Major League Baseball player Danny Jansen has become an instant baseball legend. He hasn’t broken any magnificent records. He didn’t bat in a monumental run. He didn’t make a spectacular catch. He’s a legend for doing something, or rather having something done to him, that no one else ever has. He played for both teams in a single game, thanks to a midseason trade and a weather delay.
The story really began back on June 26. Jansen, a catcher, was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Boston Red Sox. It started raining, so the game was suspended while Jansen was at bat. They couldn’t resume the game until August 26, but by that point, Jansen had been traded to the Red Sox. Jansen brought out his entire family to watch him make some very odd baseball history.
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Jansen started the rescheduled game, which was part of a doubleheader, as a Blue Jay and then later stepped in as catcher for the Red Sox. They split the doubleheader. He hit a single in the fifth inning, a flyout in the seventh, and struck out in the ninth. So maybe his performance was not quite up to the historical standards of the day, but who cares? The official scorebook of that game is going directly to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for preservation in Cooperstown.