Gettysburg Eddie Goes Home

Gettysburg Eddie Goes Home (1917)

Eddie Plank was 41 and pitching for a second-division Browns club when he faced Walter Johnson in Washington. He went 11 innings and lost 1 to 0. It was the last game he ever pitched. He announced his retirement the following week, blamed his stomach, and left with 326 wins, the first left-hander ever to reach 300, and more shutouts than any lefty before or since. Then he went back to the farm in Gettysburg and spent his remaining years walking tourists around the battlefield.

The Most Miserable Day (1955)

Marty Marion had spent the summer telling anyone who asked that he could not run the White Sox without Nellie Fox. Then he sat him. Fox had played 274 straight games at second base and did not take the rest kindly. He called it the most miserable day he ever spent in baseball. Marion said it was the most miserable day of his life too, having to listen to Fox gripe from the bench all afternoon. Fox went back out the next day and played 798 in a row, still the record for a second baseman.

Five Runs for Thurman (1979)

The Yankees woke at 5:30, flew to Canton for Thurman Munson's funeral, and flew back to play the Orioles on national television. Nobody took batting practice. Ron Guidry cried in the clubhouse before starting. Bucky Dent said that when they took the field, they left home plate empty. Bobby Murcer had eulogized his friend that morning. He was hitting .220. He came up in the seventh with two on and hit a three-run homer, then singled home two more in the ninth. Every run New York scored, he drove in.

Three Ways to Give It Away (1988)

That season umpires were told to enforce the rule about coming to a full stop, and balk calls went through the roof. Nobody paid like Jim Gott. Working the eighth in Pittsburgh, the Pirates reliever was called for three balks in one inning, tying the record. Two Mets walked home on them. Nobody matched it for 34 years.