You could count on the knuckles of one thumb
the number of midgets who have appeared in major league ball games. His
surname was Gaedel, his given name Edward, he was 26 years old, and he was
born on June 25, 1925, in Chicago, Ill., of 2 midgets. All that, however,
is relatively unimportant. In short, the vital statistic is that Eddie
Gaedel was 43" small, though the tallest short story in baseball history.
When St. Louis Brown's owner Bill Veeck brought Edward Gaedel up to the
majors on August 19, 1951, there were those who thought he was just
another Veeck stunt. They were right. The baseball career of William L.
(for Lunacy as one writer put it) Veeck, Jr., was built on gimmicks that
increased attendance, and the midget, though he might have looked like an
hors d'oeuvre, was the main course of that kinky career.
It was beautiful. A midget. A brownie for the Browns. An anatomic bomb.
After locating Gaedel in Chicago, Veeck and his confederates trained the
midget, who knew nothing about baseball except that you bit the ball with
the bat and ran like you were escaping the Valley of the jolly Green
Giant. Young Gaedel had been a stunt man and vaudeville entertainer. His
past, however, wasn't important when one considered that it would be as
easy for a pitcher to throw through the eye of a needle as enter the
kingdom of his 11/2' strike zone.
All Veeck had to do, he thought, was teach his midget how to crouch and
point him in the direction of 1st base. The imp's imp was signed to a
standard contract making him one of baseball's better paid players at $100
a day although he was hired for only one day and waived the 30 day notice
clause. Veeck also took out a $1 million insurance policy protecting
himself against "sudden death or sudden growth," which when canceled
(short rate") would come to just $1.50 for one day. The insurance policy
may have indicated Veeck's apprehension at the prospect of his miniature
man driving for the fences, because Gaedel grew overconfident, swinging
from the heels as his practice sessions progressed,
On the day of the big game not even the scorecard reading "1/8 Gaedel,"
which has since become a collector's item, aroused the slightest
suspicion. Neither did the Browns arouse any suspicion, running true to
form and losing the 1st game of the doubleheader. There was much Veeckian
celebration between games, including a band featuring Satchel Paige on the
drums at home plate, but no one suspected anything, not even when a
nervous Eddie, ready to resign, was stuffed inside a 7' birthday cake and
rolled out onto the infield grass. "Ladies and gentlemen, as a special
birthday present to manager Zack Taylor," the PA announcer explained, "the
management is presenting him with a brand new Brownie!" Up popped Veeck's
midget, from a cake that cost more than he did, but still no one caught
on.
In the last half of the 1st inning, though, everyone understood. "For the
Browns," came the grating announcement over the loudspeaker, "number one
eighth, Eddie Gaedel, batting for Saucier." Instant happiness came to
everyone connected with the Browns except center fielder Frank Saucier,
the only man in baseball history ever taken out for a midget pinch hitter.
Gaedel, lustily waving 3 bats, approached the plate. "This can't be,"
umpire Ed Hurley said, pulling off his mask and getting down on his knees
to examine Gaedel closely. But it was. Zack Taylor came trotting out with
the midget's contract, a time stamped telegram to American League
headquarters, and a copy of the Browns active list proving that there was
room on the roster for the midget. Hurley bad to motion number 1/8 into
the batter's box.
The Tiger's Bobby Cain had thought Gaedel was just another Veeck gag. When
be realized he would have to pitch to the mini hitter his mouth opened
wide and he just gawked for a moment before walking halfway to the plate
to confer with Detroit catcher Bob Swift, who was laughing so hard he
nearly fell over. "Let's go," Gaedel squeaked. "Throw it in there, fat,
and I'll moider it." He was slightly more than twice as tall as his 17"
bat, but the right handed runt considered himself a threat. Veeck got a
little nervous. Would his midget swing for the fences" He remembered that
Gaedel had once asked him how tall Wee Willie Keeler was.
