You’re Out-o’-Here!

 

Richie Ashburn is a National Baseball Hall of Famer who earned that honor through several impressive accomplishments.

But there’s one thing he did that no other professional baseball player has EVER done.

And it had nothing to do with him getting into the HOF.

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After he retired from playing professional baseball, Ashburn became an announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies.  He started his second career in 1963 and announced games until his death in 1997.

But that’s not what he did that’s so incredible to me.

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Ashburn was inducted into the Hall of Fame 1995 after a number of fans started a campaign that had the slogan: “Richie Ashburn, Why the Hall Not?”

Despite the catchy phrase that helped get him inducted, Ashburn said, “I’m flattered that so many baseball people think I’m a Hall of Famer. But what’s hard to believe is how one-hundred and fifty-plus people have changed their minds about me since I became eligible, because I haven’t had a base hit since then.”

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He got a lot of baseball fans chuckling when he revealed an interesting habit.  He explained that he used to take his “lucky bat” home with him if he had a good day at the plate.  He didn’t want to take a chance on losing the bat before he used up all of its good luck.  To ensure that, Ashburn claimed that he would take the bat into his bed at night to keep it safe.

When asked about it, he claimed, “I’ve slept with a lot of old bats.”

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His sense of humor was also evident after he finished his career with the expansion New York Mets.  The team won only 40 games that season, which is still a record low for pro ball.  Oh, Ashburn hit well that year, batting .306 with a .428 on-base percentage, making him the first Met in history to bat .300.

Upon hearing that he had been selected Most Valuable Player for the team, he quipped, “MVP on the worst team ever? I wonder what exactly they meant by that?”

But it wasn’t his jokes that amazed me.

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It wasn’t his grasp of foreign languages either.

Shortstop Elio Chacón didn’t speak much English and Ashburn didn’t know Spanish so he had trouble calling the shortstop off to prevent crashes on pop flies.  He asked someone how to say “I’ve got it,” in Spanish and was told to say, “Yo la Tengo!”  Next time the two were on a collision course, Ashburn yelled the phrase but the players crashed anyway.

The shortstop picked himself up and asked Ashburn, “What the heck is a Yellow Tango?”

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Ashburn was the last member of the Phillies to get eight hits in one day.  He went four-for-six and four-for-five with one walk and two RBIs in each game of a double header against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951.

He was an above average hitter compiling a lifetime batting average of .308 while earning a .396 on-base percentage.  From June 6, 1950 through the end of the 1954 season, he played in 731 consecutive games.  Ashburn twice led the National League in batting, beating out the great Willie Mays.  Besides that, he led the NL three times in most hits, twice in triples, four times in bases-on-balls, and nine times in putouts by an outfielder.  As mentioned earlier, he was the first Met to bat .300.

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But neither his sense of humor nor his hitting or fielding talents are what caught my imagination.

We-e-e-ell his hitting did have something to do with it.

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You see, on August 17, 1957, the Phillies were playing the New York Giants.

Taking up his bat, Ashburn hit a foul ball that went into the stands, striking a spectator named Alice Roth square in the face.

The game was suspended as medics check out the fan and found that she had suffered a broken nose from the hit.  The medics decided to transport her to the hospital to check for a possible concussion or other injuries, so she was placed on a stretcher as the game recommenced.

Ashburn was still at bat.  The first pitch was fouled off…and struck Alice Roth, who was being carried to the ambulance on the stretcher.

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That’s right, Richie Ashburn hit the same fan TWICE during the SAME AT-BAT!

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I don’t know if it was one of Ashburn’s “lucky bats” but I’m pretty sure Ms. Roth would argue that it wasn’t lucky for her.

 

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