{"id":77601,"date":"2026-08-19T04:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T09:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/19\/i-felt-like-babe-ruth-baseballs-3ft-7in-pinch-hitter-75-years-on\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T04:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T09:56:00","slug":"i-felt-like-babe-ruth-baseballs-3ft-7in-pinch-hitter-75-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/19\/i-felt-like-babe-ruth-baseballs-3ft-7in-pinch-hitter-75-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I felt like Babe Ruth\u2019: baseball\u2019s 3ft 7in pinch-hitter, 75 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baseball showman Bill Veeck\u2019s most audacious stunt sent Eddie Gaedel to bat for the lowly St Louis Browns in 1951 \u2013 and created an unforgettable diamond spectacle<\/p>\n

Bill Veeck had a track record for designing some of the most elaborate marketing promotions during his four stints as a Major League Baseball owner, including an exploding scoreboard<\/a> in 1960. But his most outlandish publicity stunt was sending 3ft 7in inch pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel to the plate at a game 75 years ago Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sporting uniform number 1\/8, Gaedel was greeted with a standing ovation at Sportsman\u2019s Park in St Louis as he came to bat in the second game of a doubleheader on 19 August 1951 for the St Louis Browns. A famous AP photo<\/a> shows Detroit Tigers catcher Bob Swift sitting on his knees with a ball in his glove, towering over Gaedel and his tiny strike zone. Not surprisingly, he walked on four pitches, and was immediately lifted for a pinch-runner.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baseball showman Bill Veeck\u2019s most audacious stunt sent Eddie Gaedel to bat for the lowly St Louis Browns in 1951 \u2013 and created an unforgettable diamond spectacle Bill Veeck had a track record for designing some of the most elaborate marketing promotions during his four stints as a Major League Baseball owner, including an exploding … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}