When Bob Swift regained his composure, and Cain accepted his fate, they
discussed bow they would pitch to the pixie. There was no precedent in
baseball history, but they had to decide to pitch him low. After a delay
of some 15 minutes in all, Gaedel inched up to the plate. Swift got down
on both knees behind the midget. Hurley rubbed his eyes. Cain was ready to
pitch to the shrunken strike zone.
But Gaedel didn't go into his crouch! The midget's sad eyes changed, and
supreme confidence usurped his being. Assuming a classic stance like a
dinghy of the Yankee Clipper, feet spread wide, bat high, he stared at the
confines of Sportsmen's Park. What fantasies he must have had. The
resounding crack of the
bat, a long, long drive, the concussive deafening roar of the crowd as the
ball soared over the center field roof and be himself was trotting around
the bases tipping his cap. . . '. And that would be only the beginning. .
. . What did Wee Willie Keeler, what did Rizzuto have that the human
proton, the protean pygmy didn't have. . . . As for Veeck, be was
thinking, "I should have brought a gun up here. I'll kill him, I'll kill
him if he doesn't get on base!'
Cain, however, ruined all Gaedel's grandiose plans and spared him possible
assassination. Cain simply had no control, none at all. He lobbed in 4
pitches, but the midget got nothing to swing at. The Ist 2 were about head
high, but Cain couldn't come down. The only man in the history of big
league baseball ever to walk a midget! Cain was so hysterical he could
just about reach his hysterical battery mate. Gaedel never got a chance to
gain immortality with a mighty Ruthian blast, for ball 3 and ball 4 were
so high they wouldn't have been strikes on Wilt Chamberlain.
With a barely perceptible look of scorn on his face, the midget took his
pass and trotted down to 1st base. There he held one foot on the bag while
waiting for pinch runner Jim Delsing, the only man ever to pinch run for a
midget. Then he slapped Delsing on the rump, shook hands with the 1st base
coach, bowed to the crowd, and cut across the infield to the Browns'
dugout behind 3rd. He took a long time to get there, waving and bowing,
thorougbly enjoying his moment upon the stage.
According to Veeck's plans, the Browns were to beat the Tigers 1 0 in the
2nd game of the doubleheader, his midget representing the winning run, but
the lowly Browns couldn't have won with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs;
despite the best laid plans of midgets and maestros, St. Louis was
shortchanged 6 2. The following day, in the words of one reporter, the
American League president Will Harridge "turned thumbs down on Tom Thumb."
Harridge had tried to outlaw the midget while plate umpire Hurley was
examining his papers, but Veeck had refused to answer the phone and bad
shut off the office teletype. Soon the league leader passed a new rule
requiring all player contracts to be approved by the president. Veeck, for
his part, termed this decision "unfair to the little man."
As for Eddie Gaedel, the midget never played in another ball game. After
his sententious farewell speech ("Now that someone has finally taken a
step to help us short guys, Harridge is ruining my baseball career."), he
hung up his spikes. Veeck got him many bookings on the basis of his sole
sterling performance, including one baseball date at Comisky Park, where
he landed at 2nd base with 3 other midgets disguised as Martians,
"captured" Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio, and informed the crowd over the
public address system that his little people were going to help Veeck's
White Sox. About a year after this, on June 18, 1961 Eddie Gaedel died, at
age 36, a month before another great competitor, Ty Cobb. Veeck writes in
his autobiography that The New York Times gave Eddie a front page
obituary, an honor usually reserved for statesmen and Nobel Prize winners,
but in reality it was just one of the 7,500 deaths the Times reported that
year, and was on page 12 It was unusual only in that Gaedel rated 3 stars
in the Times Index, indicating an unexplained violent death. His body had
been found in the bedroom of his apartment on Chicago's South Side, and an
inquest was ordered when police noted bruises on his face and body. The
Times did acknowledge, however, that Eddie Gaedel was the only midget ever
to play in the major leagues, and no midget, it is certain, will again
step up to bat in a big league baseball game. In fact, Eddie was probably
the 1st and last Lilliputian to reign in the entire Brobdingnagian world
of professional sports.