August 25, 1936: Stalin's Show Trials

Lev Kamenev

August 25, 1936, 90 years ago: Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev are executed, ending the first of what became known as the Moscow Show Trials, designed to consolidate the power of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate in 1923, after Vladimir Lenin, founder and dictator of the Soviet Union, had become incapacitated from a stroke. He died in 1924, enabling the triumvirate to effect the marginalization of the People's Commissar, Leon Trotsky. But as Stalin took more and more power for himself, Zinoviev and Kamenev sided with Trotsky. Stalin expelled Trotsky from the country in 1929, and his allies, including Zinoviev and Kamenev, were marginalized.

In 1934, Stalin ally Sergei Kirov was assassinated. No one has ever proven who did it, or ordered it. Both Kamenev and Zinoviev had been secretly tried for it in 1935, but it appears that Stalin decided that, with suitable confessions, their fate could be used for propaganda purposes.

On August 19, 1936, the first of the Moscow Show Trials began, conducted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, and presided over by Vasiliy Ulrikh, who would preside over most of the trials to come. Russian historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko would eventually describe him as "a uniformed toad with watery eyes."

He looks like he would have fit in more

in Germany at the time.

And those trials, including those of Zinoviev and Kamenev, were pure bred sivoy kobyly. That's Russian for "bullshit." All the "evidence was lies." The verdict was preordained. Zinoviev and Kamenev were convicted on August 24. The next day, Kamenev was executed by firing squad. Zinoviev begged for his life, and resisted being taken to where he was to be shot, until the guards finally got tired of him, dumped him in an open cell, and shot him. Both men were 53 years old.

Grigori Zinoviev

More trials were to come in 1937 and 1938, all with the aim of making Stalin look good and making Trotsky look bad. In 1940, Stalin sent an agent to Mexico City, where Trotsky was living in exile, and had him assassinated. In 1941, Stalin's purges continued, trying and executing generals he thought were disloyal.

Then Adolf Hitler broke the Non-Aggression Pact their countries had signed 2 years earlier. Stalin could have used some of those generals in the Eastern European phase of World War II, known in Russia and the other former Soviet "republics" as "The Great Patriotic War." That war began because Stalin was a shortsighted paranoid egomaniac who thought he knew more than his generals did. It ended because all of those things were true of Hitler as well.

Vasiliy Ulrikh died in 1951, of natural causes, unlike most of those over whose trials he presided.

One final note: I'm not saying that all of the people Stalin had executed, including the 47 former Party officials convicted in the Show Trials of 1936, '37 and '38, were good people. As dedicated Communists, they probably led to the deaths of innocent people themselves. But they were almost certainly not guilty of the specific charges that Stalin saw to it were leveled against them. Even the guilty deserve a fair trial.

Yanks Take 2 of 3 From Jays, Injury Status Still Bad

Since their foundation in 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays have given the Yankees trouble. Regardless of how good each team is, the Jays always seem to get in the way. They ruined the 1st live major league sporting event I ever saw, a 1978 Memorial Day Weekend game, despite being a 2nd-year expansion team while the Yankees were the defending World Champions. They ruined the best Yankee season between 1981 and 1995 by winning just 1 game of a regular-season-ending weekend series in 1985. They surged past the Yankees to win the American League Eastern Division title in 1987, the Summer after my high school graduation. They beat the Yankees for the Division title again in 1993. And they beat the Yankees in last year's AL Division Series. For this reason, I call them "the pesky Blue Jays" -- sometimes "those pesky Blue Jays," or even just "the Peskies" for short.

The Yankees hosted the Jays this weekend, and, while the defending AL East Champions are not doing well this season, they still had to be taken seriously.

Cam Schlittler put on an acelike performance on Friday night, going 6 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4. Three relievers each allowed 1 hit, but nothing more. The Yankees got only 4 hits themselves, but 1 was a 2-run home run by Spencer Jones in the bottom of the 2nd inning, and the Yankees went on to win, 3-1.

