Stensation received an email recently from a student at Carleton who introduced a name we were not familiar with: Dave Bresnahan. This Bresnahan character, in 1987, was involved in one of the wackiest baseball plays we can imagine; a year later, he had his number retired for it. So as not to spoil everything else, we will let Stensation take it away. Please take question 2 seriously and give the young man some feedback in the comments. Here we go:

I’ve been contacted by a Carleton College student enrolled in a baseball ethics course for an opinion on the following matter which occurred during a minor league baseball game in 1987 between Double A Williamsport and Reading:

With a runner on third the Reading catcher, Dave Bresnahan, went to the dugout to replace his glove, and then after the next pitch threw a potato over the third baseman’s head into left field. The runner ran from third to home and was tagged out. He was ruled safe once the umpires figured out what was going on. Bresnahan was ejected, fined $50, and released. His team then had a special promotion on the last day of the season, admitting any fan with a potato for $1. They even brought Bresnahan to the park to autograph the potatoes.

Let’s ask Randball Nation to respond.

1) We want to know where classes like this were during our college days. Baseball? For credit? The biggest scam we were able to pull was getting a math credit out of a 1xxx level map reading class. Oh — and getting credit for being a part of a research class on death and dying. We got to watch Six Feet Under all semester.

2) What do we think of the potato incident itself and the subsequent punishment and promotion? Do we think the level of play, in this case double A, matters at all? The minor leagues are known for some wacky promotions and entertainment, so is this different than if it were done at the major league level?

Help a Carleton kid out.

Let’s also note that Memorial Day will mark the approximate 20-year anniversary of Bresnahan’s No. 59 being retired. Somehow, we envision Carlos Gomez being involved in even more outrageous play at some point this season. Speaking of which, the podcast is up.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.