I Didn't Know That!
According to Jen's husband at Snowball's Chance ...
The last player ever to get a hit off Satchel Paige was another Hall-of-Famer, Carl Yastrzemski, who four years earlier made his Major League debut....against the Kansas City Athletics.
Wikipedia has more ...
In 1965, Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley signed Paige, 59 at the time, for one game. On September 25, against the Boston Red Sox, Finley invited several Negro League veterans including Cool Papa Bell to be introduced before the game. Paige was in the bullpen, sitting on a rocking chair, being served coffee by a “nurse” between innings. He started the game by getting Jim Gosger out on a pop foul. The next man, Dalton Jones, reached first and went to second on an infield error, but was thrown out trying to reach third on a pitch in the dirt. Carl Yastrzemski doubled and Tony Conigliaro hit a fly ball to end the inning. The next six batters went down in order, including a strikeout of Bill Monbouquette. In the fourth inning, Paige took the mound, to be removed according to plan by Haywood Sullivan. He walked off to a boisterous ovation despite the small crowd of 9,000. The lights dimmed and, led by the PA announcer, the fans lit matches and cigarette lighters while singing “The Old Gray Mare.”
4 Comments:
At 9:25 PM, Jim said…
I knew Yaz was the last player to get a hit off Satchel Paige, but I didn't know it was more due to a publicity stunt that Satchel was pitching period... and for something totally unrelated - it was 1965 when Yaz hit for his only cycle. :-)
At 10:05 PM, Brett said…
But the game Paige pitched wasn't the cycle game from what I can tell. Yaz hit for the cycle on 5-14-65.
Also Yaz' dad tripled off Satchel in a barnstorming game on Long Island in the fifties!
http://espn.go.com/classic/s/add_Yastrzemski_Carl.html
At 12:48 AM, init4keeps said…
all i knew bout yaz growing up was that we had a signed ball in our cupboard...never knew how famous he was, uncle john and aunt annie brought it home from his visit to boston in the 60's....then my sister was watching the 2004 world series, said carl looked alot like our uncle john but you could still tell he was polish....my uncle was carls moms brother.
At 11:49 AM, Brett said…
Hey Init, I have a post about somebody who went to game with one of Yaz nieces! Must be some relative of yours...
http://theyazblog.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
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