But on Saturday afternoon, Ryan Weathers only lasted 3 1/3rd innings, allowing 2 runs on 8 hits, but no walks. He went on the Injured List after the game. The bullpen did fairly well. But it didn't matter: Again, the Yankees only got 4 hits, with Dylan Cease taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning. They almost came back, with Luis García Jr. hitting a home run in the 8th. Jazz Chisholm led off the bottom of the 9th with a double, but he was stranded. Blue Jays 4, Yankees 3.

Cody Bellinger was activated from the IL before yesterday afternoon's game. George Lombard Jr. led off the 2nd inning with a single, Jones doubled him home, and, after a Chisholm groundout, Austin Wells doubled Jones home.

Tied at 2-2, the Yankees began the 6th with 3 straight singles, by Lombard, Jones and Chisholm. Wells struck out, and José Caballero flew to center, and Lombard was unable to score on the fly. But Trent Grisham drew a walk to force Lombard in, and Ben Rice singled Jones and Chisholm home. Bellinger led off the 7th with a single, and scored on a Chisholm homer. Grisham added a homer in the 8th.

Carlos Rodón made his 2nd start since coming off the IL, and he only went 4 innings, 76 pitches. He allowed 2 runs, 1 of them earned, on 2 hits and 2 walks. Paul Blackburn pitched 2 perfect innings, with Ryan Yarbrough allowing a run in the 8th and Brent Headrick finishing the job. The Yankees won, 8-3.

*

With 32 games to, the Yankees trail the Tampa Bay Rays by 3 games in the AL East. They still hold the 4th spot in the AL Playoffs.

Bellinger and Rodón are off the Injured List. But the news on that front remains rough:

* Max Fried has a bone bruise on his left elbow. They're optimistic that he could return as soon as this coming weekend.

* Ryan McMahon has a sprained left thumb. He could be back at the start of September.

* Clarke Schmidt is in the latter stages of recovery from Tommy John surgery. Tomorrow, he will throw a live batting practice session at The Stadium. If it goes well, he'll go to minor-league rehab, with the aim of putting him in the bullpen in early September, where we still need help.

* Aaron Judge is still recovering from the stress fracture of a right-side rib. He started hitting off a tee last week. He could be back in September. His return in time to be back to full capacity before the postseason is vital.

* Ryan Weathers has a flexor strain in his left forearm. And he was already a hole-filler for the starting rotation. He is expected back in late September.

* Giancarlo Stanton was nearing recovery from a right calf strain, when he strained his left calf. Seriously. Aaron Boone says he doesn't expect him to return this season. We may have seen the last of Stanton as a Yankee -- maybe even the last of him as an active player. He has 456 career home runs. With his other career stats, he may have lost his chance at the Baseball Hall of Fame: He's the kind of player where, if he reaches 500 homers, he would get in; but if he only makes it to 499, he wouldn't.

* Angel Chivilli has a bone spur in his right elbow. There is no timetable for his recovery. I wouldn't expect him back this season, but he could be key to the bullpen next season.

The Yankees have tonight off, and then start a rough stretch. We have 3 at home to the Chicken Fried Cheats, the Houston Astros; then, without a day off, 4 in 3 days, forced by an earlier-in-the-season rainout, at home to the Chowder Cheats, the Boston Red Sox. Then, the next week, it's off to the Pacific Coast, for 3 against the Los Angeles Angels, then 3 Interleague games with the San Diego Padres.

The last month or so of the regular season will be dramatic, if nothing else.

August 23, 1926: Rudolph Valentino Dies

August 23, 1926, 100 years ago: Rudolph Valentino dies of peritonitis, the result of appendicitis. There were no antibiotics in those days, so the biggest movie star of the moment was dead at the age of 31.

He was born on May 6, 1895, 3 months after Babe Ruth, in Castellaneta, at the top of the "heel" in "the boot of Italy," with the name Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella. This would be slightly anglicized to "Rudolph Valentino" when he came to America in 1913.

