Gaedel's head, laughing the whole time. Catcher Bob Swift caught the at-bat on one knee. The bat never left Gaedel's shoulder, partly because Veeck had told him there would be a man on the roof with a rifle if he swung. Four pitches, four balls, and 18,369 people, the biggest Browns home crowd in four years, stood up and hollered while he bowed his way to first base.
The league president voided the contract within days and had his name pulled from the records. It was eventually restored. One plate appearance, one walk, a career on-base percentage of 1.000, and no one is ever going to beat it.
Gaedel was never a ballplayer. He was a vaudeville performer from Chicago who worked burlesque houses, and after that afternoon the work got thinner. Veeck used him a few more times. On June 18, 1961, he was followed home from a bowling alley and beaten, and his mother found him dead in his bed. He was 36. Bob Cain, the pitcher, drove 300 miles to the funeral and was the only person from baseball who came. He said he felt obligated. Every Christmas until his own death in 1997, Cain sent out a card with a photo of Gaedel in his batting stance inside, and a line that read, "Hope your target in the future is better than mine in 1951."
