35 Fascinating Facts about Baseball

There is a Major League Baseball pitcher named Doc Hamann who retired with an Earned Run Average of infinity. He never got an out in his one appearance, letting up seven runs.

27. Sandy Koufax (the best pitcher in Major League Baseball at the time) refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur.

28. In 1999, the Arizona Diamondbacks ran a promotion where 1 selected fan had the chance to pick the inning in which a grand slam would be hit, and which player would hit it. On July 11, 1999, Jay Bell hit a grand slam in the 6th inning to win Gylene Hoyle $1 million.

29. In 1977, the Kansas City Royals were in Milwaukee to play a game against the Brewers and their uniforms were stolen from their locker room, forcing them to borrow Brewers uniforms for the day.

30. In the early 70s, the Oakland Athletics paid their players $300 bonuses to grow mustaches.

In the 1920s, Edd Roush, a Cincinnati Reds outfielder was ejected from a major league baseball game for sleeping in the outfield.

32. Dick Stuart, one of the worst defensive players in baseball history, once received a standing ovation for successfully grabbing a loose hot dog wrapper out of the air. It was the first thing he had managed to pick up all day, and the fans realized it could very well be the last."

33. Baseball player Bill Bergen was an awful batter who hit .170 for his entire 11-year career and at one point went 46 at-bats without a hit, but teams kept him around because he was such a good catcher.

34. Major League Baseball banned the "spitball" in 1920, though they granted exceptions to exactly 17 pitchers. The last "legal" spitball was thrown in 1934.

35. Major League Baseball had a rule during World War 2 that said in the event of an enemy bombing, whoever led after five innings would be declared the winner.