He got a job as a dancer in New York, and this led to acting. In 1917, a show with which he was touring reached Los Angeles, and he got his break in the still-new, still-silent Hollywood. He made a living in "bit parts" until 1921, when he was cast in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which made him a star; and The Sheik, which made him the 1st actor to be known as a "Latin Lover." (In his case, original Latin: Italian, not Spanish or Hispanic.)

He was typecast as a dashing, handsome man of action and adventure, and he enjoyed it. In 1926, he starred in Son of the Sheik, playing both his character from the earlier film and his son. It made him bigger than ever. It was released on July 9. Just 45 days later, he was dead, the 1st big Hollywood actor to die in his prime -- although a few actresses already had.

His death sent women all over the world into a frenzy. To put it into a comparatively current perspective, imagine that Leonardo DiCaprio had died of an unsuspected illness right after the release of The Departed (he was 31, almost 32 at the time).

Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec, a.k.a. Pola Negri, the Polish actress who was then nearly as big a star as he was, due to her role as Hollywood's 1st "femme fatale," made a scene at his funeral, throwing herself on his coffin. She later claimed they were lovers, which has never been confirmed. (He was married and divorced twice, and is not known to have had any children.)

Pola Negri

He died over a year before the introduction of sound films. I've heard a recording of his voice, and while many silent film actors had an accent -- either foreign or New York -- that would have made their continuing to be taken seriously difficult, I don't think he would have had a problem.

Negri, who was 8 years older, lived until 1987. Had Valentino also lived that long, he would have been 82, which would hardly have been unreasonable. Had he just made it into the early 1930s, he could have played an Italian gangster battling James Cagney for turf. Had he made it into 1942, he could have played an exile in Casablanca. Had he made it into the mid-1950s, he could have been kissing Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren onscreen, battling Cary Grant or Frank Sinatra for their affections.

Had he lived into 1963, he could have played the father of the character that Federico Fellini based on himself, played by Marcello Mastroianni, in 8½. And had he lived into 1974, he could have appeared in either of the 1st 2 Godfather films.

But we'll never know. Valentino fit the profile, however unintentionally, of too many others: "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse." (The quote apparently goes back to the 1947 novel Knock On Any Door, by Willard Motley, popularized by John Derek in the 1949 film version.)

And as late as 1986, in "Manic Monday," a song that Prince wrote for The Bangles, the narrator sings, "Six o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream: I was kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream." Millions of people too young to have seen him as the Sheik will know his name because of that song.

Yanks Sweep the Birds In the Baltimore Bandbox

Certain people who hate the Yankees, especially Met fans, claim that Yankee Stadium II is "a little league park," where it's too easy to hit home runs. They forget that the short porch in right field gets canceled out by "Death Valley" in left and center.

If there's "a little league park" in the American League East, it's not The House That Steinbrenner Built. Nor is it Fenway Park, the little green pinball machine in Boston's Back Bay: Center and straightaway right field offset the Green Monster in left field and the right-field corner. It's Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the Baltimore bandbox.

Baseball giveth and baseball taketh away: Will the 2026 Yankees ever have their starting rotation fully healthy? Max Fried went on the Injured List on Tuesday, but Carlos Rodón came off it. He was only risked for 4 innings and 66 pitches, and he allowed 1 run.

But the bullpen was fantastic. Yerry de los Santos allowed just 1 hit in 2 innings, Brent Headrick got out outs and Fernando Cruz the 3rd in the 7th, Paul Blackburn pitched a hitless 8th, and David Bednar pitched a perfect 9th.

That performance deserved run support. Trent Grisham provided it, as he hit a home run in the 3rd, and singled 2 runs home in the 7th. Yankees 3, Orioles 1. de los Santos was credited with his 1st win as a Yankee, the 2nd win of his career.

