{"id":194,"date":"2003-02-22T01:22:19-05:00","date_gmt":"2003-02-22T09:22:19+00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/wordpress\/?p=194"},"modified":"2003-02-22T01:22:19-05:00","modified_gmt":"2003-02-22T09:22:19+00:00","slug":"baseball-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/blog\/2003\/02\/22\/baseball-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball season"},"content":{"rendered":"

It won’t be spring for another month, but major league baseball’s spring training season started earlier this week. With it comes a veritable flood of interesting, odd and disturbing stories.<\/p>\n\n

What would Ted Williams have thought if he knew his body would be hanging upside down in a nitrogen-filled tank with perhaps four other full bodies and five heads at a cryogenics lab inside a strip mall in Scottsdale, Ariz.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ed Janes<\/cite>, instant message, Feb. 19, 2003<\/p>\n\n

My brother was talking about The Splendid Splinter<\/cite>, of course, and quoting ESPN’s recent story<\/a> (based on an article<\/a> by Bill Madden in the New York Daily News) on the horrifying<\/q> post-mortem treatment of the baseball great’s remains.<\/p>\n\n

Later, he mentioned that Baltimore Orioles’ pitcher Steve Bechler collapsed from heatstroke on Sunday and died the next day; a Washington Post article<\/a> quotes the team’s doctor blaming a dietary supplement<\/q> containing ephedra, which has been linked to several high-profile deaths involving athletes.<\/q> Two days later, fellow Oriole pitcher Jason Johnson was rushed off a practice field… after a diabetic episode.<\/q><\/p>\n\n

This led Ed to share a trivia fact: Only one man has ever been killed by a thrown ball<\/a> in MLB history, Ray Chapman by Carl Mays in 1920. I countered with a question triggered by memories of Dave Dravecky breaking his arm<\/a> while throwing a pitch to Tim Raines of the Expos in 1989: how many players have broken limbs while pitching? We came up with four: Dravecky<\/a> (who later had the arm amputated), John Smiley<\/a>, Tom Browning<\/a>, and Tony Saunders<\/a> (who, incredibly, had it happen twice<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

The day after my conversation with Ed, Rebecca Blood posted<\/a> about Mamie Peanut<\/cite> Johnson<\/a>, the first female pitcher in the Negro Leagues. Which led to another question: there was more than one woman in the league? My knowledge of the Negro Leagues in general is woefully inadequate, as is my knowledge of other alternative<\/q> leagues (like the AAGPBL<\/abbr>, featured in A League Of Their Own<\/cite><\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

And finally, something that I’ve meant to do for weeks is to pick up tickets for the new Canadian Baseball League<\/a> team, the London Monarchs<\/a>. On a related note, I’m sad to say I’ve never even been inside historic<\/a> Labatt<\/a> Park<\/a>, even though it’s only a 15-minute walk away.<\/p>\n\n

To coin a phrase, I love this game.<\/p><\/div>

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