Bizarre

I heard of that one, HH, but it ain't the only place something of the sort happened.

 

Is that the incident Rick Tellander wrote about in his book The Hundred Yard Lie?

 

Does it count if you were involved in the act? If not, I'll retract later.

High school baseball team, senior year. We sucked balls, despite having a couple of decent players on the team, including two pitchers who later spent some time in the minors. Anyway, it was a joke of a team. Half of us had quit and come back at least once during the year. We've got only a few games to go and one of the next one is against our town rival.

We got to thinking about it the night before the game and realized that it was the last time we'd ever play those assholes. So, we decide to make it memorable. We drink pretty much all night long and well into the early part of the following afternoon. And by "pretty much," I mean that's what we did.

Honest to God, how some of us made it to the park, I've got no idea. Starting pitcher is so drunk that he falls down while tying his cleats in the dugout and before he can get back up, he passes out. The coach, God bless him, is PISSED. But he's also got enough pride that he's trying to keep our inebriated states a secret. He just scratches the starter due to "injury" and pencils in someone else.

There are random incidents throughout the game that, looking back, are unbelievably hilarious. The chants from the fielders during pitches were so hilarious that three times the damn pitcher had to stop in mid-windup due to uncontrollable giggles. Had at least seven or eight guys forget the count at the plate and stand in long after the third strike had been called -- so long that the ump, who by the second inning had caught on, escorted them out of the box. One of the more inebriated players drew a walk early on and was unfortunate enough to be on base when one of the less inebriated players came to the plate and smacked what very likely would have been a triple. Unfortunately, the inebriated guy tripped leaving first, started laughing as he got up, tripped again halfway between the bases, still laughing his ass off, and tripped rounding second, where he was tagged out. (Best looking single I've ever seen.)

By the way, we won the game. I don't remember the exact score, but it wasn't close. To this day, the coach will not speak to any of us. And the two umps who worked the game have told us all that it was the greatest day of baseball they ever experienced. School officials, of course, disagreed. Seven of us were suspended from school -- oh, the horror, not having to go to school for five days -- and were kicked off the team after our appeals, which came two days after the end of the season.

 

I had forgotten about this, and it's probably going to sound so far-fetched as to be unbelievable. But I swear it's true.

One of the teams in our Legion league was St. Thomas -- Nellie Fox's hometown. They played their games at, of course, Nellie Fox Memorial Field, which the community was now trying to use as a community playground, too. They had big cast-iron swing sets just out of play on each side of the outfield.

St. Thomas' right fielder was a football star at the high school. You may see what's coming.

One of our guys hit a fly ball, foul, down the right-field line. Mr. Linebacker put his head down and just took off. He, the ball and the swing set converged at the same time.

The swing set lost. Superstud BROKE the cast-iron swing set with his forehead, got up and walked away from it. I think he did have a slight concussion, but that was it.

 

I really call bullshit.

 

Here's a hanging curve for ya.

I was the long snapper for the football team. Punter hit me in the ass with it.

I guess that's more of a blooper than bizarre. It was sure unusual to me.

 

One of the funnier things I've seen was when I was in high school.
Can;t recall anything too bizarre covering a game. Except for a kid at the Ohio state track championships who was leading the 110 hurdles, falls after hitting the final one and stilll finishes third. But he threw his medal in trash, classy.

Our JV football team was playing rival from next county. So some of us go over to watch and all that crap. Well, the game is pretty testy from the start. So at the end, one of our guys picks up over his head a kid and slams him to the ground, initiating a brawl.

Once the melee starts, one of our kids yells out "Let's get him" and the rest of the team takes off. Our head coach is just losing his shot shoting "Oh no" over and over. We were laughing our asses off.

That and our studet section initiated a few stands-clearing incidents during basketball season. We really were just a bunch of drunken necks now that I think about it.

 

My first boss in Nashville, John Bibb, was legendary for having once punted the ball behind himself in a high school game.

There was a sign in the old office: "If you must kick, kick toward the goal."

 

That's funny, Henry.

I've seen numerous punts go for negative yardage, but all because of stiff winds and bad bounces, never an actual over-and-backwards kick.

 

JV away game when I was in high school. I was on varsity, but we still went to the JV games just to cheer them on.
Anyway, we had a little sophomore running back who was faster than lightning. He broke about a 70-yarder up the right sideline for six.
The announcer in the press box forgot to turn off his mike, and the whole stadium heard, "Look at that little son-of-a-bitch go."

 

Opening Day, 1978, Reggie Jackson homers in his first at-bat -- that would be five in a row going back to the World Series. Everyone had gotten a free Reggie candy bar coming in, shaped like a little choclate frisbee. Well, they just began to sail out of the stands by the tens of thousands. My dad wouldn't let us throw ours. We still call it The Day it Rained Reggie Bars.

Years later I saw Steve Finley jump for a ball and disappear over the centerfield wall at Memorial Stadium. For a few seconds, we thought he was dead.

 

Two things:
1). At a high school baseball game that was played on a field that had a football field going through the outfield, one of the goalposts was in fair territory in right field, without any padding on it. A kid hits a fly ball to deep right field that goes over the fence for a home run. The right fielder starts to go after the ball before it leaves the park and runs face-first into the goalpost. Luckily, he just had the wind knocked out of him.
2). A four-round women's fight at a small local boxing show. The first solid punch one fighter lands knocks a wig off her opponent's head.