Will Warren started on Wednesday night as if he was debuting off the IL, allowing 2 runs in 4 innings. But, again, the bullpen did the job, allowing just 1 run the rest of the way. The Yankees picked up 2 runs in the 2nd inning and got a homer from Ben Rice in the 3rd.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Pete Alonso homered for the Orioles. In the 7th, with the scored 3-3, the man the Mets let get away last off-season after becoming their all-time home run leader -- just barely surpassing the total Derek Jeter had for 10th place on the Yankees' list -- came up again, and hit a drive down the left-field line. Most observers, those in the ballpark and those watching on TV, thought it landed fair. To me, it looked like the ball scraped the foul pole, which would have made it a home run. But the umpires ruled it foul, and after a video review, they upheld the call.

Yankee-Haters online went ballistic. Met fans on Facebook were saying the umpires were fixing the game in favor of the Yankees. Which is ridiculous: Since when have the umpires favored the Yankees, rather than their opponents?

The Orioles melted down in the top of the 8th. With 1 out, Cam Sanders hit Heliot Ramos with a pitch, and walked Jazz Chisholm. Sanders struck Spencer Jones out, but then he hit José Caballero to load the bases. Oriole manager Craig Albernaz took him out, and brought in Yennier Cano (no relation to Robinson). George Lombard Jr. hit a grounder to 3rd, and Coby Mayo fielded it, but couldn't make a play at any base, and Ramos scored to make it 4-3. With Austin Wells up, Cano threw a wild pitch to score Chisholm.

That 5-3 margin made Alonso's would-be home run meaningless, and held up as the final score. Headrick, who pitched a perfect 7th, was the winning pitcher.

Gerrit Cole pitched like an ace last night: Limited by his injury rehab to 6 innings, he allowed 1 run on 4 hits and 1 walk, striking out 8. Ryan Yarbrough, not exactly having impressed me so far this season, pitched 3 perfect innings to finish the game off.

The Yankees picked up 3 runs in the 3rd, got home runs by Luis García Jr. and Jones in the 6th, and an RBI triple by Chisholm in the 8th. Yankees 6, Orioles 1.

The Yankees have 35 games left in the regular season. In the American League Eastern Division, they trail the Tampa Bay Rays by 4 games, both straight-up and in the loss column. The Boston Red Sox are 8 games behind, the Toronto Blue Jays 14, and the Orioles 15 1/2. The race is far from over.

The Yankees begin a 3-game home weekend series tonight, against those pesky Blue Jays. Come on you Pinstripes!

August 21, 1901: "What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City" Is Filmed

August 21, 1901, 125 years ago: What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City is filmed. Technically, it's a documentary, but nobody called it that at the time: Then, films using footage of ordinary scenes like this were called "actuality films." It lasts only 1 minute and 17 seconds. But it is one of the earliest truly memorable films.

The camera was operated, and thus the film was directed, by Edwin S. Porter, the main film man at the Edison Manufacturing Company, run by Thomas Edison. He would direct The Great Train Robbery in 1903, and lived until 1941.

It is the dawn of not only motion pictures, which are still black & white, and silent, but of the automobile. The film shows horse-drawn carriages and electric trolleys, and 2 cars.

From the start of the film, a boy stares at the camera, as if he was trying to figure out just what sort of contraption he was looking at.

As the one-minute mark approaches, a couple starts walking toward the camera, and passes over a grating. The air from the grating blows up into the woman's long skirt, billowing it, creating a scene which has been retroactively compared to Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch, filmed uptown, in sound and in color, 53 years later. In this case, the woman laughs, perhaps mildly embarrassed. Unlike Marilyn, she is fully dressed (by the standards of any time, certainly demanded by the standards of that time) under the skirt. The man she is with also laughs.

No harm, no foul.

It has been suggested that the scene was set up and scripted, or else why would she laugh like that, rather than be embarrassed into fainting, as women back then stereotypically did when embarrassed? It's also been suggested that, as in some other Edison pioneer films, the woman is actually a man in drag. The Internet Media Database (IMDb) lists her as Florence Georgie, but no information about such a person is available.

