The shortest player in the major leagues.
Eddie Gaedel (Edward Carl Gaedel) was an American with dwarfism that became famous in the 50´s for being the shortest person to participate in the major leagues, he was 3 feet and 7 inches tall (a bit more than a meter tall), and 65 pounds. He played ONE game with the St. Louis Browns the 19th of august of 1951 against the Detroit Tigers in the 50th aniversary of the American League. His jersey had the number “1/8” and is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
First Curiosity
Exactly one hundred years ago the first “latino” made his debut in the major leagues. His name was Luis Castro (Colombia) and he played for the Philadelphia Athletics. Luis opened the door to thousands of latin players that have taken part of the best baseball competition in the world, some of this latins are the best palyers right now, A-rod, Pujols, Posada, Gonzalez… and so on. Without latin players, the MLB wouldn´t be the same.
Luis castro actually wasn´t the first latin to play an organised baseball tournament, this was the cuban Esteban Bellán, in 1871 with the Troy Haymakers.
Curiosities
I am going to start posting curiosities that I find interesting about baseball, I´ll try to keep this posts coming up in a regular basis, starting daily and maybe moving into weekly afterwards. As always I hope you enjoy! comments are welcome!! Of course I will continue with my regular posts about various topics.
Baseball 4 All 