Jim Creighton's Fatal Baseball Collapse

Before major league baseball existed, American pitcher Jim Creighton changed the game with fast underhand pitches and spin that other pitchers began to copy. On October 14, 1862, he collapsed with severe abdominal pain during a Brooklyn Excelsiors game and died four days later at 21 from a strangulated intestine. A teammate claimed decades later that Creighton heard something "snap" during a swing.

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