The on-field prank that got a catcher released

A model of this story was initially printed in April 2021.

Former Minor League catcher Dave Bresnahan did not discuss a lot about it on the cellphone, however the man referred to as the “Potato Caper” comes from baseball royalty.

His nice uncle, Roger, was the primary MLB catcher to put on shin guards. He additionally developed the primary batting helmet after getting hit within the head by a pitch. He’d later win a 1905 World Series with the Giants and be elected to the Hall of Fame following an extended enjoying and managerial profession.

So, again in 1987, when Dave needed to name his dad, nephew of Roger, and inform him he’d been kicked off Cleveland’s Double-A workforce for making an attempt to make use of a potato to choose off a baserunner, he was terrified.

“Great, awesome dad and very dialed in to my baseball career,” Bresnahan informed me. “And I was thinking, ‘Goddammit, now I don’t want him to hear that his son got released for throwing a potato.’ I had this fear and concern, and I always wanted to make him proud. I had to make the phone call, and that was a nerve-wracking call.”

Here’s the story he informed.

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It was late August of an extended, depressing Minor League season for the 1987 Williamsport Bills, and everybody, together with Bresnahan — a 25-year-old backup catcher — was simply making an attempt to push by the workforce’s previous few video games. They have been 28 video games out of first place. There have been lengthy bus rides after late-night losses and, particularly for Bresnahan, plenty of hours spent sitting within the bullpen joking round with teammates. And sooner or later, earlier than heading right into a sequence towards the Reading Phillies, the self-described “different, out-of-the-box” man had a really completely different, out-of-the-box thought.

“I thought, ‘What if we snuck maybe a rosin bag (or for some reason, maybe because I’m Irish) a potato into the game?'” Bresnahan recalled. “It was simply discuss, however then it bought picked up the subsequent day and my teammates thought it was humorous. They mentioned, ‘Well, why do not you do it?’ I am going, ‘What are you speaking about?'”

Bresnahan barely even performed, so for him to lastly get some motion after which begin throwing a potato across the area appeared like a dangerous transfer. One of his teammates reminded him there was a doubleheader the subsequent week towards the Phillies and he’d undoubtedly be behind the plate for one of many video games.

“I said, ‘Alright, I’ll do it,'” Bresnahan informed me, laughing.

So, the plan was set: when a runner reached third base through the recreation towards the Phillies, Bresnahan would seize the potato, throw wildly over the third baseman’s head in an tried pickoff after which tag the runner out with the precise ball as he got here strolling into residence plate. Most of the workforce can be in on the play — the pitching coach (whom he informed over a few beers a number of days earlier than and was ecstatic about it), the pitchers and many of the fielders.

“The day before, people were like, ‘Hey, tomorrow’s Potato Day,'” Bresnahan mentioned. “It just seemed to give people a little life, you know, something to talk about. That’s all it was.”

The one one that had no thought about Potato Day? Bresnahan’s supervisor, Orlando Gomez, who had been demoted from the Triple-A workforce to the Bills midseason. He was already sad about his relegation and would possible not take too kindly to the transfer.

“No, of course I couldn’t ask him for permission,” Bresnahan mentioned.

Bresnahan additionally checked with a good friend, Tim Tschida, who was a Major League umpire on the time (chances are you’ll keep in mind him because the crew chief for this ejection), to see what sort of blowback there is likely to be from introducing a potato into the sport. Tschida mentioned if he have been the crew chief, he would possible simply ship the runner again and have a do-over. He’d additionally presumably kick Bresnahan out of the sport. The catcher may stay with that. He simply did not need the runner to be allowed residence due to his prank.

“Not that I’m some crazy purist,” Bresnahan jogged my memory. “But I did respect the game.”

Potato Day arrived on Aug. 31. Bresnahan was, to his shock, put in to catch the primary recreation, moderately than the second. The Game 1 starter, Mike Poehl, was a way more critical pitcher, however mentioned he’d nonetheless associate with Bresnahan’s plan. It’d gotten too far, how may he again out now?

Bresnahan needed to place the potato play into movement when there was a runner on third and two outs, in order that when it occurred, his workforce may run off the sphere earlier than the umpires may reverse their resolution. The fifth inning proved to be that second. With one out, a runner on second and a lefty on the plate, Bresnahan started calling for inside, offspeed pitches within the hopes that the batter would roll a grounder over to the appropriate aspect and advance the runner to 3rd.

“And that’s exactly what happened: He hit a ground ball to second,” Bresnahan mentioned.

So far, so good. And now, although he was considerably regretting he had ever considered this insane thought, Bresnahan knew this was the purpose of no return. He needed to do it.

“There was this larger catcher’s glove that I kept in my bag in the dugout,” Bresnahan mentioned. “I told [the umpire] that my glove broke and I needed to get another glove. He said, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’ … I go to the dugout and, of course, all my teammates know what’s going on and they’ve got me almost bursting out laughing.”