But her man has been definitively identified: Alfred C. Abadie (1878-1950), a camera assistant at the Edison studio, who had appeared in a few of these "actuality films," and would also act in The Great Train Robbery.

Just 16 days after this film was made on 23rd Street, President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo. Eight days after that, he died, and Theodore Roosevelt, born on 20th Street, became President.

August 19, 1976: Regrets at the Republican Convention

Ford welcomes Reagan to the rostrum,

as Nancy Reagan (left) and Nelson Rockefeller (right) look on

August 19, 1976, 50 years ago: The Republican National Convention wraps up, at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. Hearing the speakers talk of upcoming victory, in the Presidential election and in the Congressional elections, you'd never know they were 2 years out from a President of their Party having to resign in disgrace, a year and a half out from badly losing in the Congressional races, and looking at a country still in a recession. They were not only confident, they were arrogant.

The Kemper Arena, now the Hy-Vee Arena

Gerald Ford, who became President when Richard Nixon resigned, had been President for a shade over 2 years, with a hell of a mess dumped into his lap. The results had been mixed: Certainly, the country was better off than when he took office, but it was hardly in great shape. The month before, he had ridden the celebrations of the country's Bicentennial, which had helped him. But little else had gone his way.

His pardon of Nixon, just 1 month into his Presidency, had angered millions of Americans. His refusal to support a federal bailout of a bankrupt New York City had infuriated millions, and his reversal on that issue had angered millions of others, without winning many of the first group back.

Conservatives in the Republican Party hated that he had chosen former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York as his Vice President, and refused to support him for a term of his own if he ran with Rockefeller on the ticket. He could have reminded him that he was now the leader of the Party, and that he wouldn't be bullied. Instead, he was, telling Rockefeller that he would be dropped. He chose Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.

None of it was enough. Ronald Reagan, who had recently wrapped up 2 terms as Governor of California, was the darling of the conservative movement. He challenged Ford in the Primaries, and the final Delegate total was very close. This remains the last major-party convention at which the nominee was not absolutely certain. Ford got 1,187 Delegates, Reagan 1,070.

Ford's acceptance speech was too dull to quote here. And he kept making the mistake of pointing out the differences in the last 2 years, reminding everyone that he had succeeded Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican. He could have compared the current situation to 1968, the last full year under a Democratic Administration, with war abroad and riots at home, but he didn't.

And then, as the balloons were falling, and everybody was reacting with tepid applause, he made a gracious gesture. Reagan had not had the chance to make a speech on his own behalf. So Ford asked Reagan to come down and make a speech.

Standing behind the podium, with the Presidential seal still affixed, Reagan looked more like a President than Ford ever had. He sounded more like one, too: Whatever else could be said about either man, Reagan, who had been an actor, was a better public speaker than Ford, who had been a lawyer, but not a trial lawyer, used to addressing crowds. Ford had become a good politician, but until he actually got the office, he had never intended to run for President, and he was not made for moments like these.

Reagan was. He spoke of being asked to write a letter for a time capsule, to be opened in Los Angeles in 2076, America's Tricentennial. He spoke of the world in 1976 being a battle between freedom and tyranny, with nuclear missiles as the potential deciding factor:

Those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles were fired. They will know whether we met our challenge. Whether they will have the freedom that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here. Will they look back with appreciation and say, "Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom? Who kept us now a hundred years later free? Who kept our world from nuclear destruction?"

And if we fail, they probably wont get to read the letter at all, because it spoke of individual freedom, and they wont be allowed to talk of that or read of it.

This is our challenge, and this is why were here in this hall tonight. Better than we've ever done before, we've got to quit talking to each other and about each other, and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we've ever been, but we carry the message they're waiting for. We must go forth from here united, determined and what a great general said a few years ago is true: There is no substitute for victory. Mr. President.

Reagan's speech got a standing ovation. But a lot of people left the Arena thinking, "We've nominated the wrong guy."

