Moonlight Graham
Wednesday was the 100th Anniversary of Moonlight Graham playing in his only game. You should know who that is, but just in case you’ve forgotten, he was a character in Field of Dreams. He was a real player and in a game in 1905 he got to play 2 innings in the outfield and did not get to hit. He wound up becoming a doctor in Minnesota. Countdown on MSNBC did a story about him as their #1 story. ESPN managed a quick blurb and then did a feature of players who did something similar. Unfortunately they featured players who had one good performance during a career that was longer than two innings. They completely missed the point, but that’s not surprising.
Turns out the movie was pretty accurate, they even read his exact obituary in the movie. There is also a scholarship given out each year to graduates of the High School in the town where he was a doctor. Its funded by the sale of baseball cards based on characters from the movie. Actually pretty cool, check it out.
Here is a newspaper article from Wednesday.
Baseball Reference