1: Most Electrifying Win: Cleveland Indians' hurler Slim Caldwell had a 2-1 lead going into the ninth inning of a 1919 game against the Atheletics. Then something hit him--he was struck by a bolt of lightning! Luckily, Caldwell did survive the shock, and when he was revived he finished the game to pick up the victory.
2: Most Kevins In One Trade: In a 1987 move to bolster their outfield, the New York Mets traded Kevin Mitchell, Kevin Brown and Kevin Armstrong to the San Diego Padres for Kevin McReynolds.
3: Longest Back-to-Back Homers: In 1905, a couple of home runs really traveled. Jim Delehanty, brother of Hall of Famer Ed Delehanty, hit a homer that left the park in Boston and bounced onto a slow-moving freight train. When the ball was retrieved, the train was in Connecticut. The next batter drilled another out of the stadium--and into a passing car. Altogether, the two shots went 106 miles.
4: Best Save After Being Sent From The Showers To The Mound: With his team leading the Braves 8-0 in the ninth inning, reliever Larry French of the 1933 Pirates figured he could duck out of the bullpen and hit the showers early. Little did he know as he was getting Zest-fully clean that the braves had rallied to make the score 8-7. When the call came for French to pitch, he didn't even have time to rinse off. He put on his uniform and hustled out to the mound with soap trickling down his neck. He went on to pull off a squeaky-clean win.
5: Most Homers After A Close Encounter: Soon after 35-year-old Darrell Evans got the news that he was being benched, he claims to have been visited by a UFO. "When I got a chance to play again," he recalls, "I approached things a lot more intensely than before." Instead of winding down his career in 1982, the San Fransisco third baseman wound it back up, adding 196 homers to his previous total of 218 before he retired at the age of 42.
6: Messiest Foul Ball: When a pitch was fouled over the Boston grandstand in 1903, no one thought much of it----at first. But the ball bounced onto a neighboring factory and lodged itself in the shutoff mechanism of a steam whistle. When workers at other factories heard the non-stop noise, they assumed there was a fire somewhere and they fled their factories. In a factory that made baked beans, an evacuating worker forgot to shut down the giant vat in which the beans were cooking. Minutes later, the vat exploded, blowing the roof off the factory ans showering fans in the ballpark with tons of Boston Baked Beans!
7: Most X-Rated Baseball Cards: Astros' pitcher Claude Raymond is responsible for the most hilarious pose in baseball card history. On his '66 card, Raymond appears to be looking skyward to spot a high fly. Eye the card closely and you'll see that he's looking the wrong way----he should be spotting his own fly down low.
8: Worst Performance By A Player In A Game Honoring Him: Detroit first baseman Walt Dropo grew up near Hartford, Connecticut. So when the Tigers played an exhibition game there in 1953, the townspeople honored him by holding a Walt Dropo Day. The previous season, "Moose," as he was fondly called, had batted .276, clubbed 29 homeruns, and batted in 97 runs. Before the exhibition game, Dropo was showered with praise and gifts, including a new car. But when he took the field, the hero became a zero----he went 0-6 at the plate and made three glaring errors at first. (They let him keep the car anyway!)
