- Bob Cain
Robert Max Cain [Sugar] (
October 16 ,1924 -April 8 ,1997 ) was a left-handed pitcher inMajor League Baseball from 1949-1953. Cain was born inLongford, Kansas and raised inSalina, Kansas .Cain shut out the
New York Yankees in his first major league start, and in 1952 he matched one-hitters withBob Feller and won, 1–0. But he is most remembered as the pitcher who facedEddie Gaedel – the only midget to appear in a major league baseball game.On August 19, 1951, St. Louis Browns owner
Bill Veeck put the 3 foot, 7 inch Gaedel into the game with instructions to hold his bat on his shoulder and not swing. Cain later recalled: "I went out to the mound to start to pitch the bottom half of the first and as I was warming up, Eddie went over and got these liitle bats. We couldn't understand what was going on." (Richard Bak, "Cobb Would Have Caught It" (1991), p. 350) In his crouch, Gaedel reportedly had a strike zone of 1-1/2 inches. Detroit catcher,Bob Swift , advised Cain to "Keep it low." According to observers, Cain was laughing so hard at the prospect of pitching to Gaedel that "he's practically falling off the mound with each pitch." Cain proceeded to walk Gaedel on four straight pitches, all high.Cain pitched five seasons in the major leagues with the
Chicago White Sox (1949-1951),Detroit Tigers (1951), and St. Louis Browns (1952-1953). Cain played in 150 major league games, pitched 628 innings, and had a career record of 37-44 with anearned run average of 4.50.When
Eddie Gaedel died in 1961, Cain was the only person affiliated with major league baseball who attended his funeral. Cain said, "I never even met him, but I felt obligated to go."After leaving baseball, Cain was a salesman for
Kraft Foods . He lived inEuclid, Ohio for the last 40 years of his life, and died of cancer inCleveland, Ohio at age 72.ee also
*
Eddie Gaedel
*Chicago White Sox all-time roster Sources
* [http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/cainbo01.shtml Baseball-Reference.com]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EED7173CF93AA35757C0A961958260 New York Times Obituary of Bob Cain]
* [http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2001/0816/1240553.html ESPN - "Short on size, long on history"]
* Richard Bak, "Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit" (Wayne State Univ. 1991), Chapter 20 ("Bob Cain")
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