Ford began the Convention far behind the Democratic nominee, former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia. The Convention helped. He eventually closed the gap to a virtual dead heat on Election Day. Carter won a very close race.

Would Reagan have won? This time, the Republicans were still tainted with scandal and recession. Reagan's message of tax cuts and Cold War aggressiveness would not have flown in 1976.

Four years later, it was a different world. And while Reagan looked finished after 1976, in 1980, America was ready for him. All 3 men had their moment where they were the man of the moment. For Ford, it was 1974, but not 1976. For Carter, it was 1976, but not 1980. For Reagan, it was 1980, but not 1976.

The Kemper Arena still stands, right on the State Line with Kansas City, Kansas. Originally named for local banker and philanthropist Rufus Kemper, it is now named the Hy-Vee Arena, after a supermarket chain. 

August 19, 1951: The Eddie Gaedel Game

August 19, 1951, 75 years ago: Eddie Gaedel makes his major league debut. He reaches base in his 1st plate appearance. He never makes a 2nd.

Born on February 9, 1914 in Chicago, William Louis Veeck Jr. was the son of a Chicago Cubs executive, and, in 1937, was responsible for putting the ivy on the brick outfield wall at Wrigley Field, and supervised the building of the hand-operated scoreboard atop the bleachers. He later bought the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers, who won 3 American Association Pennants. After serving in World War II, he bought the Cleveland Indians, and built the team that won the 1948 World Series.

He got divorced the next year, and, needing cash, he sold the Indians. In 1951, he bought the St. Louis Browns, the most embarrassing team in the American League. Although they owned Sportsman's Park, leasing it to the National League's St. Louis Cardinals, they were pathetic, and had hardly any attendance at all. Veeck thought he could save the Browns, and drive the Cardinals, despite their 4 Pennants and 2 other near-misses in the 1940s, out of town.

Veeck held all kinds of promotions, including races between players and track stars, cow-milking contests, things like that. He once said, "There is nothing in the world more beautiful than a baseball stadium full of people having fun." But, despite a seating capacity of just 30,804, Sportsman's Park wouldn't fill, even for these promotions, leading Veeck to say, "You can draw more people with a losing team plus bread and circuses than with a losing team and a long, still silence."

In 1951, the American League celebrated its 50th Anniversary. All 8 teams wore anniversary sleeve patches. Veeck decided to celebrate the anniversary on August 19, with a large cake, which had wheeled onto the field between games of a Sunday doubleheader, against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers won the 1st game, 5-2.

Out of the cake popped Eddie Gaedel, a 3-foot-7-inch, 65-pound dwarf. The term "dwarf" comes from German folklore, and referred to supernatural beings with a human appearance. Scientifically speaking, a "dwarf," or a "person with dwarfism," is defined as an adult with a height of less than 4 feet, 10 inches. The average adult height among people with dwarfism is about 4 feet even.

The term "midget" comes from "midge," a tiny biting insect, and has historically been used for any person considered short; but, unlike "dwarf," it does not have a scientific definition. Various other small things have had the tag applied: Small cars are used in "midget racing," a kids' hockey team is sometimes called "midget hockey," and so on." But people with dwarfism consider "midget" to be a slur, and it is not used as often anymore. On TV nostalgia networks' rebroadcasts of old shows, when the word "midget" was originally used, it is sometimes bleeped out.

While Eddie Gaedel was, medically speaking, a dwarf, he has gone down in history as "the midget who played baseball." Born on June 8, 1925, and also a Chicagoan, he had worked as a riveter during World War II, as he was small enough to climb into spaces fully-grown men couldn't. After the war, he became a professional entertainer, and was the model for the "Mercury Man" logo of Mercury Records.

Gaedel popped out of the cake wearing a Browns uniform with the Number 1/8 (one-eighth) on it. The uniform belonged to Bill DeWitt Jr., the Browns' batboy, and the son of Bill DeWitt Sr., the Browns' general manager. The fans got a kick out of it.

