Odd this day
Well, as it’s 31 August, you could read this properly researched if not especially reverential examination of the Enfield Haunting, which began on this day in 1977.
But you could also turn your attention to something I genuinely saw referred to as ‘The Great Potato Incident of 1987’ when I googled this date. The story involves a minor league baseball player called Dave Bresnahan. Here he is:
Dave was a man who decided one day to indulge in some hijinks. One might even say shenanigans. At 25, he was the backup catcher for the Williamsport Bills, and, as such,
his career was going to be over sooner than later, and he was bored.
So, knowing that such a stunt would not be viewed favourably, he decided to go out in a manner of his own choosing. To this end, he acquired a potato, which he fashioned, as you can see from the above image, into something at least slightly resembling a baseball.
(We could digress here into a discussion about whether, given that a ball you play cricket with is a cricket ball, the projectile we’re talking about should more properly be called a baseball ball, but this is clearly a blog of self-indulgent nonsense as it is, so let’s not. Also, given that I’m English, we could entertain some discourse about the relative merits of each sport, but as a teenager, I heard Norman St. John Stevas on the radio saying “cricket is an alternative religion. It gives us a glimpse of eternity”, and couldn’t agree more. So.)
Anyway, the plan was to trick a hitter into thinking you’ve thrown the ball somewhere else on the field, leaving him free to run for fourth base, only to then produce the real ball and tag him out. Bresnahan peeled a starchy tuber into the shape of a baseball, painted on some stitching for added authenticity, and smuggled it “into the fifth inning of a game against the Reading Phillies”.
Now, oddly enough, you can’t just wander around baseball fields with random vegetables, so Bresnahan hid it in his spare glove.
then, when a Phillie reached third, told the ump that a string on his catcher’s mitt had snapped and received permission to go to the dugout and grab a new one.
Then, when the ball came to him
Bresnahan unleashed a snap throw towards third. The potato, as intended, sailed over the third baseman and into left field. Rick Lundblade took the bait, broke home, and was promptly tagged out
Soon, however, a cry went up:
It’s a frickin’ potato.
This quote, though, is from a National Public Radio podcast, and I for one strongly suspect ‘frick’ was not the word the third base umpire chose on the night in question.
Bresnahan was told he would be fined $50 and informed the following day that he was being released from his contract. According to the podcast, he was neither overly surprised, nor especially repentant, and went to clean out his locker armed with many, many potatoes. He put one in every locker, then “walked into the manager’s office and counted out 50, put 50 right on the desk” accompanied by a note suggesting that they couldn’t be serious about him paying the fine now that he’d been released, and, by the way
Here’s 50 potatoes.
There were complaints in a town which takes its baseball very seriously (Williamsport is the home of minor league, apparently), but time, as you may have heard, is renowned for its healing properties, and
It didn’t hurt that being invited to do loads of interviews brought Williamsport some unexpected (and somewhat unaccustomed) attention. Ever since, anniversaries of the incident have garnered further publicity for the county seat of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.
Now, you may not think this is an especially important historical incident, but I think two things lift it out of the prosaic. Firstly, 2006 book A Game of Inches — the stories behind the innovations that shaped baseball noted that there was “nothing new” about this gag. In fact, it dates back to the 19th century:
The book goes on to add that one version of the ploy, in 1934, involved
an iced potato, whitewashed.
And secondly, there is a nonprofit educational organisation
dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history and to exploring the national pastime’s unparalleled creative possibilities.
The Baseball Reliquary is now home to Dave Bresnahan’s actual potato.
It is preserved, not in urine, as it appears, but alcohol. Together, I believe, these two facts raise this clearly silly story above the everyday and into the sublime. You may not agree, and may feel that Great Britain remains the true world home of eccentric oddity. In America’s defence, though, I feel compelled to ask: are we home to the world’s largest ball of paint…
…fashioned by applying tens of thousands of coats of paint to a baseball? Well, are we?
