Strangest offseason occurance

[Ltlabner]

What is the strangest offseason occurance you have ever witnessed/heard about/been party too?

Maybe someone quit a FO that you didn't expect....
A weird trade that came out of nowhere...
A team folded up their tents and moved to another city...
A meeting with a player in a non-baseball weird situation...
A bizzare firing of a manager....
A player quitting baseball unexpectedly....

These are just some suggestions to get the memories jogged. I'm sure there are plenty of stories about weird stuff that happens in baseball offseasons.

[blumj]

What about Theo Epstein resigning on Halloween and sneaking out of Fenway Park in a Gorilla suit that was later auctioned off for charity, then somehow still secretly running the Red Sox FO for months while 2 other people were "named" co-GMs, only to return officially and demote and/or promote the 2 co-GMs who'd supposedly been running things while he'd been gone, who went back to working for him like nothing had ever happened, while Theo went back to working for his boss who he'd supposedly been in a power struggle with, like nothing had ever happened? Okay, someone top that one.

[SeeinRed]

How about this one? Snow shoveling accident (http://www.enquirer.com/midday/01/01292004_Sports_vanderwal128_Late.html).

[Ltlabner]

Was it Bo Diaz who fell off his roof trying to instal a satalite dish? If so, was that over the offseason?

blumj, that is one wacky story about Theo!

[oneupper]

Was it Bo Diaz who fell off his roof trying to instal a satalite dish? If so, was that over the offseason?

blumj, that is one wacky story about Theo!

The dish crushed Bo...he was killed instantly.

[Aceking]

I believe Bo had already retired when he passed away. He didn't fall, the sattelite fell and killed him.

As for strangest off season, I'll go with:

1. Jeff Kent breaks his arm "washing his truck" and
2. Wally Backman's 4 day tenure as Diamondbacks manager.

[MrCinatit]

Aaron Boone...hoops star (http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-48590.html)

[mth123]

Ron Oester/Bob Boone/Jim Bowden and the job that wasn't there. The only thing that keeps it from being a wild surprise was that it involved a broken promise and Bowden.

[RedFanAlways1966]

This was in-season, but very strange. The player was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945 (career BA = .346).

Baseball Player Swept over Niagara Falls

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y., July 9, 1903 - The body of Edward Delehanty, the right fielder of the Washington baseball team of the American League, who fell from the International Bridge last Thursday night, was taken from the river at the lower Niagara gorge to-day. Relatives of Delehanty arrived here this afternoon and positively identified the body as that of the missing baseball player.

Delehanty's body was mangled. One leg was torn off, presumably by the propeller of the Maid of the Mist, near whose landing the body was found. The body will be shipped to Washington to-night. Delehanty's effects have been sent to his wife by the Pullman people.

Frank Delehanty of the Syracuse team and E.J. McGuire, a brother-in-law, from Cleveland, are here investigating the death of the player. They do not believe that Delehanty committed suicide or that he had been on a spree in Detroit. In the sleeper on the Michigan Central train on the way down from Detroit, Delehanty had five drinks of whiskey says Conductor Cole, and became so obstreperous that he had to put him off the train at Bridgeburg at the Canadian end of the bridge. Cole says Delehanty had an open razor and was terrifying others in the sleeper.

When the train stopped at Bridgeburg Cole did not deliver Delehanty up to a constable, as the Canadian police say he should have done. He simply put him off the train.

After the train had disappeared across the bridge, Delehanty started to walk across, which is against the rules. The night watchman attempted to stop him, but Delehanty pushed the man to one side. The draw of the bridge had been opened for a boat, and the player plunged into the dark waters of the Niagara.

Delehanty's relatives hint at foul play, but there is nothing in the case, apparently, to bear out such a theory.

[shredda2000]

Dernell Stenson's untimely death:

http://www.allsports.com/cgi-bin/showstory.cgi?story_id=45643

[Col_ IN Reds fan]

Not sure of the year , but the Reds aquired Vida Blue. He was listed on the Reds roster in some preseason magazines. Bowie Kuhn nixed the deal , i believe, because the Reds were sending too much money to the A's.

[mth123]

Not sure of the year , but the Reds aquired Vida Blue. He was listed on the Reds roster in some preseason magazines. Bowie Kuhn nixed the deal , i believe, because the Reds were sending too much money to the A's.

I thought this happened during the season. 1977 IIRC.

[Col_ IN Reds fan]

I thought this happened during the season. 1977 IIRC.


No , because he was listed on the Reds roster in a preseason magazine.

[redsupport]

the reds trading for jim mCglothlin

[WVRedsFan]

The Reds signing Ken Griffey, Jr. The dream I had that I thought never would be fulfilled. And then it happened.