Bresnahan had prepped the potatoes as a lot as doable. He peeled and carved them to look extra like baseballs, he introduced extras in case certainly one of his teammates tampered with them and he and his roommates truly practiced throwing them round within the entrance yard of their home earlier than the sport. After throwing the spud backwards and forwards a number of instances, they knew it might work.

Bresnahan swapped mitts and headed again out to his spot behind residence plate. All methods go.

“Now, I’ve got to give the signal to the pitcher,” Bresnahan informed me. “Of course, he knows that the play’s on. He’s got to make sure the hitter doesn’t hit it. I call for a pitch away. I had to give the signal with my bare hand, because I’ve got my glove hand with the potato in it, and then I have to transfer the potato to my bare hand. I had to do that so nobody could really see, and then I had it kind of hanging by my right ankle as he was throwing it.”

The pitcher threw it within the grime, one thing Bresnahan wasn’t anticipating. He was in a position to choose it, however all the time puzzled what would’ve occurred if it went to the backstop and a potato flew out of his glove as he was speeding again to get the ball. Fortunately, that is not how issues went down.

“So, my heart’s beating. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m committed,” Bresnahan mentioned. “I pick it and I’m supposed to make a bad throw to third, Rob [Swain’s] playing third, he knows what to do — but I make a good throw.”

The man who was operating was about 6-foot-5, Bresnahan informed me, so if he hadn’t dove again the potato would’ve exploded on his helmet or again. He did, although, and Swain made an alligator-arm try at catching the potato. It sailed into the outfield, splitting into items as soon as it hit the bottom. Left fielder Miguel Roman, who wasn’t completely in on the gag, seemed shocked at what he’d simply witnessed.

“The runner got up and the third-base coach was screaming, ‘Score!'” Bresnahan mentioned. “He was running home at about three-quarters effort because it was an easy home-plate run. Right before he touched home, the ball was in my glove and I tagged him out, showed it to the ump and rolled it to the mound.”

That’s, after all, when all of the confusion occurred.

“The third-base umpire was from New York and he had gone out to retrieve the biggest piece. He came back and he said, ‘It’s a … potato!'” Bresnahan laughed.

The home-plate umpire was not comfortable as a result of, on that day, there occurred to be an umpire supervisor in attendance. He had no thought what name to make. Bresnahan’s teammates stood there with their faces buried of their gloves laughing. In distinction to what Bresnahan’s umpire good friend mentioned, the umpires bought collectively and dominated that the run would rely and the inning would proceed. Bresnahan felt unhealthy that his sensible joke allowed a run to attain throughout Poehl’s outing. Gomez, the supervisor, got here out to argue the run scoring, however actually was simply baffled by what had occurred. He ultimately went again to the dugout shaking his head.

The Bills bought the subsequent batter out, Gomez pulled Bresnahan from the sport and, regardless of being down, 2-0, thanks, partly, to the potato incident, the Bills went on to win the sport.

After the doubleheader, and with the top of the season nearing, Bresnahan thought every little thing would simply blow over till the offseason. But Gomez was nonetheless steaming mad concerning the potato. He informed his catcher as a lot and fined him $50, pondering Bresnahan was making an attempt to point out him up for some purpose. And then Jeff Scott, Cleveland’s director of participant growth, determined to make an instance of Bresnahan and launched him. With simply two video games left within the season.

“I took the phone call from Scotty, and he was cool, I knew him from when I was with the Mariners,” Bresnahan mentioned. “He was going, ‘Orlando’s pissed, he thinks you did this to make him look bad. … Bres, I can’t have my players throwing potatoes.'”

Bresnahan understood, however he nonetheless had one ultimate joke to make. Instead of paying $50, he introduced two sacks of potatoes to the clubhouse and dumped them on his supervisor’s desk, with a word studying, “Of course you don’t expect me to pay the $50 fine, but here’s at least 50 potatoes. This spud’s for you.”

So, sure, that is the ridiculous, unbelievable, in all probability disappointing story that Dave Bresnahan needed to relay to his father — the nephew of a trailblazing, early-Twentieth century catcher nicknamed “The Duke of Tralee.” A baseball lifer who was inducted into the game’s most holy shrine.

How would somebody like that react?

“He gave out the biggest burst of laughter,” Bresnahan mentioned. “He thought it was funny as hell. And I thought, ‘Thank God.'”

Bresnahan did a bunch of TV and radio interviews after that — practically making it on David Letterman — after which went into the actual property business that subsequent yr. He bought presents to play professional baseball after ’87, however by no means took groups up on it — believing they have been largely gimmicks due to what occurred.

The potato play can be Bresnahan’s ultimate contribution to the sport of baseball. What a strategy to exit.