Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage, and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s okay, though, we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each morning, and find the things you need to see from within the SB Nation baseball network as well as from elsewhere. Please hold your applause until the end, or at least until after you subscribe to the newsletter.
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As you all are well aware of, Pat Venditte made his Major League debut this weekend and became the first regular switch-pitcher to appear in a game since the late 1800s. Just making it onto a Major League Baseball team is impressive enough, but doing it as an ambidextrous pitcher is absolutely astonishing. However, while he’s the first regular switch-pitcher to make an appearance in a game since the olden days, he’s actually the first pitcher to do it in a major league game in 20 years.
That’s where Greg Harris comes in. In 1995, the Montreal Expos reliever had been in the big leagues for 15 years and had thrown almost 1,500 innings. At that point in your career, you don’t normally have any more surprises left in your bag of tricks. As it turned out, Harris had a pretty big trick left in that bag: The normally right-handed pitcher could throw lefty as well.
On Sept. 28 of that year, Harris entered a game against the Reds in the ninth inning that Cincinnati had well in hand. He got the first batter out with his right hand, then switched to lefty and proceeded to walk the next batter in hilariously wild fashion. Amazingly, he managed to record an out by getting the next batter to ground out. He ended the inning with his right hand, but by then, history was made: He was the first switch-pitcher to appear in baseball’s modern era. Now, Pat Venditte looks like Pedro Martinez compared to Greg Harris, but at least Harris can lay claim to the fact that he was actually baseball’s first switch-pitcher in the modern era.
- We’ve got a baseball player getting hit in the beans, y’all! This time it happened during the Giants’ visit to the White House. Yes, the Giants were stealthily horsing around in the presence of the president.
- Atlanta’s Christian Bethancourt picked a pretty good time to hit his first career home run: It came in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Pirates, and it was of the walk-off variety.
- Speaking of the Braves, there was a bit of a chyron error during last night’s broadcast. Who knew that Cameron Maybin could pitch?
- Commissioner Rob Manfred is still in favor of seeing pitchers hit in the National League -- at least, he’s in favor of seeing Bartolo Colon hit.
- Tyson Ross’ brother, Joe, recently got called up to the bigs by the Washington Nationals. The Padres were cool enough to let Tyson fly to D.C. to watch his brother make his major league debut.
- Going into Saturday’s game, the Tigers had lost eight straight games. David Price decided that enough was enough and pitched a complete game for Detroit as they broke their skid.
- Speaking of the Tigers, they have something in common with horse racing: They both have recently had a Triple Crown winner. As a result, CBS Sports decided to put American Pharoah’s head on Miguel Cabrera’s body. The result is as grotesque as you can imagine.
- Also, apparently the Tigers are too cool to actually look at the ball when they catch it.
- The Mets have scrapped their six-man rotation experiment, and Dillon Gee’s been sent to the bullpen as a result. Let’s just say that Gee isn’t exactly down with the move.
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