Baseball Quirks

wade boggs ate fried chicken religiously before every game.

nomar garciaparra has a bizarre routine of adjusting his batting gloves before each pitch.

back later with more...

I think Boggs ate chicken -- not necessarily fried -- before each game. He even wrote a book of chicken recipes, entitled "Fowl Tips" (groan).


Mike Hargrove used to do this as well. He took so much time between pitches, adjusting various articles of his uniform, that he became known as the "human rain delay." Carlton Fisk was another batter who was notorious for taking a great deal of time between pitches.

In general, left-handed pitchers (and, in particular, left-handed relievers) have a reputation for being quirky. Turk Wendell, who pitched for the Cubs, Mets, Phillies, and Rockies, was nothing but a catalog of quirks. He didn't wear socks. He wouldn't step on the foul lines. You get the picture.

Rube Waddell, another lefty, had a thing for chasing fire engines. He may have been eccentric, or, as one writer has opined, he might have been mildly retarded. I don't know. He was, however, a helluva pitcher and ended up in the Hall of Fame.

Outfielder Jimmy Piersall, who played with a variety of teams in the 1950s and '60s was another character. On the occasion of hitting his 100th career home run he ran backwards around the bases. He would later suffer a nervous breakdown and his life story was told in the movie "Fear Strikes Out" (featuring a very un-athletic Anthony Perkins).

More later....

I've always enjoyed the "Derek Lowe face" whenever he started getting lit up. Making a scowl, kicking the mound, sulking like a little kid.

Hideki Matsui looks back at his bat before every pitch while he's in the batter's box.

Moises Alous' batting stance. I can't figure out how he can stand like that much less hit a ball but he does.

(Hey Joe, what floor are you on?)

There have been a number of batters who have adopted unusual batting stances or routines. I'm not sure how "quirky" that is, but:

Al Simmons was known as "Bucketfoot Al" for his unusual stance, which had his front foot pointed down the third base line (or, in baseball parlance, with his "foot in the bucket"). A few other batters have since emulated his style, but none so successfully: Simmons is a Hall-of-Famer.

Willie Stargell swung his bat in a strange, windmill-like fashion two or three times before every pitch, and then jerked his left arm up and down a couple of times. He's in the Hall of Fame as well.

Perhaps the goofiest character ever to play the game was Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. He won 19 games in his rookie season with Detroit while engaging in much strange behavior, including talking to the ball before pitching to the batter. He developed arm problems after that season and his career fizzled out not long afterward.

Al Schacht, a mediocre pitcher for the Senators, later developed a comedy act that played in baseball parks for decades after his retirement from the game in 1921. In this he was much like Max Patkin, the "clown prince of baseball," except that Patkin never played in the major leagues.

Many of baseball's "characters" were best known for their antics off the field: Tug McGraw, brothers Dizzy and Daffy Dean, Charlie "Jolly Cholly" Grimm, Jose Cardenal, Bill "Spaceman" Lee. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many of the most colorful characters were, in truth, hopeless alcoholics: Michael "Turkey Mike" Donlin, Bugs Raymond, Rabbit Maranville, Rube Waddell, and even Babe Ruth. Nowadays folks don't think drunks are nearly as funny as they used to.

sublime 1: I'm in the left field bleachers. Can't you see me waving?

I almost didn't post this because it's kind of stupid ... but whatver.

I think the coolest thing about baseball is how different everyone's style's are, speaking of pitchers and hitters. Granted, we're all unique in some way, but it just seems like in baseball, a pitcher's delivery and a batter's stance in the box are always so different from one another.

Whereas in other sports there are legitimate "prototypes" - how to shoot a basketball, how to throw a football, etc - baseball doesn't have those: all the guys up in the majors got there by doing something just a little different from the next guy.

coaches
check out atlanta braves pitching coach leo mazzone.
he 'bops' (for lack of a better term) while seated on the bench -- all game long...

3rd base coach wendell kim would always sprint to and from the dugout...