Bill DeWitt Jr. wearing the unusual number

But that wasn't the end of it. In the bottom of the 1st inning, Gaedel walked to the plate, to pinch-hit for the alleged leadoff hitter, right fielder Frank Saucier. He was announced by the public-address announcer. The fans went wild -- although there were just 18,369 of them, so the stunt didn't get a big crowd.

The home plate umpire, Ed Hurley, wasn't having it. He called time-out, and looked over to Browns manager Zack Taylor. But Taylor was ready: He walked out, and took a rolled-up piece of paper from his pocket. It was Gaedel's contract, signed not only by him and by Veeck, but by the President of the American League, Will Harridge. Clearly, Harridge signed it with no idea that the player involved was 3-foot-7. The subject of signing a midget to a contract had never come up before. So the contract was real and official. Hurley had no choice: He had to allow the at-bat.

Note the height of the ball in the mitt, compared to Gaedel's.

Note also Gaedel's crouching stance.

With his height, and a crouching batting stance, Gaedel had the smallest strike zone in baseball history, not much larger than the ball itself. The idea was that the pitcher, Bob Cain, wouldn't come close to a strike, and that Gaedel would walk on 4 straight pitches.

Veeck told Gaedel that there was a sniper on the roof of Sportsman's Park, ready to shoot him if he swung at any pitch. Veeck never said whether there actually was a sniper. If there really was one, he never came forward and admitted it. And whether Gaedel took this threat seriously, only he knew.

What everyone else knew is that catcher Bob Swift got onto his knees, and told Cain, "Keep it low." Cain threw 4 pitches. The 1st 2 were serious attempts at strikes, and did get over the plate, but were too high. Realizing it was hopeless, Cain threw the last 2 at half-speed, still getting them over the plate, but at about the level of Gaedel's head.

After ball 4, Hurley told Gaedel, "Take your base," and Gaedel trotted to 1st base. Jim Delsing then ran out to pinch-run for him. Like a real major-league ballplayer, which he now was, Gaedel slapped Delsing on the rear and, and trotted off the field -- to a standing ovation.

Delsing remained in the game, played center field as former Yankee Cliff Mapes moved from center to right, and went 1-for-3. It was no use: The Tigers got a fine pitching performance from Cain, a home run from Jerry Priddy, and 3 hits each from George Kell and Pat Mullin, and completed the sweep, 6-2.

The next day, AL President Harridge publicly said that Veeck was making a mockery of the game, and voided Gaedel's contract. In response, Veeck, who always hated the New York Yankees, told the Chicago press that he was going to request an official ruling on whether Phil Rizzuto, the Yankees' shortstop and the previous season's AL Most Valuable Player, was "a short ballplayer or a tall dwarf." 

Rizzuto was listed at 5-foot-6, and that may have been generous by an inch. Nevertheless, he was also the best shortstop in baseball at that point, and had batted .324 the season before, getting 200 hits. And, while his 92 walks that season were a career high, that was hardly an extraordinary total, probably was not much aided by his lack of height. Rizzuto's reaction to Veeck's request is unrecorded, but it would probably have been something like, "Veeck, you huckleberry. Holy cow."

Nevertheless, Gaedel got paid for his appearance: $100, his standard fee at the time. (In 2026 money, it works out to about $1,290.) Some time later, he was a guest on the radio show of Chicago-based talk show host Louis "Studs" Terkel. He complained that "Mr. Veeck" wouldn't let him swing the bat, and that he wanted to do that, just once. Terkel, then 39 years old and not looking much like a man who had ever been any kind of athlete, consoled him by saying, "You are exactly what I wish I was: An ex-big-league ballplayer!"

(Terkel would later play Chicago sportswriter Hugh Fullerton in Eight Men Out, the film about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, and be interviewed by Ken Burns, including on the subject of Gaedel, for his miniseries Baseball.)