For Junior's sake, I wish he had stayed in Seattle or gone anywhere else. The battle among Reds fans since has been unbearable to me. The only HOF'er we've had here since the BRM and all we've done is flame him. Now it's Adam Dunn (not to even imagine he'd been in the HOF). Too much money really gripes Reds fans. Torii Hunter, beware. Your $10 million contract of this season is higher than Junior's. Danger...

[BCubb2003]

The Seattle Pilots break spring training in 1970; the truck drivers are told to haul the team's equipment to Las Vegas and wait for a phone call on whether to go to Seattle or Milwaukee.

[RedFanAlways1966]

Not sure of the year , but the Reds aquired Vida Blue. He was listed on the Reds roster in some preseason magazines. Bowie Kuhn nixed the deal , i believe, because the Reds were sending too much money to the A's.

From wikipedia (and ironic with today's salary imbalance!)...
A trade with the Oakland A's for starting ace Vida Blue was arranged during the '76 - '77 off-season. However, Bowie Kuhn, the Commissioner of Baseball at the time, vetoed this trade in an effort to maintain the competitive balance in baseball.

[redsupport]

the reds were forced to part with the great slugger dave revering

[westofyou]

The Seattle Pilots break spring training in 1970; the truck drivers are told to haul the team's equipment to Las Vegas and wait for a phone call on whether to go to Seattle or Milwaukee.

Beat me to it, the Brewers end up weraing the Pilots uniforms with an M instead of a S.

And the teams logo is still burned into my mind

http://www.sportslogos.net/images/Baseball/AL/MIL_6188.gif

[traderumor]

A "trade" prior to the 1973 season.

"We didn't swap wives — we swapped lives."
— Mike Kekich
"Don't make anything sordid out of this."
— Fritz Peterson

[goreds2]

Tom Hume and Bill Bonham families in a Vegas Hotel fire Friday morning, November 21, 1980

TOM HUME WASN'T WORRIED. HELL, PEOPLE PROBably scream in hotel hallways all the time in Vegas--it's Vegas. Particularly in one of the city's flagship hotels (today, it's Bally's). Those noisy bastards undoubtedly won a bunch or lost a lot or drank too much. "Don't pay attention to those people," the Cincinnati Reds pitcher told his wife as they drowsed in bed. "This is Las Vegas. There's nothing to be alarmed about." He and his teammate, Bill Bonham, and their wives had stopped in town on their way to Tucson to play in a March of Dimes celebrity golf tournament; they were on the 24th floor, two from the top.

Then I went over to the window and saw smoke coming up the side of the building," he says by phone from an Indiana fishing trip.

It had started downstairs, in an attic above a kitchen that served several restaurants. Faulty wiring. It smoldered for a few hours, unsuspected by employees or guests, flaring up just after 7 a.m., quickly bursting into violent life, unchecked by sprinklers (the casino had none), propelled by its own fury, racing into the casino, killing people, scorching slot machines, singeing lives.

It didn't seem that big when the firemen of Station 11, then located across Flamingo Road, arrived shortly after the 7:19 call. No smoke or signs of fire outside. Routine grease fire, probably.

Up on the 24th floor, Tom Hume pulled on his pants and stepped into the hallway. Smoke everywhere. He banged on Bonham's door, then pounded warnings on other doors before hurrying to his room to get dressed. He yanked on his boots--no socks, he remembers--while his wife got into her warmup suit and they headed down the stairwell. He remained calm, he says.

"Billy and his wife were in front of us, and Billy was helping these ladies carry their suitcases down the stairs, and I was like, 'Billy, let's go!'" About 10 floors down, the smoke got to be too much and they decided to head for the roof.

Safely on the roof, Tom Hume somehow managed to dump out a pocketful of change. With the eerie calm that sometimes descends on participants in a disaster, he bent down and carefully picked it all up. His wife was rattled, but he knew, he just knew, that they'd survive.

Hume and Bonham put their wives on the choppers, then waited their turn. Hume estimates that they were among the last men off the roof, but here his memory blanks: "I don't remember getting on the helicopter and flying to the ground," he says. "I know we landed in a parking lot."

Tom Hume, the ballplayer, doesn't dwell on the experience anymore. Maybe he flashes on it when someone mentions a fire, but he bounced back quickly--hell, the day after the blaze, he flew to Tucson and played his charity golf. His wife was leery for a while, though. Once, during a road game in 1981, he was on the phone with her when the hotel fire alarm rang, and "she just about went crazy" (it was a false alarm). The Humes have never returned to Las Vegas. "She just has no desire to go back," he says.

COMPLETE STORY:

http://www.iklimnet.com/hotelfires/caseMGMstory1.html