The Umpire Comes to Bat

The Umpire Comes to Bat (1901)

Before the second game in Brooklyn, umpire Bob Emslie got too sick to work, so players filled in. One of them was Phillies pitcher Al Orth. In the ninth, Philadelphia needed its best available bat, which belonged to the man calling the game. Orth handed off the umpiring, walked up, and singled. Brooklyn won anyway, 3 to 2. Eleven years later Orth took the job for real and umpired in the National League through 1917.

Baseballs Fall on Cleveland (1938)

The Come to Cleveland Committee put Indians third baseman Ken Keltner atop the 708-foot Terminal Tower, with teammates waiting below. Rookie catcher Hank Helf, still in street clothes, caught the fourth ball down. Frankie Pytlak got one three balls later. They broke a mark Gabby Street set in 1908 at the Washington Monument, 555 feet. Ten thousand people came downtown on a Saturday morning to watch grown men stand still and look up.

The Players Vote Down Their Union (1946)

Robert Murphy was a Boston labor lawyer who thought ballplayers deserved arbitration and a two-way contract. He organized the Pirates because Pittsburgh was a union town, and in June came four votes short of a strike. He appealed to the state labor board and got a second poll on this day. By then the owners had moved first with a pension and spring training expense money, and the Pirates voted 15 to 3 against him. Players still collect that money. They still call it Murphy money.

Mary Had a Little Lamb (1964)

Chicago had just swept four at Comiskey, and the Yankee bus was stuck in traffic. Utility infielder Phil Linz pulled out a harmonica he had bought that week and worked through the only song he knew. Yogi Berra hollered from the front to knock it off. Mickey Mantle told Linz that Yogi wanted it louder. Berra came down the aisle and slapped the harmonica away, and it caromed off Joe Pepitone. New York went on a tear and won the pennant. Berra was fired anyway.