Veeck had hoped to run the financially troubled Cardinals out of St. Louis. But, early in 1953, they were bought by Anheuser-Busch chairman Gussie Busch. With Busch's beer fortune behind them, Veeck knew the Browns could not afford to compete for St. Louis' baseball fans.

He didn't particularly care about St. Louis: He just wanted to eliminate the competition and be Number 1 in whatever city he was in, as he had been in Milwaukee and Cleveland. With that option no longer available in St. Louis, he tried to get the Browns moved to Baltimore. The other AL owners, seeing a chance to get rid of him, voted to approve the move, on the condition that Veeck sell the team. He did. But in 1959, he bought the Chicago White Sox.

On May 26, 1959, as Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates was pitching his perfect-but-then-not game, 90 miles to the north in Milwaukee, Eddie Gaedel worked for Bill Veeck again. A helicopter carrying Gaedel and 3 other dwarves dressed in spacesuits landed on the infield at Comiskey Park. They came bearing gifts: Ray guns. They gave these to White Sox stars Luis Aparicio (who was 5-foot-9) and Nellie Fox (5-foot-10). In a parody of the alien visitors' trope, "Take me to your leader," Gaedel told them, "I don't want to be taken to your leader. I've already met him." The White Sox won the Pennant that season.

On June 18, 1961, Gaedel was found dead in his bed by his mother, with bruises all over his body. He was just 36 years old. His killer has never been identified.

By this point, Veeck had sold the White Sox, to pay for his medical expenses, as he had been told he was dying. This turned out to be a misdiagnosis, as he recovered, and he later owned the White Sox again, from 1975 to 1980. He lived until 1986.

But as a result of his 1961 illness, he was unable to attend Eddie Gaedel's funeral. Indeed, only one person with any connection with baseball did: Bob Cain, the pitcher who faced him. They had never even formally met.

Catcher Bob Swift died in 1966. Umpire Ed Hurley lived until 1969. Will Harridge served as AL President from 1931 to 1959, and died in 1971. Browns manager Zack Taylor lived until 1974. Bob Cain lived until 1997. Pinch-runner Jim Delsing lived until 2006. Frank Saucier, for whom Gaedel pinch-hit, was 1 of the last 3 surviving former St. Louis Browns, along with Ed Mickelson and Billy Hunter. All 3 of those men died in 2025, Hunter turning out to be the last survivor of them.

Bill DeWitt Jr. donated his uniform, Gaedel's uniform, to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He later became the principal owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, and got the uniform back, where it is on display at the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum, across Clark Avenue from the current Busch Stadium, which also features artifacts from the Browns and St. Louis-area natives who played for other teams, such as Yogi Berra. 

Officially, the shortest players in MLB history have been Edmund "Stubby" Magner, who played 13 games for the New York Highlanders (forerunners of the Yankees) in 1911; and Pompeyo "Yo-Yo" Davalillo, who played 19 games for the Washington Senators in 1953. Both were listed at 5-foot-3.

In 1978, in his 2nd go-round as White Sox owner, Veeck promoted Harry Chappas to the majors, telling the media that he was, after Gaedel, the shortest player in MLB history, at 5-foot-3. This was a lie, but, fittingly, a small one: He was really 5-foot-5, the same height as the man then considered the shortest in the majors, Freddie Patek of the Kansas City Royals. Magner, Davalillo, Chappas and Patek were all, by a quirk of fate, shortstops.

Jon Rauch appeared in the major leagues from 2002 to 2013, including for the Montreal Expos when they moved to become the Washington Nationals in 2004-05, and for the Minnesota Twins in 2009 and 2010, enabling him to appear in postseason play. Sean Hjelle made his big-league debut with the San Francisco Giants in 2022. Both are 6-foot-11, and thus the tallest players in MLB history. Loek van Mil, a 7-foot-1 native of the Netherlands, appeared in professional baseball from 2006 to 2018, but only got as high, if you'll pardon the choice of words, as Class AAA. All 3 of these men are relief pitchers.